The newly-restored building on the corner of Marlborough and Arlington streets, known as Zero Marlborough, has only four of its 12 units left to be sold, and the first residents are moving in this week. Developers said they may have squeaked under the economic wire, timing-wise.
All seems happy now, but it was a little tense early on, with a battle over parking marring an otherwise welcome transformation that saw an historic Art Deco jewel sparkle once again along the Public Garden.
The building was constructed on the remains of an old 1929 townhouse, a 12-story, 40,000-square-foot art deco building with floor-through apartments. It was a dormitory for the Katharine Gibbs School from 1953 to 1988, and an Emerson College dorm from 1988 to 2006.
The Emerson building housed 160 beds, or the equivalent of 40 units under the zoning code. Broker Tracy Campion, president of Campion and Company Fine Real Estate, sold the building, one of four she sold for Emerson, which moved over to the Theater District. Since then, she’s been working on renovations with the buyer, a Sea-Dar Construction-led investor group, who bought the building in August 2006 for $12.8 million.
They planned to restore the building back to 12 units, for a luxury condo building complete with valet and concierge and views of the Public Garden.
Sea-Dar president Jean Abouhamad has plenty of experience renovating townhouses on Beacon, Commonwealth, Exeter and Marlborough streets, so he is very familiar with working within the tight confines of Back Bay.
Still, he became nervous when the building’s investors wanted to create parking on the basement level. It’s not a bad idea, since area parking is competitive, and a luxury building without parking would be hard to compete with other similar area developments.
Early on, they asked the neighborhood groups for a curb cut on Marlborough Street, for a ramp into what would be a basement garage with 15 spaces. The building’s concierge would park the cars by stacking them two or three high.
Some residents liked the idea, because it would reduce area demands on residential street parking, and a luxury condo with parking would positively impact property values.
But neighbors and members of the Neighborhood Association of Back Bay were concerned about breaking into the façade of an historic building. They also worried about safety and traffic issues created by cars entering and exiting across the sidewalk from a gated driveway.
“We are opposed,” Susan Prindle, chair of the association’s architectural committee, said back in 2006. “If those are addressed with alarms or flashing lights when the gate is opened, it heightens our architectural concerns.”
Prindle recalled that the builders had cited as precedent the loading dock across from the old Atlantic Monthly building, a dock that predated the Back Bay Architectural Commission. “We didn’t see that as a precedent,” she said.
State Representative and Back Bay resident Marty Walz also said back then that the garage area could instead be used for more residences. “There is a housing shortage,” she said. “Why use housing space for parking? The condos will be saleable without parking.”
Walz also worried that the curb cut would set a precedent for other developers who would want the same thing. Abouhamad argued that it wouldn’t set a precedent because it was one of the few buildings in the Back Bay landlocked from the public alley that runs behind Marlborough Street residences. “There are very few residences in the Back Bay that don’t have access to alley parking,” he said.
In the end, the Back Bay Architectural Commission rejected the plan.
Today, Abouhamad is philosophical on the garage. “It would have helped my sales to have a garage in the building, but it did not ultimately hurt sales. You live with it,” he said.
Instead, they came up with a series of solutions. Parking is available at Boston Common Garage, at one of five leased spaces in back of 9-11 Marlborough St., and for sale are $250,000 spaces at the back of 124 Beacon St. that Campion was able to drum up. A valet, funded through condo fees, would retrieve and park the cars upon request. “Instead of saying, ‘You guys deal with it,’ we came up with this hybrid solution,” Abouhamad said. “You have to be creative.”

Back Bay building is an art

Also, the tricky part about construction in the tightly packed Back Bay is that there’s no room in which to work. That’s where Abouhamad’s experience comes in. Since founding Sea-Dar in 1991, Abouhamad specializes in luxury urban complexes and townhouses, because working within the confines of Back Bay requires a level of patience and surgical precision to work along tight streets with no room for debris or equipment.
It’s also tricky to try not to disturb neighbors living just a few feet away. Where do you put the construction vehicles? The debris? Not in the back alley, since the building doesn’t have any.
“In terms of working in a tight environment, you are bothering the neighbors for a year and a half. People are sleeping next door. When you use a drill, or a screw gun to put in a screw, it reverberates,” he said.
