Irene Forte Spa at Hotel de Rome

From an 1889 bank building to a hotel on Bebelplatz

The Hotel de Rome sits at Behrenstrasse 37 on Bebelplatz, opposite the Staatsoper Unter den Linden and a few minutes from Museum Island. Unter den Linden station joins the U5 and U6 here, Hausvogteiplatz on the U2 is also within walking distance, and Humboldt University and Gendarmenmarkt lie close by. The building went up in 1889 as the headquarters of the Dresdner Bank; after 1945 the state bank of the GDR moved in, and it was wound up after 1989. Conversion began in 2003 and the hotel opened in the autumn of 2006 with 108 rooms and 37 suites. The banking past is still legible: the former counter hall serves as a ballroom and the historic suites were once directors’ offices. Above it all lies a roof terrace with a view across Mitte. The Irene Forte Spa, by contrast, sits at the other end of the building, right at the bottom, using a room no other hotel in the city can offer.

The spa in the former jewellery vault

The Irene Forte Spa occupies the former gemstone and jewellery vault of the bank and therefore sits deep inside the building, which gives it a stillness that would be hard to achieve above ground. It has worked under this brand since the end of 2024, as the first location in Germany after four houses in Italy. Across eight hundred square metres lie five treatment rooms, one of them for two people. The centrepiece is a pool of twenty metres, framed by original marble columns and among the longest hotel pools in the city. Alongside it are a Finnish sauna, a steam bath, a stalagmite ice fountain, a Kneipp foot basin and a relax zone with lounge furniture, plus a fitness area with current machines. The products are a skincare line whose plant extracts come from an organic garden in Sicily. Two treatments stand out: a facial using hot and cold volcanic stones from Mount Etna, and a full body ritual with a scrub of apricot and sea salt. Facials start at 140 euros for sixty minutes.