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'Meet Your Maker' at The Liberty Hotel

Where: 215 Charles St [map], Boston, MA, United States, 02114-3001

You know how much we love our cocktails here at HotelChatter. We'll find any reason to celebrate with a cocktail and fortunately for us (but not for our liver), hotels feel the same way. We've slurped down Summer Cocktails and Halloween Cocktails and now we're ready for the main event, Holiday Cocktails. We'll be taking a look at these concoctions all season long. If you have a suggestion, don't hold out on us. (Photos, recipes and prices are helpful too!)

When your hotel used to be a jail in a former life, the jokes and puns never get old. We loved the Liberty Hotel's Do Not Disturb sign which features the word Solitary and now we're loving their winter drink, Meet Your Maker.

The drink sounds ominous and it's served in the hotel's restaurant which is called CLINK but we bet it will make you feel all warm inside. The drink ($15) is made with creamy pumpkin puree and Makers Mark and topped with nutmeg garnish. Yum. If you can't make it to Boston, here's how to make the recipe in the maximum security of your own home.

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Pitch Your Hotel / Boston Hotels / Jail Hotels / Jim Treadway / Interviews / → All Tags

The Liberty Hotel: A Jail You Don't Want To Bust Out Of

Where: 215 Charles St [map], Boston, MA, United States, 02114-3001

Welcome to our regular feature, Pitch Your Hotel, where we let hoteliers, general managers and other hotel execs tell us on-camera what makes their hotels so different from all the rest. And believe us, the competition is fierce these days. So sit back, relax and listen to them explain why their hotels are worthy of your hard-earned dollars or rewards points.

Speaking from the uber cool Ebersol Suite atop the old jail in Beacon Hill, Jim Treadway, head honcho of the Liberty Hotel in Boston, answers one simple question: "Why would someone coming to Boston stay at the Liberty Hotel".

Turkey Hotel Guide / Istanbul Hotels / Four Seasons Hotels / Luxury Hotels / Jail Hotels / → All Tags

Turkish Delight: A Former Prison is Now a Four Seasons Hotel

Where: Tevkifhane Sokak No. 1, Sultanahmet-Eminönü, Istanbul, Turkey, 34110

Last week Shira Levine spent a few days getting her Turkish Delight on in Istanbul, Turkiye ("Turkey is a bird; Turkiye is the country") and checking out the transcontinental Eurasian city's hotel scene. Any questions about where to stay in Turkiye? Send 'em to us and we'll have Shira answer them for you.

By director Oliver Stone's "Midnight Express" film portrayal, if there is one notable Turkish site to skip over it's the inside of a Turkish prison. But if it's the inside of a Neoclassical jail conversion and that jail conversion happens to now be a Four Seasons, we learned that staying a few night doesn't compromise sanity, just bank accounts.

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Odd Hotels / Cockatoo Island Houses / Sydney Hotels / Jail Hotels / → All Tags

Stay In Sydney Harbour, Literally, at the Cockatoo Island Houses

Where: Cockatoo Island, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 2000

When in Sydney, you might well be craving harbor views, but we've got a new alternative--just stay in the middle of Sydney Harbour itself.

We’ve experienced the camping version of a stay at Cockatoo Island, but if you want to stay overnight in more style on this island in the middle of the harbor--with clear views to the Sydney Harbour Bridge--you're in luck.

The Cockatoo Island Historic Houses are available for up to ten guests per house, and according to a Sydney Morning Herald review, these two historic houses (formerly prisons) have been elegantly refurbished and include three plasma TVs per house. The digs are available for A$400 ($260) a night during the week or A$1200 ($780) for a Friday to Sunday weekend stay. Those are somewhat decent prices for the views you're getting, especially if you're traveling with a group.

