The Liberty Hotel

For a luxury hotel it’s an awfully imposing structure — they’re not typically rough-hewn granite monuments. But this is is no ordinary luxury hotel. The Liberty is imposing and monumental because, in a previous life, it was a jail — the 1851-vintage Charles Street Jail, with a riverside Beacon Hill location that was presumably lost on the original inmates.

If you stop to consider all the implications it’s a strange comment on the state of modern hospitality that a jail can be so successfully converted into a luxury hotel. But it’s not a puzzle you’ll feel like dwelling on once you’re comfortably ensconced in one of the Liberty’s rooms. To be fair, most of them are in the modern addition behind the old jail — but even the 18 converted cells in the historic building are swanky, with flat panel HD-LCD televisions and Molton Brown bath products. At this point the old cell windows have been expanded, floor-to-ceiling, and the exposed brickwork just adds to the atmosphere.

One restaurant is called Clink, and one of the bars (set in the old drunk tank) Alibi; they’re joined by a rustic Italian restaurant and the Liberty Bar. And there’s plenty to do beyond the Liberty’s walls: Beacon Hill is one of Boston’s hottest neighborhoods, and a luxury hotel fits the location perfectly.