We were pleasantly surprised with this hotel. We were looking for a property in Cambridge for just a night’s stay and we did not really expect much from this hotel. However, the manner in which the property has updated the rooms, yet kept some of the classic older features is very impressive. When you pull up to the hotel, you feel like you are arriving at a fashionable, older Boston home- the brick facade, the way the hotel is set back off the street, with lots of greenery- it is lovely. The lobby is nicely sized and check in was quick. Then you get to the elevators and see where they really kept the older style of the building. I have never been in a smaller elevator and it became quite a joke with my family. We literally had to squish together to get the elevator door to close.
We had connecting rooms- one with a king bed and one with two doubles. The style of the rooms were elegant and very homey. The king room had an original bathroom. It was painfully small and reminiscent of the bathroom I had in my NYC apartment many years ago. The shower and tile work needed updating. However, our room with the two double beds had a completely updated, modern bathroom. Plus, the bathroom was probably 3x the size of the bathroom in the king room. Rooms were clean but I did not get the feeling anything special was being done to “sanitize” during Covid. I have to comment on the window treatments, which I know another reviewer previously did. They are beautiful. They look like something I would have in my home and not heavy, ornate or the alternative- drab and a bit dirty looking, like you often find in hotels. They were layered, roll down shades which complemented the style of the room and also filtered light perfectly.
Our one complaint was the breakfast. The only option was a buffet- which I was surprised was even allowed since there is still a pandemic going on. When we went to the breakfast, there were several empty tables, yet the hostess insisted we sit at a low coffee table with armchairs surrounding it. It was impossible to eat there, plus it was directly under an air vent and freezing. Eventually she agreed to give us one of the empty tables that she was saving for some unknown reason. The server was not wearing a mask and she came up incredibly close to my face and spoke to me. I was very taken aback. There was no one overseeing the buffet, I did not observe any handles on the buffet dishes, or service wear being sanitized or even switched out. It was kind of gross watching person after person touch the spoons and plop them back on the counters. Had there been a viable breakfast option close by, we would have left. That being said, we enjoyed our short time here and would come back to this hotel if we were in Cambridge again.