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Book way ahead for a stay at this fabulously intimate hotel, which has just fourteen rooms. It’s the personal project of investment banker Shauna Liu, who dreamed of turning a traditional courtyard home into a hotel, incorporating all the creature comforts she encountered when staying in international five-star properties. Liu’s place beats most of the luxury chains for location—a short distance from Tiananmen Square—and can match them for personalized service, character and ambience. Liu happened upon a run-down courtyard in a protected area of Beijing and used her savings to totally gut and renovate it. The result is Hotel Côté Cour SL, the French name reflecting the owner’s passion for all things Gallic. The rooms’ decor is a mixture of traditional and modern: fine linens and handmade silks for the beds, olive paint for the walls, dark wood for the chairs, plus flat-screen televisions and walk-in showers. The rooms are arranged around a courtyard and lily pond. Although it is just a short cab ride from busy Tiananmen Square, the overall feel is that of a tranquil suburban retreat with a personalized ambiance. Rooms from $168.

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Book early, as accommodations are limited at this extraordinary place, a shrine to Old China and Communist kitsch. The buildings are designed around several courtyards, in the traditional Chinese manner, the kind of place that usually exists only on movie sets. It is the brainchild of China scholar and entrepreneur Laurence Brahm, who realized that there was a dollar to be made from nostalgia, even though this theme harks back to the darker days of the recent past, when the nation was ruled by Mao Zedong. Some might find the commitment to verisimilitude a bit much—there are no televisions in the rooms and the dark wood everywhere can make the place seem dingy—but this is as close to the real old-days deal as it gets. The hotel also offers a tour of the city by Red Flag limousine, the model used by Mao and his cronies. Rooms from $150.