Luxury hotels often impress with sleek design and impeccable service. But the moment I walked into Hotel Emma, I realized this hotel at the north end of San Antonio’s River Walk offers something rarer: a sense of place embodied by an extraordinary library. The bones of the 19th-century Pearl Brewery still hum beneath the surface, giving San Antonio’s only Michelin Two-Key hotel a rustic texture and authenticity that new-build luxury hotels can’t replicate. A cathedral-like brick tower beckons visitors inside, where steel beams frame soaring ceilings....