Built in 1897, Boston Hotel Buckminster was one of the first hotels built in the Boston area. The hotel was designed by renowned architect Stanford White, who also designed the Boston Public Library as well as many of the elegant Back Bay townhouses on Beacon Street. Located on the triangular intersection of Beacon Street and Brookline Avenue, Boston Hotel Buckminster featured 200 rooms and spacious apartment suites. It was the largest building in the Kenmore Square area at the time.

Boston Hotel Buckminster was the site of the first network radio broadcast. WNAC Radio moved into new studios in Hotel Buckminster in July of 1929. Later that year, WNAC arranged the first network broadcast in the history of radio with station WEAF in New York City using a 100-foot antennae connected to the building's roof with clothesline.