5 Cozy Hotels Where Winter Is a Treat

While the holidays are long gone, there are still plenty of winter days ahead. Why not spend a few of them at a cozy hotel where you can savor the season’s pleasures — crisp air, snowy fields, the scent of a maple log fire? From a new lodge in Grand Canyon National Park to a Victorian-era hotel in the Scottish Highlands, these properties cultivate toasty, cheerful atmospheres — what the Germans might call gemütlichkeit and the Danish hygge — with fire pits, “fireplace butlers” (more on that shortly), saunas and cocktails made with toasted marshmallow syrup. No need for a ski resort. Be it a cabin in the Catskills or a boutique hotel in Old Quebec, at these five escapes you can sip, stroll, sink into velvet sofas with books and board games, and embrace the new year.

Boston

The Newbury Boston

Winter in New England calls to mind frozen ponds and snowy mountains. Yet at the Newbury Boston you’ll find a countryside pleasure in the midst of the city: 42 suites with wood-burning fireplaces, complete with a fireplace butler to fan the flames. Guests select their choice of wood from — what else? — the fireplace menu, which includes birch, cherry, maple and oak. “In the early evening,” the menu’s oak option begins, “retire to your room and enjoy this lightly scented, long-burning wood.”

Also on the menu: wine, cocktails and a nosh section with treats such as s’mores, molten chocolate cake and, for those longing for something savory, grilled cheese and tomato bisque. For a wintry cocktail, the Campfire is fittingly smoky, made with tequila, mezcal, toasted marshmallow syrup and mole chocolate bitters with a toasted marshmallow on top. Hot chocolate lover? Consider the Spiked Drinking Chocolate made with chocolate, rum and crème de cacao. (There’s nonalcoholic hot cocoa, too.)

The suites aren’t the only places in the hotel to warm up by a fire. At the Street Bar, New England-inspired fare is served near a fireplace in a moody hideaway designed to conjure a 1920s speakeasy. Yet another fireplace awaits in the Library, where hotel guests can curl up on velvet and leather chairs and sofas with books from the Newbury’s collection.

The Newbury opened in 2021 in a building that almost a century ago was home to one of the first Ritz-Carlton hotels in the country. Today there are 286 rooms, along with Contessa, a rooftop Italian restaurant operated by Major Food Group (the hospitality company behind the Carbone restaurants). There is also a…