If my Amtrak train had pulled into Hartford just 20 minutes later, I would have been completely saturated in an explosive thunderstorm that drenched the city. Fortunately, I finished my four-block walk from Union Station to the Goodwin Hotel just before credible weather forecasts came to fruition, and I was happily unpacking in my room when the thunder, lightning, and torrents began.

The hotel’s story starts 144 years before I arrived. In 1881, brothers James J. Goodwin and Rev. Francis Goodwin developed this structure as an upscale apartment building, attracting the likes of Gilded Age mega-millionaire J.P. Morgan during his visits back to his hometown. Expanded in both 1891 and 1900, the Goodwin served its original function until the 1980s, when the interior was gutted to prepare for its incorporation into a new adjoining office tower. Fortunately, the four-story hotel’s iconic English Queen Anne façade was spared—a rich-red brick and terracotta beauty with alternating rounded and pointed gables on the upper floor, panels with griffins and rosettes, pilasters, swags, and a pair of putti on either side of a shield bearing the building’s 1881 birth year.

The hotel opened its doors in 1989 but shut them in 2008 after running in the red for several years. It was later completely renovated and reopened as the city’s only boutique hotel in 2017. It was into this newest version that I arrived for my stay in Hartford.

My studio king guest room, one of the hotel’s 124 guest rooms, suites, and duplexes, was generously proportioned and featured a dedicated seating area with a blue sofa, a large desk, four windows, and a bathroom that sported a hexagon-tile floor with a patterned design in shades of gray, and aromatic toiletries with some unique scents: peppermint shampoo, cilantro conditioner, and emollient rum body wash and soaps.

The fierce weather drove me downstairs for my evening meal rather than any of the local restaurants I would soon be enjoying. Down the short hall from the lobby, I passed through the small library with inviting seating and entered Bar Max, with its plush seating, ambient lighting, and friendly staff (although, be warned: the music selection is fairly awful). At my window table, I watched pedestrians running for shelter from the deluge. It was definitely a night for sheer comfort food: a smash burger with caramelized onions and American cheese on a potato roll, alongside a serving of mac and cheese with ditalini pasta and local Arethusa Farms’ Europa cheese in all its gouda-like creaminess.

With its perfectly convenient location to explore downtown Hartford and beyond, the Goodwin fuses its history with contemporary style. And, illuminated at night, it makes for a welcome sight after a full day of exploring this small and rather delightful city.

Leave a Comment

Have you been here? Have I inspired you to go? Let me know!