Raffles Hotels & Resorts is a luxury Singaporean chain launched by the Persian-Armenian Sarkies brothers in 1887. Over the centuries, the portfolio has grown to more than 20 properties, a mix of secluded resorts and urban towers in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. One of the most recent openings—and the brand’s U.S. debut—is Raffles Boston, a 35-story new-build by The Architectural Team encompassing residences by Rockwell Group and a 147-key hotel by Stonehill Taylor.
Since the company was named after pioneering botanist Sir Stamford Raffles, it’s fitting that this hotel concept draws from the city’s Emerald Necklace, the 1,100-acre chain of parks, infusing flora and fauna in guest rooms and public spaces, which include two lobbies, conference areas, lounges, and four F&B outlets. “We brought biophilic designs to life throughout,” interiors design director Bethany Gale says. That’s first evident in the ground-floor lobby, where a custom blown-glass installation resembles leaves falling from trees. The sky lobby, on 17, boasts actual plant life cascading from a 30-foot-high shelving system clad in warm copper. The latter material, which reappears in an elevator lobby, is another part of Stonehill Taylor’s regional narrative: Its use was inspired by the Revere Copper Company, founded in 1801 in a Boston suburb by Paul Revere.
