MS02113

Following the recent departure of Hilton Boston Downtown/Faneuil Hall, the brand is preparing to assume management of the Boston Park Plaza.

With over 1,000 rooms, the hotel is one of the largest in the city. First opened as the Statler Hotel Boston in 1927, the property is well located and its lobby grand, though guestrooms appear somewhat bland, with the tight bathrooms typical of older hotels. Base category rooms are quite small. Interestingly, the property had previously been a Hilton from 1954 through 1976 following the company's acquisition of Statler Hotels.

The deal is expected to close in October, with the hotel eventually rebranding as Hilton Boston Park Plaza. The property was last renovated in 2016, so curious to see if Hilton dictates any further updates.

ralphs

Oh wow. I have a block of 5 rooms for a week next month during a conference. The run of house small rooms are really quite small, and the prices fairly high. I wonder if I can get some kind of Diamond treatment out of them in October.

arlflyer

I have a very soft spot in my heart for old properties with tiny rooms and a ton of character...in this case a former Statler, no less! I'll gladly trade the Financial District property for this one!

ralphs

Hotel is now showing Hilton branding at check in and at restaurant POS.

MS02113

The Hilton Web site and press release are available.

James Luckard

I'd love it if Hilton dictated that they un-ruin the lobby, restoring the original chandeliers (I hope they didn't sell them), removing that hideous white wallboard cladding over the stunning original marble columns and taking down those ludicrous curtains and fluorescent lights that make it look like a circa-1999 W Hotel. The lobby is gloriously historic, and the last owners did all they could to hide that fact, but I don't think they actually removed anything, they just covered it all up.

This is how the lobby looked before the dreadful 2016 renovation:

James Luckard

Here's a photo I found on Google that was taken during the 2016 renovations. You can clearly see how they covered the marble columns with that cheap, ugly white wallboard.


They did remove the capitals at the top of the columns to install those stupid curtains, you can see where they were yanked free from the ceiling/wall, but hopefully they saved the removed capitals. If not, they can easily re-create them.

I can't fathom why they took one of the most historic hotels in Boston and made it look like a Radisson in Cedar Rapids.

ralphs

The lobby restaurant was actually the best part of my one-week stay at the Boston Park Plaza during the changeover. The food was all decent to good, and it was top notch for networking during a busy conference that sold out the entire hotel.

My room was poor, in need of serious renovation in the bathroom and just in general. I appreciate that the staff was working hard during a difficult transition time and hope that they have more resources in the future to improve the property overall.

The circa-2009 W hotel or the circa-1983 Westin Copley Place have much nicer rooms and were close enough that we went to random off-site conference receptions at those Marriott properties. I briefly entertained the idea of decamping to the new Raffles hotel but couldn't stomach the idea of an almost $1,000/night base room with taxes/fees.

dw

What’s interesting is that for years this property was managed by Starwood (and perhaps owned as well, back in the day when they still owned properties), but was apparently deemed unfit to slot into any of their brands, so like a few other misfits (I remember there being one in Chicago as well) was branded as an independent hotel and never participated in the loyalty program.

ChinaShrek

Because many people want to stay in a modern hotel even if the shell is an old building. I am not going to book this hotel because of its historical value. I am booking it because of price and location. I actually eschew old grand dame hotels because I am worried the WiFi and plumbing may not be up to snuff.

arlflyer

Yeah dude, I love the old grand dame hotels, like I'll stay in a closet at the Palmer House when I'm in Chicago just because I've got a sentimentality for those sorts of places...so with that as context, the pre-reno photo ripped from Oyster looks absolutely garish and of no significant historical value. Makes me think of the kind of place where bad 80's junk bond deals would get done or where my grandma would go to gawk at the potted tropical plants before Easter brunch. Just because something is old doesn't mean it is architecturally significant. The new look is great in my book.

James Luckard

They've literally just covered century-old marble with cheap drywall though... sigh.

The lobby has changed to fit current tastes before.

It was originally filled with Spanish Renaissance furniture and the ceiling beams were painted:


By the 60s, Hilton had made it more spare and added flags, but kept the columns and the basic form of the room:


The wallboard covering the columns and the curtains dividing up the space and the fluorescent lights stolen from the set of TRON will age badly and will all be ripped out in about ten years, and the marble will still be there.