Hotel Commonwealth is just steps away from Fenway Park, but when Kevin Schopfer of local firm Schopfer Associates (formerly of Ahearn Schopfer Associates) was tasked with designing the property’s classy new Baseball Suite, he delved beyond the Red Sox for inspiration.
“Fenway would have been too obvious,” he says. “We treated it like a museum, with more artful shots supplemented by baseball memorabilia.” To celebrate America’s favorite pastime, Schopfer instilled a retro vibe: an original Babe Ruth trading card and 1967 World Series program mingle with a leather steamer trunk and custom wingback chairs, suggesting a “vintage train trip traveling around the country for baseball.”
This specialty suite is just one of the four Schopfer dreamed up for Hotel Commonwealth. In the Luxury Suite, the look is decidedly more classic, with a “Back Bay meets Paris bohemian” feel,” he says, noting its vaulted ceilings, gas fireplace, and marble bathroom.
For the Executive Suite, once known as the Commonwealth Room, Schopfer points out the furniture was upgraded, “bringing in a whole level of texture. We lightened it up; it’s not as masculine.”
Polished brass lamps, mahogany slatted blinds, and a cushioned window seat nook overlooking Kenmore Square in which to perch with a novel create a hushed literary vibe in the Reading Suite. “As opposed to a desk, we said let’s pull in a big library table,” says Schopfer. “There are big leather chairs, book covers all over the place, and a mural instead of wallpaper. We didn’t do curtain but wood blinds to be in that realm of an author’s study.”
Meanwhile, downstairs, Garrett Harker, owner of the hotel’s beloved Eastern Standard and Island Creek Oyster Bar, recently opened the Hawthorne, a cozy cocktail bar in partnership with the restaurants’ bar director, Jackson Cannon.
“We came up with the concept of Jackson hosting an intimate cocktail party every evening, and pitched Garrett the idea of decorating like a swank, timeless, witty, stylish home away from home-one with a very curated and collected feel,” says Alison Sheffield of Boston-based Sheffield Interiors, who worked with her husband Stephen on the design.
For that homey ambiance, the Sheffields embraced a slew of mostly residential fabrics and furniture. The floor, porcelain tile reminiscent of dark stained wood planks, is arranged in a herringbone pattern, while the bathroom fixtures are “very sleek yet Victorian.” The Sheffields also introduced a number of different seating styles, with “seven different, complementary patterns in warm, but muted tones. Though each seating area has its own unique feeling, the space still feels unified.”
While sipping on a craft cocktail, guests can also gawk at over 60 pieces of artwork the couple snatched up at art fairs, galleries, and consignment shops over the course of a year. “The collection,” Sheffield points out, “includes photography, collage, oil and watercolor paintings, and hand-cut paper, and enhances the collected-over-time feel that we were striving for.”
