The Wayside Inn — Hotel in Ellicott City

Overall, I think it's just a difference in decor preferebce-----the photos reflect a serene, calm, classy, elegant style for this INN. Reality is that this place "could be" and "may have been" all these things at one time, but now the overall look and feel of the house/rooms is one of clutter and chaos and knick-knacks.....a jumble of confusing items....Christmas decorations (left over in JUN.....or maybe early?).....stuffed animals, doilies, odd esthetics....as soon as I walked through the main entrance into the hall/lobby....I knew I wasn't going to be happy----clutter......overstimulating, not organized or streamlined...just......yuck.....if I thought I could get a refund on my $280 at that point, I would have most definitely bailed. The room had way too many pieces of chunky furniture in it.. and I felt the need to dust the furniture and scour the bathroom before I felt comfortable to stay......I know that sounds crazy, but that was the vibe......it's disappointing too because the house has really great bones....and the place could be a 5-star venue.......but right now, I just felt extremely unsettled there. There was a patio and a deck and porch furniture, but you couldn't really utilize those areas well because the cushions on the chairs were wet (rains a lot in that area, but what effort would it take to bring the cushions in if rain is forecasted?) and the chairs that didn't have wet cushions had bird poop on them..... The bed was very nice and the sheets were GREAT! But even the comforters/blankets were overly busy with a mix-match of design/fabrics..............I guess I just like clean lines and calm, soothing environments.....not confusing clutter. The workers/owners seemed kind enough.....the breakfast was nice. I think the owners may live there, so there is a bit of a conflict between....it being their home......and then being an INN......Of all the many reviews I see here of this INN, I seem to be in the minority with my feelings.......must just be a preference of mine to not appreciate the visual distraction of incongruent random items. Get rid of 1/2 the furniture and all the knick-knacks and you'd have a much more pleasing environment, in my opinion. They had a large kurig-type coffee machine on the 2nd floor.......but when we went to get coffee at 9am, there were no clean mugs (3 dirty ones) no spoons or stirrers.......just strange......coffee was served during breakfast, so that was...

I’m going to be honest, we chose this inn because of the historic aspect and the things we read and seen online. definitely very outdated pictures and right up’s. We wanted the historic inn and a weekend in historic Ellicot City. We paid over $600 for 2 nights, including a bottle of wine and a cheese platter. None of it was as advertised. The inn is beautiful..it needs a LOT of TLC inside and out. The inside was a bit of a disappointment because there is not a “historic” vibe anywhere except for the exorbitant creaking of the floors. The decorating is a bit strange and does not fit the bones of the beautiful house. We stayed in the Ellicot Room on the second floor. The house advertises a sunroof deck to sit and relax but the window in our bedroom is open for anyone on the deck to stare right in over our bedroom. No window treatments to close at alll!!! Not private in any way, shape or form. How is that ok? The rainforest shower was moldy, the 2 person jetted tub leaked around the cracked tiles of the faucet, the sink leaked all over the vanity from the faucet, and the air conditioning is pretty non existent in that room. Again, just not as expected. The $35 cheese platter wasn’t worth $20. The owner, Joe, is nice enough. Seems to lack the fine art of paying attention to small details though. I would love to tell our friends and family to book a stay but at this time, I just can not. There are cheaper, nicer places to stay in the area. I would have loved to see this place...

I first want to say our hosts were incredibly kind and accommodating, allowing us to even have an early check-in because our flight came in before the official check-in time. I have no complaints about the hospitality and customer service aspect of our stay. The property itself is also beautiful and great for pictures.

The reason why I gave this a 3 is because I booked a couples’ night stay in the Margot suite as we were attending a wedding up the street and the overall B&B reviews have been glowing. I was pretty disappointed in the cleanliness of our room based off of the various reviews that insist everything was very clean. Our bathroom shower had red soap scum all on the bottom of the cloth curtain and the shower frankly smelled unpleasant. We also had a cloth headboard and it was extremely dirty behind the pillows.

After a night of celebrating, I didn’t feel well enough to sit downstairs and have breakfast. I wasn’t aware that we wouldn’t be able to bring food upstairs to eat breakfast there if we wanted to and despite not feeling well. I appreciated the nice breakfast, but I had to eat my meal downstairs which was kind of a bummer because I didn’t get to enjoy my food or even finish much more than a couple bites because I preferred to lay down since I had to choose.

I would recommend for hospitality and more of a “homey” feel but I personally didn’t love it as much as I’d...