Raffles Boston Back Bay Hotel & Residences

Raffles opened its first hotel and residences in North America on September 15, 2023, installing 147 rooms inside a purpose-built 35-story tower at 40 Trinity Place in Boston's Back Bay. The tower's cantilevered structure, engineered to rise above the adjoining University Club, gave the 136-year-old Accor brand its debut American address alongside 146 private residences sharing the same building.

The place

Raffles Boston occupies 40 Trinity Place in Back Bay, steps from Copley Square, Trinity Church and the Back Bay train station, in a neighborhood built on nineteenth-century brownstones and civic architecture rather than glass towers. The hotel's three-story Sky Lobby, suspended above the square, puts the property in direct visual dialogue with H. H. Richardson's Trinity Church and the Boston Public Library across the street. Back Bay's retail spine along Newbury and Boylston Streets runs a few blocks north, and the Charles River Esplanade is within walking distance. The tower itself, rising over the low-rise University Club next door, is a genuine architectural intervention in a historically height-restricted district.

The concept

Raffles Boston Back Bay Hotel & Residences is the Singapore-born brand's first mixed-use project in North America, developed by a partnership of Cain International, Noannet Group and Saunders Hotel Group, with Madison Realty Capital financing construction and Suffolk as general contractor. The Architectural Team designed the 35-story tower's exterior, using a cantilevered concrete superstructure and steel trusses anchored on 130-foot caissons to secure air rights over the adjacent University Club — an engineering solution that let a purpose-built high-rise land on a site otherwise boxed in by low-rise Back Bay context. Stonehill Taylor handled the 147 guestrooms and hotel amenity spaces, while Rockwell Group designed the fitness center, spa and the 146 residences that share the tower. The hotel positions itself as an urban debut for a brand historically associated with colonial-era resort properties in Singapore, Cambodia and Marrakech, translating that heritage through Raffles Butler service extended to every guest rather than only suite occupants. Rooms run large by Boston hotel standards, and the tower's massing gives most of them close views over Copley Square, Trinity Church or the Charles River — a deliberate trade of the brand's traditional garden seclusion for verticality and civic-square frontage in one of the city's most historic quarters.

Dining & wellness

Dining opened in 2023 around Amar, chef George Mendes' modern Portuguese restaurant on the seventeenth floor, though Raffles converted that space into a private event venue in 2026 as its role shifted from restaurant to celebrations. Current food and beverage centers on La Padrona, a Michelin-recommended Italian restaurant spanning the first and second floors, alongside Long Bar & Terrace for all-day dining and skyline cocktails, the Prohibition-styled speakeasy Blind Duck, and Café Pastel for coffee and pastries. The Guerlain Spa — the French house's Boston debut — includes a 20-meter indoor pool, hot tub, sauna, steam room and a couples treatment suite, paired with a 2,000-square-foot, 24-hour Technogym fitness center.