Stockholm Hotels / Jail Hotels / Budget Hotels / → All Tags

The Gray Lady Tells You How to Waste Your Hard-Earned Money

Where: Tjärhovsgatan 11, Stockholm, Sweden, 11621

Would you pay $200 or more to stay at a 228-year hotel that once was a brewery, then headquarters for Stockholm's guards (a.k.a., "sausages," earning the building the enviable moniker of "a sausage pot"); next as a jail of sorts, housing thieves and beggars; and later as a temporary hospital during the city's cholera epidemic in 1834, before finally becoming a hotel with no room service and very few individual bathrooms in 1976? The New York Times thinks you should.

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Best Hotels for Fireworks 2008 / Fireworks Hotels / Boston Hotels / Jail Hotels / → All Tags

Best Hotels for Fireworks 2008 :: Boston

Where: 215 Charles Street, Beacon Hill [map], Boston, MA, United States, 02114

Get your hot dogs, sunscreen and beer guts ready: Independence Day is just over two weeks away! If you're headed to a big city for some fireworks fun, we'll be taking a look at hotels with prime fireworks views. Have a favorite hotel for gawking at bombs bursting in air? Send it our way.

Celebrate your country's independence by spending a night in an old jail! Head to Boston and check out our Fourth of July SPLURGE hotel pick: The Liberty Hotel.

The swanky, newly-converted jailhouse is offering the Independence Day Perfect View Package, a bundle of goodies that may be best for you to indulge in without the kiddies.

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Jail Hotels / San Francisco Hotels / Alcatraz / Hotel News / → All Tags

Could There Be an Alcatraz Hotel By 2010?

It's very possible that Alcatraz, once the country's most treacherous prison, will turn into a hotel by 2010, so says the National Park Service.

The organization is trying to spruce up some of the Bay Area's national parks and make the most of the land they are sitting on. Thus Alcatraz may have a hotel on it's lonely island. The SF Chronicle reports:

One of the Alcatraz proposals would allow visitors to camp out on the island; another would involve rehabilitating a complex of old buildings and possibly turning one of the buildings into a hotel. Building 64, once used to house guards, could become a science and education center, with classrooms, a kitchen and a hostel for students.

Of course some residents disagree with the building of a hotel so the lodging plan will have to be approved by city residents. And the city's firefighters are concerned about having to race over to the island in case there's a fire or another emergency overnight.

So the Alcatraz Hotel may be a long ways off or it may never even come to fruition. But if you still have a jones for jail hotels, there's a bunch you can try, like the Liberty Hotel in Boston or the Malmaison Oxford.

But if your fetish is strictly Alcatraz-based you can hit up The Rock Love Hotel in Japan. Heh.

[Photo: V31S70]

Hotel Openings / MTM Luxury Lodging / Boston Hotel Reviews / Hotel Video Tours / Jail Hotels / → All Tags

Movies From Inside Boston's New Jail Hotel

Where: 215 Charles St [map], Boston, MA, United States, 02114-3001

Approaching Boston's newest swank hotel, The Liberty Hotel, is not a simple proposition. The hotel is directly behind the new Yawkey Center at Mass General Hospital and you are bound to run into squealing ambulances, harried doctors and Charles St. Brahmans as you enter.

However once inside the old Charles Street Jail you are immediately blown away by the atrium architecture and escalator mural, which includes mug shots of actual former inmates. Our first impression is that MTM Luxury Lodging did a good job of shutting out the chaotic surroundings of the Charles St. T stop and turning this old jail into a 298-room hotel.

We know that if you are going to pay $300 to $350 a night (ouch) for a room here you want to know what it is like inside. Luckily for you this hotel video tour is a Friday double feature.

Check out moving pictures from room 430, one of 18 rooms in the jail (the other 280 are in the new tower) here.

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Hotel Openings / Boston Hotel Reviews / Jail Hotels / → All Tags

The Liberty Hotel in Boston Actually Opens on Time

Where: 215 Charles Street [map], Boston, MA, United States, 02114

Last fall it was announced that a former Charles Street jail in Boston would be converted into a luxury boutique hotel. The hotel estimated a Summer 2007 opening date and guess what? The Liberty Hotel has opened today.

