A writer’s lounge is one of the intimate common area amenities in the new Raffles Boston Back Bay Hotel & Residences at 430 Stuart St. designed by The Architectural Team. Image courtesy of The Architectural Team

Our careers in real estate sales span over 50 years combined, but there has been nothing that compares to working as the sales team for Raffles Boston for the last several years. This project has been the thrill of a lifetime.  

Untraditional is the first word that comes to mind when we think about the rollout of Raffles Boston. There have been no dollars spent on advertising, and we are not on MLS. This understated path reflects the intimacy of the building, what the Raffles brand is about, and our quintessential Back Bay neighborhood.  

As we began our work on the residences, we were tasked with the incredibly exciting and equally nerve-racking goal of articulating the iconic Raffles brand and its 136-year-old history, while also capturing the detail of what this project was offering. It took so much to be the ambassadors of such a layered property and it has been a joy, particularly because we knew that Boston was ready for something this adventurous and special.  

Raffles Boston offers 108 residences and 38 pieds-a-terre, alongside 147 hotel rooms, five food and beverage destinations, a 20-meter indoor pool, a Raffles spa, a “speakeasy in the sky,” ballroom and six social spaces devoted exclusively to residents. One- to three-bedroom condominiums are found on the building’s 21st through 33rd floors, penthouses on the 34th and 35th floors, and in a first for Boston, the entire 15th and 16th floors are devoted to pied-a-terre homes, speaking to those who desire a smaller city refuge that offers all the benefits of owning at Raffles Boston. 

Cindy Dwyer

The project, developed by Jordan Warshaw of Noannet Group and Gary Saunders of Saunders Hotel Group together with partner Cain International, was introduced to the public in 2019 with an elegant evening groundbreaking in Copley Square. Shortly thereafter, we opened the waiting list for residences, and by that point, the intrigue and the anticipation were sky-high. Even as the pandemic hit and the world teetered, Raffles continued to rise, steadfast in its vision that city living and global travel would triumph. 

Our wait list continued to grow, and shortly after we opened our sales gallery to the public in late 2021, we signed purchase and sale agreements for a significant percentage of the homes. Raffles Boston was commanding the attention we anticipated. 

Strategic Sell-Out Preserves Availability 

One of the most intriguing components of our sales process remains a priceless film our marketing team created which animated the Mallard family from Robert McCloskey’s Make Way for Ducklings, imagining what it would be like if Boston’s favorite feathered friends moved into Raffles Boston. Screening this short film remains one of the best parts of our day. For many buyers, it brought back memories of reading that iconic book to their children or grandchildren, and for us, it gave insight into a buyer’s humor and playfulness. If this movie does not make you smile or giggle, we are not sure what will.  

Manuel Davis

We sold through more than half of our available inventory within a matter of months after opening our sales gallery. Just one year later, we have sold nearly 80 percent. 

What has captivated buyers has been the unique confluence of factors Raffles Boston offers, the unprecedented bevy of common spaces and amenities, the Raffles brand, and the central Back Bay location. Our buyers really appreciate the fact that we prioritized intimacy in our common spaces – our developers’ way of creating a warm, comfortable Back Bay townhouse feel within a 400-foot-tall glass tower. 

We have sold the building’s homes strategically, so that we still have available at least one of our two-bedroom, three-bedroom and penthouse floor plans, as well as a number of our recently released to market pied-a-terre plans. Our modern glass tower with the intimacy of a Victorian brownstone and the illustriousness of the Raffles brand will forever change Boston, and we can barely believe that we are within a few short weeks of opening. 

Manuel Davis is a senior sales executive at The Collaborative Cos. and Cindy Dwyer is director of training at The Collaborative Cos. and sales director for Raffles Boston.