Mexico City’s Hotel Habita is the very face of urban boutique cool, wrapped in an outer layer of frosted glass, extending the old apartment block’s volume out into space, making corridors of the old balconies, keeping the cool air in and the street noise out. From outside, the silhouettes of the well-heeled hotel guests can be spied moving from room to room, inside what in daylight resembles a block of ice, and at night an outsize paper lantern. Archi-tourists will be charmed, while traditionalists may ask when the construction is scheduled to finish—in any case, it’s a radical departure from the stately residential buildings of the upscale Polanco neighborhood.

Anyone who still thinks of Mexico City as a polluted, congested urban dystopia hasn’t spent much time in La Condesa, the district that lends the Condesa DF its name. Here the wide avenues are lined with trees, which along with the Art Nouveau architecture resembles Paris more than it does the neighboring Centro Histórico.

This 19th-century water processing plant (hence the name) and bottling factory was redesigned by the famous Mexican modernist architect Ricardo Legorreta, the man behind Mexico City’s famous Camino Real hotel. It’s a departure from the style of his brightly colored mid-century masterpiece, but then again it’s not the middle of the century anymore — aside from some judiciously applied violets, La Purificadora is fairly austere, in blacks, whites, and natural wood and stone, with the exterior walls and some interior surfaces remaining untouched and unpainted.

Grupo Habita, already responsible for more than a few of Mexico’s most stylish boutique hotels, is at it again, this time in Monterrey. And while other hotels in town play to Monterrey’s colonial heritage, the Habita MTY, as they’re calling it, opts for contemporary lines and a striking and utterly modern black-and-white color scheme, courtesy of the Mexican architect Agustín Landa and the Parisian interior designer Joseph Dirand.

Architecturally it’s a bit of a departure, occupying a brick-fronted 17th-century palace a short walk from the Plaza de la Constitución, as central a location as a Mexico City hotel could ask for. Once inside, though, that signature Habita architectural flair returns with a vengeance: the original high ceilings remain intact, among other charmingly weathered period details, but the prevailing atmosphere is that of a very clean, very contemporary modern boutique style. Simple forms highlight rich textures, from the dark tiled floors to the raw wood furnishings to the screens, almost Moorish in style, that set the bathrooms apart from the bedrooms.

Recent years have seen a flexing of Habita’s outdoor muscles, to extremely satisfying ends. Escondido is no less visually appealing than any of its city siblings, in its own way, nor is it much less social — though of course the relative isolation breeds a certain intimacy of scale. And the surfing and kayaking, needless to say, are infinitely better than they would be in Mexico City — because of the fact they exist at all, for one, but also because this stretch of the coast is famously well suited to such pursuits.

When you think of a dream trip through Mexico, Guadalajara may not one of the first places that springs to mind. There is a sense of expectation, however, around a hotel like Casa Habita — it’s a member of Grupo Habita, the Mexican mini-chain responsible for some of the most stylish boutique hotels in D.F. and throughout the country.

The accommodations, on the second and third floors, are arranged around a central patio, and in the public spaces the contrast of weathered period materials and brand-new modern construction is at its strongest. The rooms themselves are designed in a Shaker-inspired minimalist style, in simple traditional materials and Oaxacan textiles, with clutter kept to a minumum and subtle luxuries where they count, including furniture by local design studio La Metropolitana.

When one of your favorite hotel brands moves into one of your favorite underutilized buildings, it’s a win-win. The Robey Chicago, Grupo Habita’s second hotel in the United States, is the new occupant of North Tower, a 1929 Art Deco skyscraper in Wicker Park. The Mexican mini-chain tapped a Belgian design team, Nicolas Schuybroek Architects and Marc Merckx Interiors, to overhaul the place, reshaping office space into 89 guest rooms and a handful of cafés and lounges, including a striking indoor-outdoor bar on the 13th floor.

Puerto Escondido, on Mexico’s Oaxacan coast, is a well-established destination — but it’s never seen anything like Hotel Terrestre. Then again, neither has anywhere else. Set between the mountains and the sea on the verdant coast just to the west of town, it’s a dramatic structure, a spaceship made of humble, locally sourced brick and concrete by architect Alberto Kalach. No surprise that it’s Grupo Habita that’s behind this hotel; the most innovative hoteliers in Mexico continue to push the boundaries.

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