Gardner Hotel & Hostel — Hotel in El Paso

This hotel is in a nice part of town and is in an old building that looks like it was made in the early 20th century. My mom and I stayed on a Sunday night. We needed a place to sleep and recharge and seemed like a good pit stop for our road trip. We were not able to accomplish either of those things by staying at this hotel/hostel. There is a bar within a block of the hotel called Briar that has been there for 25 years and plays LOUD DJ music from 10 pm to 2 am every Sunday night. Needless to say, it was impossible to fall asleep with loud radio remix EDM filling the room. My mom and I felt like we were 2 of maybe 4 other guests in this 4 story building hotel and somehow we were put in a room with a window facing this bar. We called the front desk clerk and he was less than helpful. In fact, he did not want to help us. It was not until 1 am, my mother could not take it anymore and walked downstairs to the front desk and demanded another room and he claimed the music was only going to playing for another hour and gave her ear plugs. She noticed all of the available keys in the key boxes behind the counter and asked to be moved again. The following morning, we were finally approached by the owners. It was obvious that their strengths were not in customer service. They asked us, and I quote, "if it was so bad, why did you not just leave?". We did not leave because it was 1 am and we had already paid for the room and there were literally numerous rooms we could had easily been moved too since the hotel was practically empty. Not to mention we had driven 11 hours that day. This is not at all like a hostel. It is a hotel that has bunk beds in some of the rooms and therefore thinks it can call itself a hostel. The communal kitchen had bowls and plates but no utensils, or any other form of kitchen necessities, like a basic coffee maker or a can opener etc. Despite our sleepless night, the owners were not apologetic (even though they know the routine of this bar) and were not willing to make up for their lack in providing quality service. I will never stay here again and would not recommend this as a place to stay. Hostels are about community and not about over charging for a bunk bed with inconsiderate...

The Gardner Hotel in El Paso, Texas, has provided me the most richly rewarding inter-personal experiences with interesting, intelligent and thoughtful human beings than any hotel I’ve ever encountered in fifty-two years of travel anywhere — which includes both business and personal journeys involving overnight stays both short and long in such disparate places as Heidelberg, Munich, Paris, Luxembourg, Keflavík, Bermuda, the Bahamas, the Caribbean, and in many of the major cities throughout North America, both large and small.

This is a Five Star report for good reason. Is The Gardner a five-star hotel in the conventional sense? :: of course not, but so what.

The Gardner is quite special, and so are those who run it as it’s intended to be: charming; congenial; affordable.

The favorable review by Randy Montoya expresses everything perfectly in the matter of the attitude here. (Randy paid four or five dollars less than Gardner’s traffic required of me, when my precarious circumstances demanded I book ten days in advance, but that is the luck of the draw. On any normal budget, the Gardner and the charm of its setting and its staff are a beautiful bargain.)

In what I regard as an accurate and balanced review by Cynthia Staples, she mentions two conditions inconsistent with my own observations: “no free Wi-Fi” {?} the Wi-Fi at the Gardner is perfectly free and fine everywhere there, as far as I can tell;

“because it is so old, the bathroom is very small . . .” {?} I’ve seen several bathrooms, bathtubs, and showers everywhere there, and every one has been more than ample, and contrary to what seem like dubious reports (cf., Da Lin Ki, J.L. Bismarck Fuentes), perfectly clean and sanitary, with headroom adequate for anyone less than eight feet tall or with less than a 226 inch waistline.

The night manager, Brandon, is perhaps the most thoughtfully intelligent provider of clear, concise and appropriate answers, explanations or directions that I’ve met in many months.

I heartily recommend The Gardner to you, despite my running the risk that your own pleasure with the place may make my next visit here more expensive for me when space is then...

I REALLY wanted to love this place, and I thought I would based on the other positive reviews. Unfortunately, it was probably the worst night's sleep I have ever gotten at a hotel. The amount of noise is unreal.

We were given a room with a giant street light right outside the window, and the drapes were not the black out kind. Since we were overlooking an intersection, cars and trucks barrelled down the street, gunning their engines as if they were drag racing, all through the night.

There was a club that sounds like it is directly below the room, playing wall-shaking music until 2AM. Once that was done, club goers who were staying at the Gardner walked the halls trying to find their rooms with no regard for the late hour and their loudly booming voices waking sleeping guests.

College age guests staying in the hostel made it sound like we were surrounded by a frat house party until well past 11PM. They also congregated on the sidewalks outside, randomly yelling and laughing at the tops of their voices.

Inside the room, the radiators heated up, with high pitched squeals intermittently throughout the night. The bathroom was cute, but the toilet was placed directly against the sink, so we (women) had to sit sideways on it to use it. The small flat screened TV hung on the wall with wires and chords dangling down. There were no extra blankets or pillows for the winter weather. The closet held a few bent wires hangers for clothes.

We were told there was free parking for guests, which is about 3% true. There are two street spaces reserved for guests, and that is IT. Otherwise, you have to find street parking that is free overnight, but you must pay if staying past 8AM. I booked this room based on not having to worry about parking downtown, and we had to find a spot a few blocks away and haul our luggage to the hotel (two women, alone at night, downtown with our belongings).

If you want to party all night in a weird old historic building, this might be your cup of tea. If you want to relax and sleep, book elsewhere. I would've told all this to the front desk staff as we turned in our key in the morning, but no one even asked how...