Best Boutique Hotels in Boston

Boston's compact geography works in its favour. The Back Bay brownstones, the South End's Victorian streetscapes, and the waterfront's converted warehouses have all produced excellent boutique hotels in the past decade — each with a different relationship to the city's layered character.

Back Bay

Newbury Boston is the neighbourhood made architectural — a converted Ritz-Carlton tower with modernised rooms and a terrace that looks over Commonwealth Avenue. The Eliot Hotel on the corner of Commonwealth and Mass Ave has been quietly excellent for decades: small, European in sensibility, not trying to be anything it's not.

South End

The Godfrey Hotel sits on Washington Street and has the best lobby bar in the South End. The Chandler Inn is small, well-priced, and perfectly located for the neighbourhood's restaurant scene — the kind of hotel that gets recommended by locals rather than travel guides.

Fenway & Seaport

The Verb Hotel in Fenway is a 1959 motor lodge converted into a rock'n'roll-themed boutique — walls covered in vinyl records, a pool that opened in 2015 and immediately became a summer institution. The Seaport, meanwhile, has a cluster of newer hotels above the waterfront; the best of them have harbour views that reframe the city.

Finding and booking direct in Boston

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