Overall, a three-star stay. There were positives and negatives.

Positives: The building housing the hotel is beautiful. It’s historic in that it used to house the B&O Railroad company. Our room rate was very reasonable ($166 inclusive of fees) (note, though, that the valet is $50). The room was pretty spacious and had high ceilings, which was nice. It also seemed quiet (well insulated from noise from other rooms). Our little American Eskimo stayed for free, which is standard at Kimpton hotels and awesome.

Negatives: The first room we were assigned did not have functional air conditioning—we were shocked to find out—and when we reported this to the gentleman at the front desk, he said, essentially, “Sorry, there’s nothing we can do because the engineer has left for the night and we’re fully booked.” He also noted that this issue was fairly common in the hotel and that an upcoming renovation would fix it. When we insisted that something be done (this is in the middle of the mid-2023 record heat wave), and as I began to check whether the hotel was, in fact, fully sold out for the night (it wasn’t: 9 different room types were still available for booking), he incidentally was able to find us a room with functional AC.

This was indicative of the general quality of service we experienced during our stay (except the security guard: he was incredibly friendly). For example, the check-in was a bit brusque. As another example, a request for late check-out was rebuffed almost before the question was complete—which is fine and perfectly within the hotel’s rights, but the stated justification for the rejection was verifiably false (that all rooms were booked for the night), as described above. (Note, check-out at this property is 11AM, and check-in is 4PM.)

Other issues included dirty towels (small dark brown specks; more than stains), damage to the floor (e.g., broken flooring beneath the carpets that moved and made noise, like broken tiles, when walked upon), a hole in the floor where the doorstop should have been, and minor scratching, staining, and other damage to walls, ceilings, etc. Much of this I can forgive/ignore completely because, in my opinion, the property’s charm lies in its history (i.e., age).

Bear in mind, we only stayed for one night, so the above is based on a pretty small sample set.