$10M Renovation Completed on Historic Hotel

BOSTON-In the midst of a hotel market that has been brought to its knees by the double-pronged attack of the economic recession and the events of Sept. 11, the Saunders Hotel Group announced that it has completed its $10-million renovation on The Lenox Hotel, a 214-room facility located in the Back Bay.

The work on the historic hotel began over six years ago and includes upgraded rooms, renovated meeting space, a high-tech business center and three new restaurants: Azure, Solsa and City Bar.

But most significant was the exterior renovation, which involved replacing 225,000 bricks, 612 windows and 17 tons of terra cotta. Todd Saunders, of the Saunders Hotel Group, calls it “a puzzle akin to putting Humpty Dumpty back together again.” He notes that the solution required “a team effort of creative engineering and constant problem solving to restore this historic building to its original grandeur while including modernizing features.”

According to Michael Teller, the lead consultant to the project from CBI architects, a firm that specializes in masonry restoration, the restoration was unique in scope and impact. He says that in all his years in the business, “I have never been involved with a hotel preservation project in which so much care was taken to preserve the historical feel of a building while also guaranteeing maximum flexibility for the future.” Saunders emphasizes that they wanted to replicate the original structure in the renovation as well as update many of the 102-year old hotel’s features.

Saunders has owned the Lenox for 35 years and it remained open throughout the project. Originally designed by architect Arthur H. Bowditch, who also designed the city’s Hotel Somerset in 1897 and The Paramount Theatre in 1930, the hotel was built in 1900 in eight months at a cost of $1.1 million.