So they have to make noise, but they tried to be nice about it.
“A few things to remember is to always face up to the complaint and do something about it, not say, ‘I have the right to do that and leave me alone,’” he added.
Another disruption occurred when some workers began a strike against the development earlier in the year, alleging the use of non-union labor. Abouhamad insisted that most of the project was done using union labor, and added that “some of the unions who did not get the work picketed for a while.”
He said the union-completed projects included the carpentry trades (about 40 percent of the project labor), steel, elevator, electrical, and roofing. “Open shop trades included plumbing, HVAC, electrical, paint and tile,” he said.
He added, “Neighbors had to call the police few times to stop them, which they did,” said Abouhamad.
In the short term, it’s a noisy and dusty project. In the long term, it’s a building that adds a beautiful building with rooted neighbors, he said.
“I completely sympathize with the imposition of our work on the neighbors. It’s so demanding on their day-to-day life, but in the big picture, they know to rationalize - that in their hearts, that we are turning that building into something better from its old use, a dorm with noise and traffic and transient inhabitants who don’t care about the area homeowners,” he said.


The Winding Road
Like other large-scale construction projects in the Back Bay, developers took a serpentine route to get the building completed. Abouhamad said he attended about 20 meetings: with the Back Bay Architectural Commission, Board of Appeals, Boston Redevelopment Authority, Building Department, Fire Department, Groundwater Trust, Neighborhood Association of Back Bay (NABB), Parks and Recreation Department, Public Works, Transportation, and Water and Sewer, along with individual neighbors concerned about the project’s impact. There was a rodent problem that needed dealing with, since the building had been empty for so long.
In the project’s favor was it didn’t require any rezoning, except for groundwater charging. Because the 12 units would be replacing what was considered a 40-unit dorm, that didn’t require rezoning.
“We were very supportive of it changing from a dormitory, a less dense use than when it was a dorm,” said NABB’s Sue Prindle. “The students in the Back Bay tend to understand they live in a residential area. Nevertheless, we were pleased.”
The developers weren’t pleased with a few unforeseen surprises, such as having to work with the relatively low ceilings on each floor, which made rewiring within the ceilings a puzzle. “It was a major coordination nightmare, to solve all of the challenges. You can’t put it on paper,” said Abouhamad.
Otherwise, while renovations aren’t easy, Sea-Dar reported that they were able to preserve about 90 percent of the floor structure and façade. The new items approved by the architectural board, included some finishes, the roof, the yard gate, a new elevator and shaft area cutout, and the side yard design, along with a canopy on the front. They deliberated over the window styles, so that it would match with the building’s architectural period and area styles, choosing aluminum double-hung windows with a 3 over 3 pattern, for the units; and in the penthouse, all agreed on steel windows. “[Back Bay Architectural Commission Chair] William Young pushed us a lot on historical details. The two or three windows we have are vertical and line up nicely,” he said. “We can complain all we want as developers, about how they’re making us put in this window … The process was slow, but I can’t complain.”
Abouhamad points to the neighborhood’s attention to detail and constant monitoring as a “healthy debate” that’s responsible for the preservation of the neighborhood’s values. “In general, the city’s historical neighborhoods, such as Beacon Hill, Back Bay and the South End, are what they are because of the huge effort from the city and property owners to protect the architecture. I travel a lot, and I can see good preservations and urban planning, and bad.”
Prindle said on NABB’s behalf, the approval process is tough but necessary to preserving the Back Bay’s integrity.
“Where [builders] get into trouble is when they try to get above or around the permitting process, where things are getting complicated,” Prindle said. “You walk down the alleyways and there’s a lot of junk, which is confusing for people to see things that were approved before the commission existed.”


The finished product
The end result is a handsome, historically preserved building that just can’t be duplicated with new construction.
“The results are beautiful,” said Abouhamad. “The whole outside of the building looks new again. The yard, the gate, the lobby – I’m very proud of this product.”
So is Prindle. “It’s an interesting Art Deco building with a wonderful entrance. I think they’re doing a great job on the restoration,” she said.
Tracy Campion said she was happy when she was able to acquire the building, and loves that it has so many things going for it - location, Art Deco, and spacious floor-through units. “It doesn’t get any better than that. It’s hip; it’s not the same old, same old. It’s a blend of contemporary and tradition,” she said.
