Old City’s Newest Boutique Hotel Honors Philly’s Founding Father in Clever Ways

The Diplomat Hotel in Old City / Photography by Matthew Williams

Beneath the sidewalks of 2nd and Arch streets in Old City — a stone’s throw from the site of Benjamin Franklin’s former home — stretches a sprawling, subterranean five-bedroom suite. The space, crowned the Harmony Suite, is the showpiece of the Diplomat, a boutique hotel that opened in April: four group-stay apartments located in adjoining circa-1900 buildings, gut-renovated by Brooklyn-based Studio MaRō. (The firm’s co-founders, Nicky Kyrtsis and Carmen Cárdenas, also designed the Diplomat’s sister hotel, the Artisan, in NoLibs.)

“Guests can spend their days exploring together and their evenings reconnecting under one roof,” says Kevin Wilson, CEO of Philly-based HostAid, a short-term rental management company that oversees both hotels. The Harmony Suite can sleep 14 and has a private entrance on 2nd Street that leads to a first-floor sitting room; the suite’s other living spaces are in the basement. Before its renovation and debut, “it looked like a dungeon,” says Cárdenas. “Our most challenging part was making it feel welcoming.”

We saw Ben Franklin as the original American diplomat, and that framing opened up a wealth of material.” — Nicky Kyrtsis, co-founder of Studio MaRō

The easy part? Finding a muse. After choosing the hotel’s name, Kyrtsis says, Benjamin Franklin was a natural choice. His legacy looms large throughout the property, with a bibliophile aesthetic that embraces the spirit of Franklin’s intellectual Junto Club salons and nods to his (many) interests, from botany to travel. “And diplomacy is woven subtly into the artwork,” says Kyrtsis.

Franklin himself would surely appreciate this effort and the result, an homage reflective of his own words: “Wish not so much to live long as to live well.”

Bedroom

The bedrooms are tucked behind original brick arches, which Studio MaRō highlighted with custom inset glass and steel doors. The velvet bed is by Skyline Furniture, and the portraits are from art books. “The checkerboard patterns nod to Franklin’s essay ‘The Morals of Chess,’” says Cárdenas.

Sitting Room

Interior Define’s marigold velvet sofa anchors a collection of artwork centered on Franklin’s interests, historical moments, and period portraiture. The antique coffee table was a local Facebook Marketplace find.

Nook

A seagrass coffee table from TOV Furniture sits beneath a print of Belgian artist Alfred Stevens’s 1888 painting In the Studio, part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s permanent collection.

Dining Room

Downstairs, Sandberg’s pine wallpaper complements the rich green paint. A linear tube light hangs above a table lined with brass wishbone chairs.

Published as “Finding Franklin” in the September 2026 issue of Philadelphia magazine.