Fairmont Copley Plaza

The Fairmont Copley Plaza opened in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1912, designed by the architect Henry Janeway Hardenbergh, whose earlier work included New York's original Waldorf-Astoria and the Plaza Hotel, in a French Renaissance-influenced Beaux-Arts style typical of Hardenbergh's grand American hotel commissions. The hotel occupies the site of Boston's former Museum of Fine Arts on Copley Square, itself named for the eighteenth century Boston-born painter John Singleton Copley, placing the hotel at the center of one of the city's most architecturally significant public squares alongside Trinity Church and the Boston Public Library. Its ornate lobby and ballrooms feature gilded plaster ceilings, crystal chandeliers and marble detailing characteristic of the Gilded Age hotel interiors Hardenbergh designed throughout his career. The hotel has hosted numerous American presidents, European royalty and other dignitaries since its opening, and it has remained in continuous operation as one of Boston's principal historic hotels for more than a century. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in recognition of its architectural and historical significance to the city.