Is the just-opened $335m Capella Sydney’s most beautiful hotel?

It’s like a riddle from a training manual: how do you turn a 1912 sandstone office building constructed for bureaucrats into a luxury 192-room high-tech hotel for fussy guests, including a $12,900-a-night top suite?

Aside from spending more than $300 million creating four extra floors above the original building and reworking its heritage interiors – not to mention adding a 20-metre indoor swimming pool and day spa – you apparently dig deep into the city’s murky past.