The investors had purchased the building for $12.8 million, incurred costs for renovations, a groundwater tank, legal fees, permits, construction contracts, interest on loans, buying parking spots, and put money into BRA’s affordable housing fund.
Today, the 12 units are listed at $1.6 to $9 million, although the closing prices sold for a little less than that. The average price per square foot, sold, was $1,466. The $9 million penthouse went for $8.35million, and a second-floor unit listed for $2,450 million sold for $50,000 less.
The three-level penthouse was purchased early on, in December 2006, by a buyer that the developers and broker wished to keep private. “He had the luxury to review the interior design and we accommodated whatever he wanted,” said Aboumahad. “He decided to start the design from scratch, from the outside walls in. He had to respect our common vertical limits … he made substantial changes from the original design.”
The only units left are on floors four-seven, all 3,296 square-foot units with three bedrooms, three fireplaces, three full baths, and two balconies, all listed for around $4.7-$4.8 million.
At a well-attended open house in the fourth floor unit, buyers and well-wishers sipped wine, nibbled on fancy appetizers, and admired the unit’s huge closets and park views. Tracy Campion pointed out some of the Art Deco touches.
Its concierge-staffed lobby features Elmwood paneling, limestone flooring and a fireplace of limestone and black granite. Elevators provide direct access to each home, and at the rear of the lobby is a residents-only gym.
Each unit offer park-side views, and an interior designed by the Grassi Design Group, featuring quarter-sawn white oak flooring, a spacious family room, kitchens with custom-made Anigre cabinets and desert limestone Caesarstone counters. Master bedrooms include a wood-burning fireplace and two large walk-in closets. Huge baths feature Calcutta Luna marble floors, dark-stained eucalyptus cabinetry topped with stone, and steam showers.
One new homeowner, Dale Beardon, said he chose the building based on the advice of Guy Grassi, the building’s architect. Beardon and his wife had hired Grassi to do a previous property, and they respected his opinion. Beardon grew up in Boston, and knew Arlington Street very well. “As a kid, it was such a desirable block,” said Beardon. “My little dog grew up along the Public Garden.”
So Beardon and his wife purchased Unit 1M, a garden-level unit that unlike many of the other units, had loft-sized ceilings. “It’s an Art Deco building, a Back Bay address with a lofty-type feel, nice soaring ceilings, one-floor living, the kind of cool feel a loft provides,” he said.
There is still work to be done on a few units, mostly owner specifications and punch-list items, which should be completed by the end of the year.
Otherwise, the project is a success story, said Abouhamad, but the parking was a huge worry for all involved. Without parking, they weren’t sure they’d get a good return on their investment.
“We take a risk. While you study a project before you buy it, you have to determine how you’re going to sell a unit. When you buy it, you don’t know your solution yet. I wasn’t sure, because of the parking,” he said.
All things considered, in the end he was surprised at how fast the project went – 25 months. “That’s a pretty fast turnaround,” he said. “It could have taken six more months, easily. We really hit the ground running.”
They were lucky. “Today’s market is not as fluid as it was, and so I don’t know if I was slower, if I could have sold as many as fast,” he said.
However, he added, “I don’t think the financial crisis is affecting this neighborhood as much.”

Tracy Campion is the broker for Boardwalk, Park Place, all of the greens and yellows, and a few reds. She has triple the sales of her next broker. She brokered the deal for Tom Brady’s multi-unit Beacon Street property.
Her current high-end residential portfolio ranges from a $379K one-bedroom, up to a $17M Mandarin penthouse. Campion & Company on Newbury Street is the leading brokerage firm in Boston, with more than $185 million in sales as of last week. She’s been No. 1 in Boston sales for the past eight-nine years, she says.
“She’s a dynamo,” says Jean Abouhamad, president of Sea-Dar Construction, which has been working with Campion since 1989. They recently worked on the Zero Marlborough project she sold on behalf of Emerson College, a property she had been eyeing for years.
“I appreciate her speed of thinking. She understands the market very well. She handles the leads very well. Buyers trust her, that she’s doing the right thing,” says Abouhamad.
Over the past five years, Campion oversaw more than $500 million in residential real estate downtown. Tracy Campion founded Campion and Company in 2007 after growing out of her position as senior vice president and manager of the residential real estate division of R.M. Bradley & Company, where she worked for more than 20 years.
