Since it opened in 1927, Boston’s Statler Hotel (now a Historic Hotel of America known as the Boston Park Plaza) has hosted celebrities and heads of state. But the building’s elegance had dimmed over the years, priming it for a two-and-a-half-year, $100 million renovation. Designed by Signature Architects and Parker-Torres Design, the overhaul of the Boston Park Plaza’s public spaces and 1,060 guest rooms was completed last spring.

Preservation efforts are most obvious in the ballroom and lobby. The renovation team repainted and restored friezes, re-dipped and re-wired chandeliers and sconces, repainted original woodwork, and repaired damaged plasterwork (such as the detailing on the bar wall shown above). “We knew we had to celebrate the hotel,” says Ellen Johnson of Parker-Torres.

Outside, the brick exterior envelope was repointed, and the windows were replaced with historically accurate replicas on the second and third floors.