The Carleton of Oak Park Hotel — Attraction in Oak Park

Doing a regular review of the hotel as well as a wedding specific review:

From a general hotel perspective - This is a lovely hotel. I am a frequent traveler and love Marriotts, but I'd recommend staying here even if you are loyal to brands and points. The location is perfect right by downtown and by the train stations, and you'll get plenty of parking lots to use. Very walkable to other places in Oak Park.

Rooms - are large, often include a kitchenette kind of area, and have a lot of charm. Perfect for any length of stay including longer stays (I love when I can save some money by having a fridge/microwave/sink). They also have lower priced motel rooms which are totally fine and good as well. Some of the fancier rooms are really cool.

Service is unparalleled. The front desk manager and the staff work to help you in a more neighborhood kind of way than at other hotel chains. You get a bit of charm in all the hallways. The food at La Notte is incredible. This isn't a typical "hotel restaurant" that sucks.

The only downsides are 1. no free breakfast, no pool or anything that I'm aware of. You're not going to get those cool features of modern hotels, but you come here for charm and a mix of old school cool with modern aesthetics. For example their are two sets of elevators and they're small and narrow. Doesn't make sense, but the hotel is charming and it just works.

Wedding - I would recommend doing wedding stuff here. First off - you get Katie Fox. She is the real deal. My wife and I worked with her and felt like she was a part of our extended family with the planning process. She doesn't try to be a salesperson, but instead focuses on making the day incredible. Don't look at other reviews and think Katie Fox can be duplicated. Katie goes beyond what is on her paid job description in a way that other venue coordinators will not.

You get a honeymoon suite with the wedding. The food from La Notte (Staff led by Gio) are incredible. Unfortunately they have to make their incredible food "wedding food" which means removing allergens and making things more generic and less authentic Italian so that hundreds of guests can be happy. But make no mistake the food from Gio's real menu is incredible and the "Americanized" wedding food is almost just as incredible.

The biggest ballroom is beautiful pretty naturally even without a ton of decoration. You really feel like the space is smaller at first, but it just works out. They can flip it for reception/ceremony. Their bar area outside is actually kinda perfect for a cocktail hour.

I normally think of hotel weddings as boring because they're so generic. I've been to other hotel weddings where the big space is all just white and reminds me of a businses conference space. But with the charm of this hotel - you kinda feel like you chose a specific destination or...

I travel 80% of the year so I have a great chance to see a range of hotels. The Carleton stands out but for the wrong reasons. To preface this review, I ordinarily don't write reviews unless I've had a terrific experience or an extremely lackluster experience. I've stayed at the Carleton twice, the most recent being last week. And it was a lackluster experience. Positives: -Great menu of TV channels (over 600) -Nice vintage feel to the hotel and rooms. They're not fantastically modernized but that's okay because that's not their intended niche.

Negatives: -Service. For 2 days I had no internet availability. Initially I thought my laptop had failed but realized this wasn't the case. For a businessperson no internet is incomprehensible with the level of work I do at night. -Service. The restaurant (Poor Phil's I believe) service was terrible. The male bartender was too busy trying to be rico suave with the ladies than paying attention to my order. Terrible experience. -Service. I just got off the phone with the hotel because I was trying to cancel next week's reservation in order to make a reservation elsewhere. The female on the other end was terrible--she made me feel like I was the one at fault because SHE couldn't find my reservation (even after I offered her the confirmation # from the hotel's website). In any case, that would have been fine except for the pure level of disrespect after the cancellation. She corrected me about the reservation and then just hung up on me. Not even a "have a good day" as I was about to say before I heard the dial tone. More unnerving is the fact that it was as though I was no longer a reserved customer that she felt it unnecessary to be polite anymore. I will NEVER stay at the Carleton again and will tell all visitors to the Oak Park facility I work at (there are many because it's one of the largest private companies in the world) to not even consider the Carleton.

The price point the Carleton charges demands supremely better service. I've stayed in glamour-less hotels with amazing customer service and had incredible experiences. A hotel like the Carleton which charges the amount it does and has the historical background should do a much, much better job providing the right level of service mentality to its clientele. There are too many hotels out there fighting to impress their customers that I can't give the Carleton a rating anything...

I have never stayed at the Carleton, but I live in an apartment building down the street and I walk past this hotel multiple times a day when I walk my dog. This hotel unfortunately attracts very unsavory characters, particularly to the Motor Inn, that make the neighborhood feel much less safe. For example:

In the fall of 2020 at ~10pm, I was walking my dog when I heard a distressed scream from the parking lot. I walked over there to see if someone needed help and a young lady was walking away who had just been hit and thrown to the ground by a drunk guy who was trying to steal her wallet. She called the police and I stood with her while we waited for the police to show up. Also in the fall of 2020, I was once again walking my dog past the Motor Inn when I saw what appeared to be a police raid of one of the rooms. I have no clue what the raid was about, but it honestly didn't really surprise me. There is a large man who clearly has mental health/schizophrenia problems that frequently stands on the top porch at the Motor Inn and very loudly shouts at what appears to be no one. I assume this man lives at the Motor Inn long-term (I'm not sure how he affords to do so) because he was there in the summer and fall of 2020, and he has reappeared on the porch now in the spring of 2021. Two weeks ago, while walking by with my wife and my dog, this man appeared to be getting into a van parked on pleasant street, but before doing so, he decided it is a good idea to urinate in the middle of the street, exposing himself to anyone walking by, which unfortunately was me, my wife and my very surprised bernedoodle. Today, as I was walking my dog again, we were on the corner of Pleasant and Maple when a man starts walking towards me and tells me, in very colorful language, that I should get away from him or he will beat me up. I assume he was on some kind of drugs or has some serious mental health issues. He continued to walk through the parking lot toward rooms at the Motor Inn, so I assume he is staying there.

As a neighbor, I feel that the Carleton Motor Inn makes the neighborhood much less safe, and I would definitely...