The interior design was certainly different but appreciations of 'art' vary...

Positives:
Good shower, pretty clean place.
Negatives:
The soulless reception/bar area was matched by the staff who were almost uniformly disinterested and unfriendly. The breakfast was distinctly average (they must have looked hard to find such bad coffee in a place like Italy) and lots of items 'out of stock' for later risers. The location is not where portrayed - it is some way from the main attractions by metro/cab and located on a busy road in a pretty seedy area. Rooms on the small side, overheated and not well sound-insulated from neighbouring rooms. Avoid rooms at the front - very noisy. 50 Euro deposit required to use the room safe.

All in all, I was just glad that my firm was paying not me. Pretty grim and I certainly wouldn't stay there at my own cost/for pleasure.

I'm giving this place a 2* based solely because they offered us a free dinner in recompense for not honouring our booking. If not, it would have got one only.

We booked some time ago via internet, got a confirmation and we also reconfirmed. When we arrived in Rome, our friends who had also booked a room told us that they had no rooms for us, and had also turned other people away. The alternative hotel they sent our friends to was dingy and horrible, so they returned and waited for us. My husband and the other guy then went to argue it out. Being Italian this was easier for them - other people just got turned away.

FINALLY, we were offered 2 rooms in a hotel in another part of Rome, and a dinner on the house (for 6 of us). The hotel we were sent to - River Chateau in Flaminio area - turned out to be very nice so in the end we got an OK deal. At the time it wasn't amusing and I'm sure we only got this because we mentioned the word 'avvocato'. Again, perhaps the fact the hotel knew that we were Italian meant that we could actually put our money where our mouths were.

It's a shame we didn't get to stay there. The lobby area was fantastic and very modern. The restaurant was excellent - food very good - and great loos. Made us wish we were staying there.

I don't know what happened at the Abitart to make all these rooms unavailable, but I do know that having to argue with hotel reception was very tiring. I wouldn't risk booking there again.

We stayed at the Hotel Abitart March 3-6, 2006.
Hotel - Nice rooms, but hot, very noisey area - if you're not on the back side of the hotel - you won't sleep. Good bathrooms, hard beds and pillows.
Breakfast was good.
Restaurant attached: expensive, need reservations, rude staff
Front desk: spoke English, not very friendly
Location: BAD....if you're in the city to as a tourist - very bad location. 20 euro taxi to the Vatican Musuem.

I cannot stress this enough about this so-called hotel - please do not waste your money. We stayed there stayed for 3 nights in May 2005. I had phoned ahead to reserve a specific suite in the hotel for our stay. When we got here around 6pm to check-in, they informed us the suite was not ready and asked if we would mind staying in another suite and our suite would be ready in the morning. We reluctantly agreed. The next morning, we went down to reception to swop keys back to our own suite but once again were informed that it was not ready. Obviously unhappy at this, they assured me it would ready within the hour. 20 mins later they claimed the suite was ready and we checked in. We had a great day in Rome and returned later around 11pm to go to bed. Upon getting into bed, we were horrified to discover the sheets had not been changed and there was actually blood stains on the sheet. After calming down a little, I immediately contacted the night porter who changed the sheet to the best of his ability. The next morning I charged down to reception to comfront the hotel manager. Not only was he dis-interested and pretty un-apologetic, he had the audacity to accuse us of putting the blood there ourselves because we were unhappy that our suite wasnt ready! Have you ever heard anything like that in your life? I am not a violent person but that just about tipped me over the edge.
Bottom line - do not give these people your well earned money.