W Boston ★★★★

A purpose built tower on Stuart Street

Boston keeps most of its luxury hotels inside old buildings. This one was drawn from scratch: twenty six storeys on Stuart Street, completed in 2009, by William Rawn Associates with TRO Jung Brannen, and interiors by Bentel and Bentel. The hotel holds floors three to thirteen and private residences occupy the levels above, with their own entrance and lifts. The consequence for a guest is a building with modern floor to ceiling heights, straight walls and full height glazing, none of which a converted townhouse can offer.

Rooms with a wall of glass, and three suites above them

The two hundred and thirty five rooms are laid out so that the outer wall is almost entirely window, which turns the Theater District and the downtown skyline into the decoration. Colour is used deliberately against Boston’s grey stone and brick. At the top of the range sit two WOW suites and a single Extreme WOW suite, the largest of them arranged for entertaining rather than simply sleeping.

An evening that begins in the lobby

The ground floor is designed to change character through the day: a breakfast lounge in the morning, and after dark the lobby itself becomes the bar, with a cocktail list and a crowd that includes the city as well as the guests. Dining beyond that is deliberately left to the neighbourhood, which in this part of Boston means Chinatown two blocks east and the restaurants around Tremont Street.

FIT, the spa and a vocabulary of its own

The gym, called FIT, runs around the clock with cardio equipment, weights and space for yoga, and the spa handles treatments on the same floor. The house language is part of the experience: staff are talent, the doormen are door ambassadors in pinstripes and grey knitwear rather than braided uniforms. It is a service style that suits guests who find a traditional grand hotel too formal.

Theatres, Chinatown and the Common on foot

The Wilbur and the Shubert are on Tremont Street a couple of minutes away, and the Boch Center is in the same block, so a theatre evening needs no transport at all. Boston Common is about ten minutes north, the Public Garden just beyond it, and Newbury Street and Back Bay a few blocks west. Chinatown begins two blocks east, which is where late arrivals eat. Boylston and Tufts Medical Center stations put two subway lines within a short walk.

Why this address is in our Boston selection

Every other house in this selection sells provenance. This one sells the opposite: a contemporary tower, glazed and coloured, with the theatres at the door and a lobby that works as a bar. It suits a couple or a solo traveller planning evenings out in the city centre, and travellers who want a wood panelled lounge and a doorman in braid will be happier in Back Bay or on the waterfront.