Fairmont Copley Plaza

Boston in its evening clothes

★★★★★📍 Back Bay / Copley Square$$$$

The Fairmont Copley Plaza is Boston's great gilded hotel: the 1912 Beaux-Arts palace built on the original Museum of Fine Arts site, commanding Copley Square's astonishing architectural company — Trinity Church's Richardsonian masterpiece across the lawn, the Boston Public Library's Renaissance palazzo adjacent, the Hancock Tower's glass mirror above — with an interior that delivers the promise: the gold-coffered, crystal-hung lobby (the Peter Pan ceiling's gilded acreage is Boston's most photographed indoor view), the OAK Long Bar + Kitchen running the square's clubbiest cocktails under soaring windows, and a service culture whose most famous member is canine: Catie (the current in a line of Labrador ambassadors) holds court in the lobby on a schedule the front desk will happily share. Rooms balance the bones with modern Fairmont comfort (Fairmont Gold's club floor is the upgrade that makes sense here), the rooftop health club adds skyline treadmill views, and the square's position is Back Bay's best base: Newbury Street's shopping one block, the Library's courtyard (tour it — guests forget it is free) next door, the T's Copley stop at the corner, and the Esplanade and Public Garden both ten minutes' stroll. Fit: special-occasion stays and architecture-minded travelers first, weddings-and-galas glamour always — this is the hotel Boston dresses up for.