Reside Houston Downtown, a Wyndham Residence — Hotel in Houston

I recently stayed at Sonder Hogg Palace for 2wks while in town for work.  I chose this location after a wonderful experience at a Sonder in Philly over a year ago. It also happened to be a convenient location to my place of work since I would not have a car. I opted for the spacious one bedroom and it was that.  Cool industrial loft esthetic and great location.  That's about where the positives end. "Fully stocked kitchen" - I was excited to have this for my full two weeks and quickly discovered there was no cutting board, no blender and NOT ONE oven proof dish. I contacted customer service (that they have available 24/7) and they told me they were "out of stock" on those items.  They then said they would reimburse me up to $10 for the cutting board and then also reimburse me if I wanted to order baking sheets.  No offer for them to go and purchase and restock on their time and dime, but the onus was on me to order and have it delivered (more on packages later) TV Remote - Didn't work at all and I happened to have extra batteries.  Tried those and still no go.  I wrote to customer service and explained the whole remote was busted and it's not a battery issue. ... They dropped off batteries.  I reached back out and finally they dropped off a new remote. Toiletries:   The body wash bottle was almost empty and others were not filled upon walking into the bathroom the first time.  Doesn't make the place feel new when seeing that.  The toilet paper and one paper towel roll are of the cheapest variety.  Thin and not worth the cheap price as the amount you need to clean up a spill negates whatever cost was saved. Bathroom fixtures were falling off including the cold water shower knob and the body wash holder. During my stay, the washer ended up sucking the majority of a pair of pants through the bottom of the washer and I couldn't pull them out.  I reached out to customer service and it took four days before someone came by.

The last thing that became the cherry on the annoyance was when my boyfriend had to ship me something medical so he overnighted it.  Sonder does say that they encourage use of a local parcel delivery if you are not staying for over a month. That said, all Amazon was directed for delivery to the building (including the missing kitchenware) without issue.  So for something this important my boyfriend overnighted it straight to the building.  When i got the delivery notification stating it had been "delivered in /at mailbox" I reached out to customer support to ask if it had been placed in their mailroom.  I was told they were having one of their colleagues check and would get back to me.  3hrs later I messaged asking for an update.  The response was "Unfortunately all of our colleagues have gone for the day" I sent the screen shot of the message from earlier stating they were supposed to be checking.  This went back and forth stating there was indeed an update and no package delivered.  I knew this was not the case and they said they would check again in the morning.  I reached out the following morning and lo and behold my package was there.  But the further annoyance is when customer service decided to chastize stating i should have used a local parcel service and they provide options on the app.  I scrolled and looked and there were none listed, so I pointed that out and said " i do not see any local parcels listed on the app."  The agent sent me back an address (not on the app) that was 6miles away from where the Sonder is.  Not at all convenient. I replied saying "surely you understand that is not convenient..."  The response I got was "Did you get your package?" It was simply the last straw of inconvenience and annoyance on top of another. While the chat agents were mostly nice in their communication it doesn't make up for the exasperating experience that you don't expect from a nicer long stay location.  Very...

This review is my parting gift to Hogg Palace and all future residents of Hogg Palace, a place I’ve called home for the last seven (yes, seven) years. Starting with the good – The location is awesome; its in one of two pockets of downtown that one would actually want to live (the other being discovery green, imo). Walking distance to lots of bars, a number of restaurants, and a small but growing number of convenience shops which makes the area a lot more livable than it used to be. The other big positive is the building and interior. Are you into authentic art deco modern industrial spaces? Then this place is right up your alley. Each unit has very tall exposed concrete ceilings, mine has to be at least 12 feet. There isn’t one single piece of carpet in this entire building, all hardwood floors. The kitchen countertops are all granite (sometimes paper-thin granite, but still granite). Maintenance issues are handled timely with no fuss approach. I’ve called the automated maintenance line to report my AC wasn’t working at 10pm on a Sunday during a holiday weekend and lo and behold, someone shows up 45 minutes later to load more freon into the HVAC unit (thanks Jay). Moving onto the bad – First, parking is a real issue because they’ve taken the first floor of the building and converted it into a cramped two-story parking garage with very limited spaces. You’ll only get one space, regardless of whether you live alone or with an S.O. of some kind. You can pay for an additional spot but the parking is tandem (front to back, not side by side), so if the car in the inside needs to leave, you have to move both cars to jockey the first one free. If there are no tandem space available, you have to get on the waiting list. The second negative is that some units (not all) will have acoustic issues. You will hear people walking and talking in the hallway; if you share significant wall space with the next unit, you may also hear their TV or any heated discussions in the next unit. You can request to have soundproofing blasted into the drywall space which will help, but not totally eliminate the issue. The third negative which is not a function of the building, is there still are some bums around downtown that you will undoubtably encounter walking about, especially near all the establishments on Main Street. Some are rude and that’s just the way it is. Your experience with the building management will completely depend on the current property manager. Property managers come and go, usually staying about 1.5 to 2 years. In my time here, I’ve seen good property managers, ok managers, so-so managers, and one very bad one. During Harvey we had the worst, someone lacking the people skills and overall skillset needed to handle managing this building. Throw in a natural disaster on top, and we basically had total anarchy at the property. She has since been invited to explore other career opportunities. Presently, we have the best property manager I’ve seen at this building but next year,...

I want to give this place four stars. I WANT TO. It’s like at 3.5 for me.

Let’s start with the whole booking and check in process. Everything is completely online, it’s even better when you have the app. You can see the different types of rooms available and what it provides. Why I initially picked it was because of how large the individual spaces were and of course it being LGBTQ Friendly. The entire building used to be apartment / lofts that the company bought out and turned into loft style hotels which is genius. Love the idea and love the entire concept. Love love love. The building is old but inside the lofts were very clean. And they share the top floor with a law firm.

The room we booked with one bedroom - had a wall between the kitchens/living area/dining area and “bedroom,” loft style - which meant no doors but the bathroom had a door and separated the shower/tub from the toilet which I personally love. They also had in-unit washer and dryer and provided extra towels I requested ahead of time. The loft itself was nice and very spacious!!! The door to the rooms all come with an access code that will activate exactly when you’re allowed to check in, which was 3pm-3:30pm. Again that’s genius and prevents people from coming too early.

Every entrance had access code needs and there was zero service desk. Anything you need you request through the app or call a number. They had people on site cleaning but you rarely saw them.

The issues: one elevator. For the entire building. I’m guessing the other elevator was turned off or belongs to the law firm??? But it was annoying because there weren’t any stairs you can take take either! The garage looked super sketchy; you needed a code for everything. Code to get in AND out of the garage which is nice because then it prevents randoms from parking. They also had a second floor of the garage which you had to exit the one garage and enter through a different entrance for the second floor parking. Then if you parked on the second floor go down stairs and then into the building then go into your loft. They share the building with a law firm and there are plenty of signs everywhere to make sure you park in the correct spot.

I do appreciate the entire concept and thought and process. I just think this particular place needs to clean it up and make it more presentable if you’re competing with major hotel chains. It was almost $700 to stay from Friday night to Monday morning which was about $233 a night…. I felt like I only stuck with it because of the loft style space itself. It was more than enough for my significant others and I. We would stay here again but I really hope...