If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.
Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (USD339.15), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.
There’s a gentility to the storied rowhouses, gas lamps and green spaces of Beacon Hill in Boston, among which you’ll find equally refined Beacon Hill Hotel. This overhauled townhouse turned boutique stay is an intimate clutch of mod-cosy rooms, each decorated differently, and enhanced by a roof terrace up top and a lively all-day bistro and patio at ground level. Staying here puts you in a prime spot for exploring the wider city, but also returning to a vibrant district (with the Cheers bar around the corner) of boutiques, indie cafés and bars – genteel and civilised…
11am; earliest check-in is at 4pm. Subject to availability, you can check in before noon or check out after 3pm for a flat fee of $100.
Prices
Double rooms from £312.18 ($390), including tax at 14.95 per cent.
More details
Rates are room-only, but you can buy breakfast, à la carte, at the hotel’s bistro, and – lucky you – your Smith Extra is a free breakfast for two.
Also
The hotel is ADA-compliant, fitted with an elevator across three floors, and has one adapted room available for wheelchair users.
Please note
On Mondays, the bistro is closed, so you’ll need to venture out for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
At the hotel
Roof terrace and free WiFi throughout. In rooms: TV, air-conditioning, steamer, plug adaptors, free bottled water, umbrella, Frette bathrobes, and Grown Alchemist bath products.
Our favourite rooms
Beacon Hill Hotel has just 14 rooms, each dressed differently, with unique artwork, accent upholstery and a bright, gloss-painted ceiling to complement their cosy, modern furnishings. Choice at this hotel is about size and the need for lounge space – opt for a King or Superior King if you plan to work or rest in your room; a Queen or European Queen is fine for weekending couples who plan on being out and about. The gold-and-blue Penthouse comes with vaulted ceilings, a window seat, lounge area, and of course the biggest bathroom.
Spa
There’s no spa at the hotel, but there’s a salon just opposite, for blow-drys, make-up or facials.
Packing tips
Take cobble-friendly footwear, and perhaps a film camera to capture your location’s old-fashioned good looks in a suitably nostalgic manner.
Also
If not letting your workout routine slide is a priority, Beacon Hill Hotel has partnered with Lynx Fitness, a private health club downtown; ask at the desk for details.
Children
Welcome, although better suited to families with one child; most rooms fit an airbed, pack ’n’ play or crib.
Sustainability efforts
The focus for now is on waste and power: the hotel disposes of food waste separately and has effective recycling policies in place, meaning less garbage for landfill. Lights at the hotel are on motion sensors and staff are proactive in reducing power usage where possible.
On the patio in summer; snuggled up in a banquette beside the window on colder days.
Dress Code
The bistro’s popularity with locals means you should dress to be seen, rather than in casual loungewear, but otherwise the brief is wide open.
Hotel restaurant
A wall of windows overlooking Charles Street floods the dining space at Beacon Hill Hotel Restaurant with light. This all-day dining spot has backed-leather stools at the bar, tables for two with zingy, striped upholstery, and cosy banquettes, plus patio tables for alfresco bites as the Boston weather allows. The cuisine is Mediterranean-influenced, but sourced closer to home wherever possible. Lunch plates may include bowls and salads or pasta entrées; for dinner, expect European-skewed starters (burrata or calamari), followed by a roasted half-chicken, a choice of steaks or fish. Breakfast choices run the gamut from health-oriented bowls (yogurt and granola, or oatmeal) via Italian pastries, pancakes and French toast, through to full-monty omelettes, avocado on toast and the Beacon Hill breakfast (a bonanza of bacon, eggs, avocado, potatoes and sourdough). At weekends, there’s a later start and longer service for the hotel’s signature brunch, when breakfast favourites are joined by a selection of pasta dishes, burgers and toasted baguettes.
Hotel bar
Day till night refreshments are doable at Beacon Hill, if not entirely realistic… We’re taking coffees and a borrowed magazine to the tartan sofa beside the lobby; we’re pairing lunch with a glass of something crisp, cold and white; then it’s onto cocktails at the counter to kick off dinner – after which, we’ll take our espresso martinis to the roof terrace for an alfresco nightcap.
Last orders
On Mondays, the restaurant is closed. For breakfast, it’s 8am–10.30am; lunch, 11am–2.30pm, and dinner, 5pm–9pm (weekend times vary). For brunch, it’s 8.30am–2.30pm. The bar opens all day until late, Tuesday to Sunday.
