Boston, United States

The Whitney Hotel

Price per night from$311.20

Price information

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 (USD311.20), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Style

Red-brick revival

Setting

Beaming Beacon

The Whitney Hotel Boston might be a youngling by Beacon Hill’s standards, but it captures the city’s spirit with its red-brick top coat and townhouse-esque interiors. A stone's throw from the river on historic Charles Street, the hotel is in the part of the city that calls to mind the Founding Fathers: iron gas lamps and Federal-style homes line the cobbled streets, and the words ‘oldest’ and ‘first’ crop up a lot. In the lounge, the high ceilings, open fire and French-oak floors mimic the neighbouring townhouses – but in the rooms, the design has a more modern lean. Restaurant Peregrine evokes the city’s Italian connections with a menu that tours Sicily and Sardinia, pandering to the Bostonian appetite for pesce e pasta.

Smith Extra

Get this when you book through us:

$20 daily credit per person towards breakfast at Peregrine; GoldSmiths also get a bottle of wine

Facilities

Photos The Whitney Hotel facilities

Need to know

Rooms

65, including four suites.

Check–Out

Noon, but flexible, subject to availability. Earliest check-in, 3pm.

Prices

Double rooms from £287.03 ($362), including tax at 16.45 per cent.

More details

Rates don’t include the à la carte breakfast. Dishes start at US$9 and include Sicilian-style eggs, Spanish tortillas and all-American staples like buckwheat pancakes slathered in maple syrup.

Also

Every floor has a pantry with ice and mixers, saving you from making late-night trips to the bar.

At the hotel

Free bicycles, gym, free WiFi throughout. In rooms: flatscreen TV, tea and coffee kit, free bottled water and organic Grown Alchemist bath products.

Our favourite rooms

The rooms are largely the same in style, so choosing one comes down to how much legroom you think you’ll need and what sort of vantage point you’re hoping for. Some have better views of Beacon Hill, others look across the Charles River.

Packing tips

Bring a book on New England history, which will make your strolls around Beacon Hall all the more enlightening.

Also

All of the public areas are accessible for wheelchair users, and the hotel has three types of specially adapted rooms.

Pet‐friendly

Pets under 23kg can stay for a fee of US$125. While in residence, they’ll have use of a Lion + Wolf bed, Drip Module bowls and a monogrammed Whitney jacket. They’ll also get free treats from Boston’s Polkadog Bakery. See more pet-friendly hotels in Boston.

Children

All ages are welcome, but the hotel isn’t particularly geared towards children. There are three Premium King Suites that can connect to a Classic King room.

Food and Drink

Photos The Whitney Hotel food and drink

Top Table

Request a seat next to the windows that look into the garden.

Dress Code

Informal elegance.

Hotel restaurant

Peregrine whisks diners to sun-bleached Sicily and Sardinia, both favourite hunting grounds of the namesake falcons. The influence of Corsica and Catalonia is also apparent, with breakfast having a particularly Spanish lean. Of course, the ocean-crossing menu also tells a story about Boston, which has more than its fair share of delis, trattorias and brasseries, many of them family-owned and in business for several generations. Start with a spread of antipasti – try the pickled Gulf shrimp, serrano ham and herb and garlic baked oysters. For main, go for the hake or the wild mussels and local clams, served with tomato, olive oil and mint.

Hotel bar

The bar is part of Peregrine. Ask for something from the owner’s personal wine selection, chosen to complement the food. In summer, take your drinks onto the terrace, where you’ll be able to bask in the evening sun.

Last orders

Breakfast is available from 6.30am to 10am; lunch from 11am to 2pm; and dinner from 5.30pm to 9.30pm.

Room service

The full menu is available to order up while the restaurant is open.

Location

Photos The Whitney Hotel location
Address
The Whitney Hotel
170 Charles Street
Boston
02114
United States

The Whitney is in Boston’s most famous neighbourhood, Beacon Hill, known for its narrow, lamp-lit streets and red-brick townhouses.

Planes

The best place to touch down is Boston Logan International Airport, which can be reached directly from London Heathrow and most large US airports. The airport is just three miles away, so the drive should only take around 20 minutes, depending on traffic. The hotel can arrange private transfers.

Trains

Technically, Boston’s subway system is called the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority subway, but you’re much more likely to hear locals referring to the ‘T’. The closest station to the hotel is Charles/MGH (on the Red Line), which is a minute’s walk from the hotel. Amtrak trains from New York City, Washington DC and Philadelphia pull in at Boston’s South Station, which is also on the Red Line.

Automobiles

You won’t need your own car in the city, which has a solid public-transport network and plentiful taxis. If you do want to hire a car, the hotel has valet parking for US$56 a day.

