Niche Media’s Boston Common threw a red-carpet soiree Tuesday night at the Ames (two days before the hotel's official opening) in honor of its fall 2009 issue with cover model and recently retired New England Patriot Tedy Bruschi. Whether it was Bruschi’s status as a hometown hero or the opportunity to get a sneak peek at the new (and hotly anticipated) Ames that drew some 400 guests is debatable, but the event was the hardest ticket to land that night.
Sponsored by Land Rover and Basil Hayden, the party celebrated Boston Common’s fall issue and leveraged its advertising relationship with the Ames and event sponsors. "We really love to create events that bring the brands featured in our magazine to life,” said Tamar Salter Frieze of Salter Frieze Events, which produced the party in collaboration with the Morgans Hotel Group’s team.
Held in the hotel’s bilevel tavern, Woodward, which is backed by Mistral owner and Boston Common co-founder Seth Greenberg, the event served up a menu that included hummus with roasted red peppers, crab salad wrapped in cucumber, and house-cured smoked salmon with crème fraiche alongside sips by Belvedere and Basil Hayden.
Land Rover’s latest models were lined up outside the hotel entrance and tables in the tavern were scattered with copies of the magazine and catalogs from the auto manufacturer.
Decor was minimal—only simple votives on the tables—and purposely so, as one of the evening’s goals was to showcase the new hotel’s 19th century architecture and ultra-modern accents.
Guests spilled out into a heated tent off the tavern’s first floor, where hair stylist-slash-DJ Sandy Poirier—owner of Shag, one of the city’s top salons—mixed tracks that were played throughout the entire space. The Morgans design team aimed to make the space an extension of Woodward itself, keeping a similar aesthetic with wooden and wicker seating and black and beige textiles.
Correction: The original story incorrectly stated that Tom Brady attended this event.