Room service
There’s no room service at the hotel, but with all-day food and drink downstairs, Tuesday to Sunday, that’s of little inconvenience.
Steep streets lined with Victorian brick rowhouses typify the historic neighborhood of Beacon Hill in Boston, where you’ll find Beacon Hill Hotel.
Planes
Boston Logan International is 15 minutes by road from the hotel, with direct international flights from Europe, as well as domestic connections.
Trains
The Charles/MGH stop on the MBTA subway is a seven-minute walk from the hotel. To reach Amtrak’s Back Bay Station, it’s a short cab ride or longish walk across the Common, south to Bay Village.
Automobiles
There’s no carpark at the hotel, but you can park at Boston Common Garage, which is a six-minute walk from the hotel.
Worth getting out of bed for
Beacon Hill is a bookish, storied district, where you could easily wander its steep narrow streets and soak up the history, or stroll around Boston Common, stopping off to explore the Public Garden (the country’s original botanical garden), find the skating pond (‘frog pond’) and admire the golden dome of Massachusetts State House (visits are available, too). Charles Street’s shops deserve your attention, too: handmade confections at Beacon Hill Chocolates; antique finds at Fables, Marika’s and Elegant Findings, and gifts and homewares at Linens on the Hill, and Flat of the Hill. The Charles River Esplanade is a scenic riverside boardwalk, which takes you to the Hatch Shell, a venue for concerts and movie screenings (check the calendar). Themed heritage trails (black history, true crime, female-focused) with or without a guide, can be booked in abundance, or you could take an Old Town Trolley Tour, which is hop-on/hop-off, for exploring at your own pace. And if you’re a fan of Norm, Sam and Diane, you need only wander around the corner from the hotel for a photo date with the Cheers bar (of sitcom fame).
Local restaurants
Carved wood panels, ornate lampshades and polished timber floors bring the theater to Italian dining at Toscano on Charles Street: go for the baked sea bass – stay for the blueberry and white-chocolate torta di mirtilli. Across the street from Beacon Hill Hotel, Bin 26 Enoteca pairs vintages from its international cellar with season-driven, Italian plates (such as pesto grilled shrimp, beef tagliata, cocoa pasta with porcini and garlic) served to tables alfresco on the sidewalk or in its contemporary shades-of-coffee dining room. Beacon Hill Bookshop may not sound full of culinary promise, but its café seeks to correct your assumptions with brunch, afternoon tea; a lunch of finessed soups, salads and sandwiches, or heartier plates for dinner, including pot pies, lobster mac ’n’ cheese, and fragrant curries, served in a light, elegant salon of chalk and pale blue hues.
Local bars
Dramatically dressed, all-American bistro 1928 could just as easily sit under our restaurant recommendations, but earns its stripes here for a finessed cocktail list, easily balanced by its menu of ‘bites’, which includes carpaccio, fried oysters, and baked brie. Draft beers, bottled brews and a classic pub atmosphere await at the Sevens Ale House – a dimly-lit, shop-fronted bar on Charles Street.
Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this neighborhood historic hotel in Beacon Hill and unpacked their cityscape artworks and bookshop totes, a full account of their made-in-Massachusetts break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Beacon Hill Hotel in Boston…
Beacon Hill Hotel may once have been a dormitory providing nurses with accommodation (in the early 20th century), but for its current hotel guise, interior designer Maribeth Brostowski was inspired to create a homey hideaway that would make you feel like you’re visiting a well-to-do aunt for the weekend. Thankfully there are no stuffy relatives involved, only thoughtfully curated rooms, dressed with individual color schemes, unique artworks, shelves of books to borrow, and custom furniture. The hotel’s elegance is understated, which feels in keeping with its leafy locale, amid the rowhouse-lined and gas-lamp-dotted streets of storied Beacon Hill – only a short walk from the river or the Common – where indie shops, cafés and bars bring contemporary charms to the mix. The highlight, however, is a sleek, buzzing bistro, open for breakfast, brunch, lunch, and supper, with a fine line in cocktails and tables out front on the patio (as a guest, you also have access to a hideaway roof terrace), elevating this boutique Beacon Hill stay from intimate bed and breakfast to a polished all-rounder.