Worth getting out of bed for

With Beacon Hill’s leafy, lamp-lined streets on the doorstep, you’ll likely be using the hotel as a base for forays into Boston’s cultural heart. That said, the Whitney has a garden to rival the finest Federal-style townhouses – a hedge-ringed hideaway with a sun-trapping terrace, manicured trees and borders overflowing with leafy greens and colourful blooms. In summer, there’s nowhere better to settle with a book or your sundowner (the red-brick walls take on a fiery glow at last light). If the mercury has slid to prohibitive levels, sink into one of the armchairs by the fireplace instead, nursing an Italian red or rye whiskey.

When you do head out, your first port of call should be the front desk, where you can get a full list of local boutiques and restaurants that offer discounts for for Whitney guests. As you roam Beacon Hill, keep an eye out for ‘lavenders’ – old windowpanes that have turned violet in the sun. The flaw was caused by an excess of manganese in batches of glass sent from Europe, but some of the royal-purple panes remain in place as a sign of age and authenticity. If the hotel’s fragrant garden has put you in the mood for more green, make your way down Charles Street to the Public Garden, the first public botanic garden in the US. When it was planted in the 1800s, some of the city’s more strait-laced ramblers found the mixture of plants a little avant-garde for their tastes, but today’s Bostonians embrace the colour with open arms. As you pass the pond, keep an eye out for Romeo and Juliet, the park’s resident swans. Next, glide through the doors of Brattle, one of the oldest bookshops in the country. Founded in 1835 and in the same family since 1949, this old-Boston institution stocks more than a quarter of a million books, maps, prints and postcards. The most valuable treasures – including first editions and ancient leather-bound tomes – are kept in a dedicated rare-book room. If you have time, you can follow the flow of knowledge across the Charles River and into the well-heeled town of Cambridge, home to Harvard University.

Spread between four historic buildings, Faneuil Hall is a mall with a story to tell. Opened in 1743, the hall originally had a large marketplace on the ground floor and an assembly room above, where Samuel Adams once made a speech in support of American independence.

Local restaurants

Tatte is the brainchild of Tzurit Or, a former film producer who rekindled her love of baking when she moved to the US, spending up to 20 hours a day in her kitchen to satisfy demand at Boston’s markets. Today, she owns a string of bakeries across the city, where Boston’s best pastries, cakes and bread are sold against charmingly old-world interiors. The closest branch is 70 Charles Street. TipTap Room is the place for meat and beer, serving thick-cut steaks and burgers of every description, including antelope and Italian sausage. Pair with one of the many craft beers – hailing from across the US and Europe – on draft. For a truly local meal, try to squeeze into the Daily Catch, a Sicilian seafood spot with just 20 seats. The pint-sized eatery has been in business since 1973, run by Paul and Maria Freddura with the help of their seven sons. It’s little more than a kitchen, counter and blackboard chalked with specials, but locals are more than happy to queue all the same – particularly when they’re set on a bowl of calamari and squid-ink linguine. The ritzier North Square Oyster Bar is even more intimate, with just 10 leather-clad stools arranged along a counter of milky marble. Dine on scallops, lobster rolls and Boston mackerel, pairing with wines from organic and biodynamic makers.

Reviews

Photos The Whitney Hotel reviews

Anonymous review

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 hotel in Boston and unpacked their tomes from legendary bookstore Brattle, a full account of their Beacon Hill break will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside the Whitney Hotel Boston…

Travel back in time to the America of the Founding Fathers with a trip to Beacon Hill, the Boston neighbourhood where the Whitney hangs its hat. Here, you don’t have to walk very far before you pass buildings, shops and public parks attached to adjectives like ‘first’, ‘oldest’ and ‘original’. The streets themselves look like relics from another time, lit with gas lamps and lined with boxy townhouses in fiery red brick. At nearby Faneuil Hall, none other than Samuel Adams once took the stage to make an independence-urging speech. There’s no doubt about it: this is the old soul of New England, and the Whitney is right at the heart of it. 

Unlike many of its neighbours, however, the hotel is no museum piece. The influence of the Federal townhouse can be seen in the boxy, red-brick exterior, but open-plan layouts and vast windows ensure the common areas feel fit for 21st-century travellers. Velvet armchairs, leather banquettes and French-oak floors introduce the trappings of fine living to the restaurant and lounge, but there’s no danger of stuffiness or over-formality. In the rooms, chintzy curtains and floral patterns have been eschewed in favour of a restrained palette of dark blue, white and black, allowing the modern artwork to provide the finishing splash of colour. Even the most contemporary pieces riff on Bostonian themes, however, proving the Whitney always has one eye on Beacon Hill’s history, and the other on its bright present.

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Price per night from $311.20