Hotel Review: Boston’s Verb Hotel Gets 4.5 Fresh Towels
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Hotel reviews are based on a Fresh Towel rating. Five means a top destination, one means check in at your peril.
Welcome to the first hotel review. It’s being added to my restaurant reviews (1-5 Yums), and my general travel reviews and blog posts.
Like a lot of people, we’ve been traveling a lot since the removal of pandemic restrictions. We’ve been to Delaware, Atlantic City, and we’ll be heading to California and Las Vegas soon, as well as taking a cruise to Canada in October that arrives back in Bayonne, NJ, on my birthday!
I was especially prompted to kick these off because we’ve come to Boston to visit one of Frank’s oldest friends (who takes the ferry to Provincetown every year in August when we head their for our annual time share). Frank booked us into The Verb Hotel, and I was wowed!
My experience here began when we were unloading the car to check in and I heard Janis Joplin singing over a loudspeaker somewhere. I looked around and there was a marquee under the hotel sign saying they were celebrating women in music.
As soon as we walked into the hotel we were transported to another world—a world of rock n’ roll, legends, icons, and enough memorabilia to fill a museum. I loved it! I couldn’t get my phone out soon enough to start taking pictures.
Everything at the Verb feels reverential, historic, and yet very modern. There is nothing dusty about this hotel, nothing faded or ‘glory days-ish.’ You’ll see so many music posters and album covers and merchandise from decades long past, and all of it feels new!
There are turntables in every room with several albums to choose from. Ours had Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Rumours’ ready to play. The bathroom is fabulous, with bottles of soap and shampoo fastened in the showers. Two armchairs spaced well apart, so we can each relax and do our thing. A sweet counter area in front with a Keurig machine and K-cups. And dresser drawers! Why, you ask, does that surprise me? Because we’ve been to hotels the last few years where dressers are a thing of the past. You’re forced to live out of your suitcase because, other than a closet, there is nowhere to put anything. Also of note, housekeeping comes in every day. You don’t have to request it, which is a common practice now.
The breakfast service is terrific: waffles (made to order), boiled eggs, muffins, cereal, bagels, and coffee for the thirstiest caffeine addict. They also have coffee, hot and cold, literally on tap in the lobby 24/7.
There is one downside: they add an ‘all access fee’ to the bill that you only see when you read the fine print at the bottom of your confirmation. It added $32 plus tax for each night of our three-night stay. Frank was very unhappy about that and will speak to management. But had they simply been up-front and transparent about that, without burying it in the fine print, this would be a 5 Fresh Towel hotel. More, please!
Our Origin Story!
Few hotels in Boston have an origin story like The Verb. We were hip and cool before those words were used to describe hotels, and we’ve stayed faithful to those roots ever since. Why don’t you come along with us on a Magic Carpet Ride to see how we grew from a tiny little motor hotel to one of the most unique places to stay in Boston?
It Began in 1959
It’s appropriate that our story begins in 1959, on the cusp of the turbulent 1960’s, when the Fenway Motor Hotel first opened its doors at 1271 Boylston Street. Located at the very heart of the Fenway neighborhood, the two-story building was designed to modernist ideals by architects Irving Salsberg and Ralph Leblanc. It was a time of optimism, futurism, massive change, and incredible visual and musical styles!