Massachusetts

Massachusetts contains some of America’s most recognisable historic architecture, but its design story extends far beyond clapboard houses and red-brick Boston. Colonial towns, maritime mansions and the grand summer houses of Cape Cod, Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard coexist with an exceptional Modernist legacy. Walter Gropius settled in Lincoln, while Marcel Breuer and other Bauhaus figures helped turn New England into an unlikely laboratory for American Modernism. On Cape Cod, architects and artists created experimental summer houses among the dunes and pine forests, establishing a design culture that still influences contemporary coastal architecture today.

Food and drink follow the geography from city to Atlantic. Lobster rolls, oysters, clams and New England seafood remain essential along the coast, while Boston combines historic institutions with one of the region’s strongest contemporary restaurant scenes. Farms across western Massachusetts and the Berkshires supply ambitious farm-to-table kitchens, bakeries and independent producers, while coastal towns become wonderfully food-obsessed during summer. Craft breweries, cider makers and an increasingly interesting distilling scene add alternatives to the obligatory chowder and cold beer by the water.

Massachusetts’ most interesting hotels are equally varied. Boston’s architectural landmarks and reinvented historic buildings give way to old inns, Mid-Century retreats, cedar-shingled island hotels and contemporary coastal hideaways farther from the city. At DNA Hotels, we curate the places where architecture, food, culture and New England landscape come together—hotels that capture Massachusetts beyond the postcard version, from Bauhaus experiments in the woods to barefoot summers at the edge of the Atlantic.