Campion is a “boutique” brokerage in a market with some large realty firms. She sells units and buildings, and she also involves herself in developments; in her past portfolios are Le Jardin, the Charlesview Condominiums, 303 Berkeley, the Dexter House at 393 Commonwealth, 57 Beacon, 128 Beacon, the Burrage and Converse mansions, and Amory on the Park.
Campion’s next big project is at 100 Beacon St., a 16-unit luxury building with waterfront views and onsite parking that’s due for completion this winter. “It’s a pretty wild building,” says Campion. “It’s unusual, with a garage, brand new 2.5-3 bedrooms, 2 ½ baths with garage, at $2.5 million for full floor - is hard to get. It’s a combination of classic elegance, but it’s not a high rise in the sky.”
“We’re a great team,” says Campion, who has eight workers supporting her in sales, marketing, development, and design, a full set of services that helps her become the one-stop resource for many of her clients. “I am lucky to run the gamut,” says Campion, whose portfolio includes residential and business clients.
Campion also is the exclusive marketing agent for numerous developers on the renovations of historic townhouses, buildings and other sites.
“She’s real good at finding property that isn’t on the market yet,” says her right-hand woman, Gabrielle Guagliano. “She knows what sells. She is the hardest worker I’ve ever seen. She works seven days a week and she has a family to whom she’s very attentive. She manages her time very well.”
Guagliano, who has been selling real estate for years, joined Campion in March. Guagliano works the back end, showing properties, and generally keeping the Campion real estate whiz on track.
Guagliano says the economy is not affecting their business much. “The higher end is definitely not affected. Things are coming on the market, but inventory is definitely down,” says Guagliano.
In general, Guagliano has noticed that their clients are avoiding the stairs. “The elevator buildings have definitely changed the market. Vertical living is not popular among the older crowd,” she says, as well as families lugging baby carriages and other kid gear. Their clients are seeking the one-floor elevator buildings, like Zero Marlborough, or they’ll take single-family brownstones and add the elevator.
They recently worked with Holland Construction on some single families along Marlborough Street, providing direct elevator access while still preserving original detailing.
Adding elevators isn’t cheap, but there’s very little new construction occurring in Boston, and there are definitely the fans of historical buildings. “There’s only so much property on this island,” says John O’Connor, who is on Campion’s design team. “It’s like Manhattan.”
O’Connor says she knows how to sell this market.
“She is a mile a minute. She never stops. Tracy seems to know her clients better than anyone in real estate. I would buy property and turn it over. She knows who is a buyer. Some talk and talk and talk, and it doesn’t gel with the client. She knows her client and how to read them.”
Perhaps it doesn’t hurt that Campion and her assistant, Guagliano, live in the area they’re selling. Guagliano lives on Beacon Street, and Campion will be moving her family from Marlborough Street to Beacon Street soon.
But Campion says it’s just her drive.
“It’s taken a lot of time to get this started,” says Campion. “I’ve been doing this a long time. I work with developers. I take the client very seriously. I get a lot of referrals. I am very good at what I do. I work very hard.”
Campion talks fast, keeps her hands busy, her eyes alert and warm, her ears perked all hours of the day for phones ringing with clients bearing questions. “You can’t blink here, to be on top of your game. It’s very competitive. It’s not a glamour business,” she says.
Her attentiveness has paid off with a strong base of loyal repeat customers, including some of Boston’s top movers and shakers, as well as the cycle of buyers who start out with her as singles and couples, move to larger homes for family, and if they end up leaving Boston for the suburbs, they often come back when the family is grown, seeking the conveniences and excitement of city living.
“You definitely have the empty nesters,” says Campion. “Others are families who don’t want to go anywhere, so they are trading up. We also see an international clientele.”
She says she prides herself on giving all of her clients, both individual and institutional, the most precise and up-to-date feedback on the state of the market.
Dale Beardon is a longtime customer who, with his wife, just purchased a Zero Marlborough unit, and will use her to sell their other Boston property. “We fell in love with Tracy,” he says.

