Copley Square Hotel

Back Bay's first hotel, Copley Square opened for business in 1891; decades later, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington lit up its now defunct jazz bar, Storyville. Today, it's a bit of an oddity. The general style is old-fashioned, with rooms decorated in somewhat dowdy, countrified ginghams and florals. Yet it's also home to super-slick, self-styled 'nitery' Saint and a sleekly modern Italian trattoria, Domani. Still, the hotel's reputation is solid and the staff friendly and efficient.