Sorkheyi Boutique Hotel

Marrying into royalty has its perks, but when your father-in-law grants his country a constitution and dies days later, the family mansion becomes a time capsule of upheaval. Mirza Mahdi Farashbashi’s Qajar-era residence in Tabriz sat for over a century before reopening in 2023 as a boutique hotel. Guests now sleep in rooms where a son-in-law to Shah Mozaffar ad-Din once walked, the same shah who reluctantly signed away absolute power in 1906, then promptly expired, leaving Iran forever changed.

The mansion earned its national heritage listing in 2000, then waited over a decade for anyone to act on it. Renovation began in 2013 and ran a full ten years, restoring the original 1,400-square-meter layout down to its indoor bathhouse and central courtyard pool, before the doors reopened as a six-room hotel, restaurant, and cafe-gallery. Guests can now book the same rooms a Qajar official once occupied, minus the looming succession crisis.