It’s not often that you can spend $50 and get something more than a nice handshake at your local salon and spa. But with Salon and Spa Week, which runs through October 19 on the East Coast and Midwest, Back Bay spots will be offering select services priced at $50. For many salons, it’s a chance to bring in new clients or entice current clients to try a treatment they otherwise may not want to try.
“Spa Week is a way for new spa-goers to try treatments they may like,” says Emerge spa director Christine Haddad, who has been at Emerge and G2O salons on Newbury Street for 12 years.
The two spas are owned by L. Joyce Hampers, who is also president of the Newbury Street League. Emerge, at 275 Newbury Street, is the classic, luxurious formal spa experience, with sauna, private steam rooms for women and men, a fireside and roof deck lounges, and juice bar, all complimentary with service.
Their sister store, G2O at 338 Newbury, is more of an urban destination, for which Haddad used the words trendy, casual, hip, and state-of-the-art services.
Emerge is offering two treatments, a 60-minute chamomile body scrub that normally goes for $115. Haddad describes it as a two-step treatment, starting with body exfoliation from the neck down with a pumice and creamy scrub that’s rich in botanicals. Then chamomile body lotion is applied to smooth the skin, and it’s good for all skin types.
There’s also the “Tailored to You Turkish Scrub,” a $115 treatment normally, that starts with an invigorating mineral salt exfoliation with aromatherapy to provide balance to the body. This is followed with a loofah and a soothing botanical lotion.
“It’s a bit more invigorating,” says Haddad. “We selected these because these treatments would be good for all people, for all clients. We wanted something to apply to a broad base, as opposed, to, say, a lip wax, because not everyone wants a lip wax. Everyone would like an exfoliation. It’s really the key step in keeping the skin smooth and radiant looking. There’s nothing worse than dull skin.”
Down the street, G2O is offering two different $50 specials.
The “Suddenly Slim” is normally a $150 75-minute treatment that is for “anyone concerned about fitting into a particular dress for a special occasion, or embarking upon a diet or any type of detoxification of any kind,” Haddad says. “This is extremely detoxifying.”
They take measurements of the client’s body before and after the service, then wrap the client in bandages soaked in a special herbal solution, place the person in a plastic suit, and then in a sauna capsule with dry heat and aromatherapy. “It detoxifies, inches come off, and it tightens the skin,” says Haddad. “It’s very popular. It’s a method of taking off inches in just an hour.”
The other special is for the 50-minute “Rasul Signature Ceremony,” normally $130. This is great for couples, too, she says ($50 each), and G2O has the only Rasul room east of the Mississippi. “There might be one in Tampa,” says Haddad. Anyway, It’s an elaborately tiled steam chamber, where exotic muds of different colors are applied to the client as he or she gazes at a replica of a starlit sky, listen to soothing music, and is treated to aromatic orange and rose in the steam. “It’s water therapy, a body treatment, and relaxation therapy, all in one,” she says. Then a shower turns on from above to rinse off. “It’s like you went on vacation but never got on an airplane or bus. You’re definitely relaxed,” she adds.
Once the Spa Week customers try the services, then, she says, “Maybe they’d like to try other things.” At last year’s Spa Week, they offered hydrotherapy services. “Spa is now a mainstream way of life, not an odd thing that a few people experience. It’s something people need rather than being a luxury. Spa Week brings more clients in. It’s very popular. Book early,” she adds.

On Monday, many Americans were glued to CNN or Bloomberg.com as they watched stocks take a roller coaster ride before ending down 377 points, dipping below 10000 points for the first time in nearly four years. It was the continuation of weeks of financial unrest, and the media was quick to hype the messages of doom and gloom as the Dow fell 800 points at one point during the day. On Tuesday, Bob Siefert, a principal and co-founder of Back Bay Financial Group, was drafting note to his clients, encouraging them to filter through the hype and make sound financial decisions that aren’t driven by panic.
Back Bay Financial Group has been sending its clients daily e-mail updates about the state of the economy and how it affects their personal finances for the past three weeks. Siefert says they decided to start reaching out to clients in this way to get ahead of the sensationalized news they saw building, but even these extra efforts haven’t eased the concerns of most of his clients, among whom he says there continues to be a continual unease.
“Our attempts to be proactive have been washed away by the onslaught of TV media that has fueled the fire of fear,” Siefert says.
