Four Seasons Hotel Boston

The swan boats have been pedalled around the lagoon of the Boston Public Garden since 1877, and from the garden-side rooms of Four Seasons Hotel Boston they look like toys. The hotel opened in 1985 at 200 Boylston Street, on the southern edge of the garden, with the Common and the gold dome of the State House beyond, and for a generation it has been the city's reference for formal service.

History

When the hotel opened, Boston's grandest address was the Ritz-Carlton across the garden on Arlington Street, which had opened in 1927 and kept the manners of another age. The Four Seasons brought a different style, larger rooms, a more relaxed formality and a dining room that set the pace for the city's restaurants in the late 1980s and 1990s. For many years Aujourd'hui, its formal restaurant, was one of the most celebrated in Boston. It closed in 2012, and the Bristol Lounge became the hotel's main restaurant. In 2019 the company opened a second Boston hotel, Four Seasons Hotel One Dalton Street, in a new tower in the Back Bay, and the Boylston Street house has continued alongside it.

Architecture and design

The building is a brick block of the early 1980s, designed to sit quietly among the older buildings around the garden rather than compete with them. Its height is modest by modern standards, which keeps the garden in view from the upper floors without overshadowing it. The interiors have been renovated several times and are traditional in style, with the lounge and lobby looking across Boylston Street into the trees.

Rooms and suites

Rooms face either the Public Garden or the city. Ask for the garden: the view takes in the lagoon, the footbridge and, in spring, the tulip beds and the magnolias that line Commonwealth Avenue. The suites on the upper floors are large by Boston standards and suit families and guests on longer stays.

Dining

The Bristol Lounge, on the ground floor overlooking Boylston Street and the garden, serves American food through the day. It is busy at lunchtime and again in the evening, with a bar that has long been a meeting place for the Back Bay and Beacon Hill. Afternoon tea is served in the lounge, and room service runs around the clock.

Wellness

On the eighth floor an indoor pool and whirlpool look out over the Public Garden, an unusual view from any hotel gym. The fitness centre and spa treatment rooms share the floor.

Weddings and events

The hotel has a ballroom and several function rooms used for weddings, galas and meetings, and it has been one of the city's established wedding addresses since it opened. The Public Garden across the street provides the setting for photographs.

Location

The Public Garden, laid out from 1837 as the first public botanical garden in the United States, lies directly opposite, and Boston Common stretches beyond it to the east. The bronze ducklings that commemorate Robert McCloskey's book Make Way for Ducklings stand inside the garden. Beacon Hill rises behind the Common, the Back Bay and Newbury Street lie to the west, and the Theatre District begins a block or two to the south. For a luxury hotel in Boston, few addresses put so much of the old city within reach on foot. Arlington and Boylston stations on the Green Line are both close by, and Logan Airport is a short drive through the harbour tunnels.