Architect Michail Prozorov designed this Neoclassical building in 1900 to house the Treasury of Vilnius province under the Russian Imperial government, a role that gave the structure its early significance in a city then under Czarist rule. It later operated for a period as the New York Hotel before Soviet authorities converted it in 1948 into the central telegraph office for Vilnius, a function it held through the decades of Soviet occupation that followed Lithuania’s annexation.
The building’s location places it directly along the path of the old Vilnius Defense Wall, a fortification Grand Duke Alexander ordered built in the early 16th century to protect the city from Tartar raids, and preserved fragments of that original stone-and-brick wall remain on display inside the hotel today. A careful restoration beginning in 2006 preserved the building’s Neoclassical facade and Baroque Revival roofline while converting the interior into a 93-room hotel, which opened within Vilnius Old Town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, reclaiming the building’s original purpose as a hotel after more than a century.