This is not to say that Siefert is downplaying the serious state of the nation’s economy – but he says it is more important than ever for investors to make rational decisions about what they are doing with their money. For most investors, he says, the decision to get out of the market entirely at this point or to drastically change their investing strategies would only result in locking in the losses the market has already experienced.
Steve Wintermeier, managing principal at Fenway Financial, agrees. He also has been reaching out to his clients on an almost daily basis, and he is hearing similar worries from them.
“[The current economic climate] does cause a bit more concern … but the system is supposed to be able to handle these shocks, and the government is taking the necessary steps to rectify things,” he says.
He is also telling his clients that their long-term investments are safe, and that they should avoid panicking.
“The biggest risk to an individual’s retirement is a prolonged bear market. If this is a relatively short-term downturn, it shouldn’t really affect anyone in the long-term,” Wintermeier says.
Siefert aldo has been telling his clients that despite all of the recent bad news, this isn’t the end of the world by any stretch.
“Is there a doomsday scenario? We absolutely do not think that is the case. The markets have weathered upheaval in the past and have recovered,” he says.
In fact, he says, for some clients with the means – and the stomach – to do so, the time may be near to do some bargain buying, à la Warren Buffett. Siefert says he’s been thinking a lot about the investment tycoon’s famous quote about investing - “Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.”
But not all investors are in a position to follow the advice of Buffett the billionaire. And some, Siefert says, absolutely should not. He says those who are nearing or who are already retired should take a step back at this point and reassess their financial situation. With the help of a financial adviser, he says, they may have to be prepared to make tough decisions about cutting back on spending or re-evaluating their age of retirement. At Back Bay Financial Group, Siefert says, they have prioritized their clients who are currently using their investment money to live.
But in general, Wintermeier says, he is telling his clients with more long-term investment goals to continue putting away money with these long-term goals in mind.
“Right now, to react in haste would probably be the worst thing someone could do,” he says.
Both experts say times of economic downturn often cause investors to reassess their risk tolerances. In times of economic growth, Seifert says, it is easy to pursue a higher-risk strategy of aggressive growth. But before making any decisions about changing your portfolio, consult a financial adviser if at all possible, he adds.
Checking the status of your 401(k) daily will give anyone anxiety, Wintermeier says. A turnaround is not likely to be right around the corner, although he says the government is taking the right steps to help the country come out of this. And in the meantime, he says, investors should buckle up and trust history that this downturn will end.
“My top word of advice is to stick with the long-term plan,” Wintermeier says. “Don’t have any sudden reactions. Just like if you’re driving down the road, you have to make adjustments, but don’t jerk the wheel to the right or the left.”

Hotels like the work hard it takes to be rated with five stars. Being new in town, the Mandarin Oriental will have to wait until next year in order to see if it ramps up to five-star status with Mobil Travel Guide, or AAA’s five-diamond level.
What does it take to become a five-star, or an AAA five-diamond, hotel?
Amenities, for sure. And service, service, service.
Does the staff remember if a guest is allergic to pillows with feathers? Which guest requested the Wall Street Journal with breakfast? If a guest needs a toothbrush, the staff should bring up a tray of toothbrush, toothpaste, dental floss, and mouthwash.
The Mandarin's brand-new staff is essential in bringing in the stars and diamonds. Around the world, the Mandarin is known for impeccable service, but not all of its hotels have rated the full monty.
Only about 30 U.S. hotels rate five stars, which, according to Mobil, means: “An exceptionally distinctive luxury environment offering expanded amenities and consistently superlative service make these hotels and inns the best in the U.S. and Canada. Attention to detail and the anticipation of guests' every need are evident throughout this exclusive group of hotels.”
In Boston, Mobil has granted five stars to only two hotels, the Four Seasons and the Boston Harbor Hotel. The five diamond rating from AAA has only been granted recently to one hotel, the Four Seasons.
According to Mobile inspectors, what makes the Four Seasons a five-star hotel, includes its location, sophisticated design, posh guest rooms and suites that appeal to both business and leisure travelers, award-winning dining at Mobil Four-Star Aujord’hui, its own conference/meeting plan staff, and an indoor pool with “floor-to-ceiling city stunning views of some of Boston’s treasured landmarks.”
