My brother Gary and I literally grew up in the hotel business. Well before we were born, our grandfather Irving Saunders – an astute, affable guy with no hotel experience – became the owner of the Copley Square Hotel in the heart of the Back Bay. 

Fast forward to the ’60s and ’70s. Under the watchful and entrepreneurial hand of our father Roger, the Saunders family’s Back Bay stable of hotels had been enlarged by the purchases of the nearby Lenox Hotel and Boston’s largest hotel at the time, the Statler Hilton, which he renamed the Boston Park Plaza Hotel. Gary and I were graduating college around that time, having worked through high school in a variety of positions that eventually led to our becoming general managers. 

Owning and managing three of the neighborhood’s iconic hotels gave us a sense of “ownership” in the neighborhood – what was good for the Back Bay was good for Saunders Hotel Group. For three generations we’ve always taken pride in knowing that every decision we made not only took into account our guests and our team but also made sure that our neighbors and neighborhood would thrive right alongside us. 

Fast forward again, this time to 2011. A somewhat less-than-iconic small hotel in a spectacular location, smack between the Hancock Tower and Back Bay Station, had been placed on the market. It was during that time that Gary and I teamed up with Jordan Warshaw to try and find a project to work on together, utilizing our hotel expertise combined with Jordan’s development background in residential projects. 

From modest initial expectations, our plans ultimately coalesced over the following year into what we felt would be the culmination of over half a century of Saunders Hotel Group’s work in the Back Bay: a five-star independent hotel with spectacular residences above. This would be a building by Bostonians, for Bostonians.

Jeffrey Saunders

A Decision on Branding 

After nearly five years of design, permitting and zoning efforts, by mid-2016 we were ready to begin financing efforts. But we quickly began to hear the same refrain: “Great project, but we really think you should flag the hotel.” 

That was not an easy message to hear. Who could make this great hotel feel authentically Back Bay better than Saunders Hotel Group? Our hotels have all been independent. Would we be willing to change our model? We pondered that – and in mid-2017 we made the leap and started meeting with five-star hotel brands. 

We received interest from a wide variety of fantastic brands, which gave us the luxury of choosing one that would enable us to realize our initial vision as well as a being great fit for Back Bay. The group we selected was Raffles Hotels, most famous for their iconic (opened 1887) Singapore property, known the world over by discriminating travelers. 

In retrospect, partnering with Raffles made a lot of sense. Now owned by Paris-based AccorHotels (the third largest hotel company in the world), Raffles is a small (12 hotels around the world) but internationally renowned brand whose hallmark is creating hotels that eschew the formulas so common in the branded hotel world today. Raffles Hotels are distinctively “of” their specific locations. 

For Raffles, there is no such thing as a brand-standard-driven hotel that would feel equally at home in Boston, Los Angeles, Miami or Dubai. Each hotel lives and breathes its local community. As our and Raffles’ design teams have merged into a seamless unit, our original vision has fallen back into place: a building by Bostonians, for Bostonians – but with the added imprimatur of one of the world’s most iconic and beloved hotel names. 

Eighty years after Irving Saunders first introduced our family to the hotel business, we could not be prouder to be on the verge of groundbreaking for the next great truly Back Bay hotel and residences.

Jeffrey Saunders is CEO of Saunders Hotel Group.