Wayland Firm Buys Venerable Hotel Tria

CAMBRIDGE, MA-A hospitality asset in the same family for decades is trading again for the second time in under two years, as a local group has purchased the Hotel Tria from an affiliate of Cambridge-based Carpenter & Co. Flagged as a Best Western, the 69-unit hotel is in the city’s Alewife area near the border of Belmont. Carpenter & Co. had only owned the Hotel Tria since autumn 2006, reportedly paying $12.5 million for the inn to three sisters whose family had operated the hotel since 1963.

“That deal has closed,” one source tells GlobeSt.com, a notion supported by a mortgage filed on behalf of KW Cambridge Property LLC, a group led by principal Robert J. Karol of Wayland. Karol did not respond to inquiries regarding his group’s purchase, nor did seller Richard L. Friedman, the well-known owner of Carpenter & Co. whose hospitality resume includes the famous Charles Hotel in Harvard Square–1.5 miles from Hotel Tria–plus the Liberty Hotel in Boston, an upscale operation built on the site of the infamous Charles Street Jail. Prior to flipping the Hotel Tria, Carpenter & Co. advanced a plan to add more than 30 rooms at a building next door, a project one source estimates will begin later this year.

Given the potential value of the expansion and lack of a deed on the sale, it is unclear how much was paid for the Hotel Tria by KW Cambridge, but sources insist that Karol has assumed control of the facility, and is said to be hiring a new general manager, although that could not be confirmed. The contract with Best Western extends to the end of the year, one source tells GlobeSt.com, offering potential for the hotel to be re-branded over the near term.