However, you can't stay overnight there until Sept. 7 but when you do you can expect room rates to start at $275 for a 400 sq.ft. Fantastic Double Double. A Ultra Fantastic King starts at $305. Looks like someone borrowed from the W Hotels room descriptions.

The hotel also has three restaurants/bars in the works including a "jail" bar in the lobby that pays homage to the building's former life. A casual restaurant and bar will be on the second floor and a fine dining restaurant is also expected.

Related Stories:
· Charles Street Jail to Become The Liberty Hotel [HotelChatter]

Hotel Breakfasts / Flickr Photos / England Hotels / Jail Hotels / → All Tags

Morning 'Prison Grub' at the Malmaison Oxford

Where: 3 Oxford Castle, Oxford, United Kingdom, OX1 1AY

Since we learned that sometimes booking a breakfast-inclusive package can be cheaper, we've paid a lot more attention to the morning meals on offer around the hotel world. So when Flickr photographer MildlyDiverting posted this pic of breakfast at the Malmaison Oxford Hotel we were a bit more than mildly diverted.

This attractive-looking basket is home to the breakfast-in-bed option at the Malmaison and it rather looks like something we'd like to souvenir, if we had a suitcase big enough. But since the Malmaison is housed in a former prison building, we're not actually recommending this course of action. To get this great breakfast there's a deal going there at the moment:

From £255 per night you can enjoy one of our glorious suites or super suites, champagne on ice, chocolate dipped strawberries, aromatic oils and candles, a chilled Mal CD and that all important champagne breakfast in your room.

Looks like our Flickr tipster got through the champagne before they took the picture!

[Photo: MildlyDiverting]

Related Stories:
· Newest Malmaison Opening in Oxford [HotelChatter]
· When Breakfast Included Is Cheaper Than a Standard Room Rate [HotelChatter]
· Meaningful Rice Dumplings Served for Breakfast at Grand Hotel Taipei [HotelChatter]

Hotel News / Hotel Hype / Hotel Openings / Boston Hotels / Jail Hotels / → All Tags

Charles Street Jail to Become The Liberty Hotel

This here is a rendering of the Liberty Hotel in Boston. Over the summer, the Carpenter & Company announced that they were taking the old Charles Street jail and turning into a hotel which they have now decided to call Liberty. See? The hotel industry does have a sense of humor. (Note: UK Chain Mal Maison did this too in Oxford.)

Set to open in the summer of 2007 after $120 million in renovations and constructions, the Liberty Hotel will be a four-star luxury hotel with 300 guestrooms, including 10 suites with dramatic river views, three venues for a restaurant and bars, and 6,000 sq. ft. of meeting space.

Since the jail is an old landmark, the developers are doing their best to keep it intact:

The original 1851 granite jail structure is being carefully preserved and restored. The commanding, 90-foot central rotunda is now complemented with a new cupola, built according to the original design which was never implemented to save construction costs. Among the dramatic features being preserved are historic catwalks linking public spaces, vestiges of jail cells within the hotel lobby bar and magnificent, oversized windows.

A newly constructed 16-story wing will also be added to round out the hotel space. And when it's all finished, we may not mind doing time here. (Har, har.)

Related Stories:
· Boston's Charles Street Jail to be Reborn as the Liberty Hotel [Earthtimes.org]
· Newest Malmaison opening in Oxford [HotelChatter]

Jail Hotels / Malmaison Hotels / → All Tags

Newest Malmaison Opening in Oxford

Where: 3 Oxford Castle, Oxford, United Kingdom, OX1 1AY

Malmaison's latest hotel opens in Oxford this November.

The property is a converted prison, which now boasts swank rooms and free broadband.  

H.M. Oxford Prison, the UK's first prison, was altered surprisingly little by designers-- with its cells, basement and castellated walls largely unaltered, to host the hotel.   Don't worry, the designers did add plenty of Malmaison touches, so it probably won't feel prisonesque, let's hope.

Malmaison Oxford is offering an introductory rate for £110 that includes a complimentary bottle of wine.

Good chance to be one of the first to sleep in the now renovated H.M. Oxford Prison.