Boston Harbor Hotel features great location, “Classic European elegance in rooms and suites, all with waterfront or skyline views,” “excellent service (that) pampers adults, children, and even pets,” a well-equipped health club and spa, and “romantic dining at the Mobil Four-Star-rated Meritage Restaurant, casual sophistication at Intrigue Café, and a convivial spirit at Rowes Wharf Bar.”
Four-diamond hotels in Boston are: Taj Boston, InterContinental Boston, Liberty Hotel, Royal Sonesta, Hyatt Regency Charles Hotel, Fairmont Copley, Nine Zero, Onyx Hotel,
Hilton Boston, Le Meridien, Westin Copley and Westin Waterfront Westin Boston Waterfront, The Eliot Hotel, Fifteen Beacon Hotel Commonwealth, Langham, Lenox Hotel, Seaport Hotel, Jurys Boston, Ritz-Carlton, Sheraton Boston, and the Park Plaza.
What is often cited as the true difference between five star hotels and, well, everyone else, is the level of service. That level of service is achieved by a topnotch concierge team.
Professional concierges are multilingual, creative types who do the impossible on a daily basis. They are the professional assistants, event planners, ticket buyers, car valets, messenger service, and other duties that used to go to, say, a spouse or a butler or a personal assistant or an event planner. While they aren’t meant to take the place of any of those people, the great concierge is ready to take on anything in a pinch, to help their client. They build relationships with residents, and often invisibly work behind the scenes to do the impossible.

What the Mandarin offers
The concierge staff at the Mandarin Oriental Boston promises to be available 24/7 to secure exclusive dining tables and hard-to-find theater and sporting event tickets, arrange for transportation, city tours, dry cleaning, in-room food service and shoeshines.
Lubna McInnis, the chief concierge at the Mandarin Boston, says that while the Mandarin has only been open a few days, they are prepared to do whatever the customer needs. At this point, the staff has only needed to fulfill the basic requests for transportation, directions, and restaurant recommendations. The Mandarin has a house car to bring guests to local restaurants. They pack and ship packages around the world. Can they get tickets for the Sox playoffs? “We’ll make it happen,” she says. “We’d go through all of our contacts to find them.”
McInnis is originally from Wales, and has been a concierge for nine years in several area hotels, including Boston Harbor Hotel and 9 Zero. “We will search online for the Valentino dress someone saw on a runway in Paris,” McInnis says, referring to some of her previous experiences as a concierge. “We have found hair extensions for celebrities. We have done shopping for spouses and kids. We’ve taken care of pets. We’ve shipped cars, booked private jets and yachts. We are personal assistants, in a way.”
She’s a member of the Greater Boston Concierge Association, and is working on her membership with Les Clefs d'Or USA, part of an international society of highly regarded concierges. Les Clefs d’Or means “service through friendship”.
“It’s been a fantastic experience,she said about joining the Mandarin, the first hotel she’s opened, and she received extensive training to fulfill the Mandarin’s expectations.
“The concierge’s role is service, the follow-ups, going above and beyond, being alert, always being there for the guests. These guests chose to come here for the service,” says McInnis, who adds her staff is genuine, sincere, enthusiastic. “We want them to believe in the product,” says McInnis. It’s a very fabulous job. They make or break a guest’s stay.”
According to their job descriptions, the Mandarin’s service staff members for both hotel guests and residents are expected to “offer a warm, sincere and personalized welcome to all residents, have an in depth knowledge of directions, travel time, cost and various forms of transportation, maintain a constantly updated database with extensive information about city highlights, maintain a daily sheet [via software] of all requests, reservations and confirmations for guests, is aware of all daily events in the hotel, arrange for package delivery and pickup for residents, distribute incoming mail and send outgoing mail, prepare packages for residents that need to be sent, request messenger service as needed, delivers flowers and other amenities as needed,” and anything else that the guest or resident may need.
But what that means often goes beyond the job description. The great concierge can help furnish an apartment, coordinate a business meeting, and arrange a flight.
“It’s not just the everyday request of a teatime or a dinner reservation,” said Adam Isrow, cofounder and executive vice president of the Web site goconcierge.net, which provides database support for the Mandarin and other concierges around the world. “It’s really an extension of their personal family. They tell people, ‘No worries, I’ll take care of it, I’ll make it happen’.”
