Notes on sources
This page sets down how the entries were made, what kind of material stands behind them, and what has been left out on purpose. It is short because the method is simple: read what is published, keep what holds, and write nothing that cannot be traced back.
How the buildings were chosen
Each address had to be a working hotel, open to ordinary guests, with enough published material behind it to write from. Beyond that the choice favoured buildings with something to describe: a structure that survived a change of use, a floor plan shaped by its trade, or a fabric that lasts a single season.
What counts as a source
Three kinds of material are used. The hotel’s own pages, which are treated as reliable about hours, layout and season, and as promotional about everything else. Published mapping and street imagery, used to confirm the address and the look of the block. Reporting and local history, used for what a building was before.
No external addresses appear on this site. Sources are named in words rather than linked, so that a page removed elsewhere does not leave a dead trail here.
What is not written here
There are no stars, no reviews, no room counts and no charges. Hotels are not compared with one another and none is recommended over another. Nothing is promised about weather, availability or the experience of a stay. Where a claim could not be confirmed, the sentence was rewritten until it was true or dropped.
Reading the winter section
The snow and ice buildings are temporary. They are packed and carved at the start of the cold months, stand through one winter, and are lost to the thaw; a new one follows on the same ground the next year. Season dates change annually, so none are given here. Where an operator keeps heated buildings alongside, the entry says so.
What the Type line means
Type names the kind of structure, in the terms the source uses. It often names the work the building was first put up for, because that is what explains the spans, the windows and the stair. A former bathhouse is still described as a former bathhouse even when nobody has bathed there for a century.
Corrections
Errors are worth reporting and are fixed without argument. Write to the address on the contact page, name the entry, and say what the source shows. Corrections are made as soon as the material has been checked.