McInnis is a big fan of goconceierge.net. “Everything we do is logged. I can’t imagine going back to the old system,” she said.
The great concierge used to keep track of guests’ requests by jotting down notes, memorizing reliable resources, and passing knowledge down to others. With online databases like Isrow’s, this knowledge is recorded, and so varying shifts of concierges can track a guest’s needs.
“They look it up on the computer, and say, when a guest arrives, ‘Mr. Rizzo, we took care of your reservation, and by the way, we have your tickets for ‘Wicked’ tonight.’ These are the things guests appreciate. It provides such a personal touch,” said Isrow.
Also, when the concierge team spends time researching the best vendors in Boston, the Mandarin can record it for a later time, for quick reference.
McInnis’ concierge team also is equipped with Blackberries, for immediate responses to guest needs via communication more silent than phone calls or radios. A bellperson sees a request for a bathrobe, accepts the task, and the guest gets one immediately.
That’s what gives the Mandarin its reputation for exceptional service, said Isrow. “A key attribute is to anticipate the needs of your guest. By being proactive, by the time the guest comes, you have the ability to provide him or her what they need.”
“The concierge has to create great service, not for the guests, but the residents,” said Isrow. “They become an extended family to them. They are making sure what newspapers they like, what day they have someone cleaning their unit, find a dealer to furnish antiques to a condo. They are worldly. Not only do they have amazing contacts, they know how to get things done.”
Isrow recalled how one concierge at the Mandarin in New York was asked to help a guest arrange a spot in Central Park, where he could propose to his girlfriend. “The guest didn’t realize what it takes to clear out the park, and arrange a photographer at a certain time,” he said. “It all worked out,” Isrow was told. The client “never knew how many people were involved in that process,” he said. The reward for the concierge? “This was an experience that this couple will never forget…they create memories,” he added.
The “getting it done” part is “not something you teach very well,” said Isrow. “It’s what the top concierges thrive on. When you get something off the cuff, how do you make something happen? It’s the top concierge that makes it happen. I’ve seen firsthand what they do, and some of them are so humble, they love what they do but they don’t talk about all the amazing things they do. The businesswoman who left her shoes, things that don’t seem like a big deal, can become a crisis. Someone needed to get somewhere in a hurry, they got them on a scooter, because they wouldn’t have made it by a cab. It’s like super concierge,” he said.

Still hungry to demolish the old Shreve Crump and Low Building, developer Ronald Druker will return to the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) next week with a new design for a mixed-use retail and office building at the corner of Arlington and Boylston, after a rebuke from the city earlier this year.
Despite claims from the developers that there has been substantial progress, the new design essentially preserves the basic idea of the original plan - a squat, boxy structure to replace three individual buildings on the corner. However, the building now has straight edges instead of the rounded northeast corner of the original design. The upper levels of the new design are set back much further from the street than the original design. However, the plans still don’t call for any preservation of the historic Shreve façade.
Also, unlike the last design, there will be no public meeting where members of the community can voice their concerns. The project has been fast-tracked for a Boston Redevelopment Authority vote on Thursday after noon at 2 p.m. at City Hall.
Members of the Web site archboston.org, which strongly opposed Druker’s original design, are again planning to make noise about the project, according to several posts on the site.
“He simply made it boxier and lightened the dark, glass bays,” said one poster. “This is no real improvement. I think it's, for the most part, actually a downgrade.”
Earlier this year, architectural enthusiast and blogger Dan Shea took the floor at a public meeting to decry the project at length, helping to set in motion a series of events that led to halting the demolition of the Shreve Building and the failure of Druker’s design. The original design was also excoriated by the Boston Landmarks Commission and several public officials.
The actual opposition has as much to do with the demolition of the Shreve building as the new design itself. The early 20th century building is considered by many to be an architectural gem. However, the building was denied landmark status in a 2007 ruling, but many would like to see Druker preserve its façade as part of any new project.
In previous public meetings, representatives from the company have stressed the infeasibility of preserving any part of the original structure. The company, as part of a mandatory exploration of alternatives, said preserving the façade wouldn’t be possible, because underground subway tunnels beneath the building wouldn’t allow bracing the façade during construction. The team also asserted the economic infeasibility of preserving all the buildings or just the Shreve building for office space, although they admitted the buildings were structurally sound.