The Bentley Hotel on 290 — Hotel in Johnson City

It seems the first thing to consider is the fact that there are very few ‘good’ hotels to choose from in this Texas Wine Country area along highway 290 between Fredericksburg and Johnson City. The place does a good job of ‘trying’ to pull off sort of a Hill Country / Austin industrial modern feel and the exterior accomplishes that well enough. However, as a place to stay, it leaves much to be desired. It is difficult to find ( part of being ‘quaint’ maybe? ), and when you do find it, the signage telling you to check in at the nearby 290 Castle Vineyard is less than adequate. Check-in was relatively smooth albeit short on helpful detail. We had pre-paid, so we were given a room and we drove back down the hill to the hotel. We discovered they had given us an upstairs room, which for us is not normally an issue as we are old but fit. ||Surprise, surprise, the place has no elevator, and the only way to the upstairs rooms is via a pair of very hard to navigate and potentially dangerous wrought iron circular stairways. It was much like you would expect in a firehouse but without the pole to slide down. The stairway is hard to navigate because the spiral was quite narrow and one is forced to pluck his or her luggage up the winding stairs one stair at a time. It was nearly 95 degrees out and the wrought iron grab rails were too hot to touch. A fall down one of those stairways could easily result in severe injury even if you were quick enough to grab a handful of scalding hot wrought iron! This is the wine country after all, and patrons could be expected to attempt those stairways in the dark or in the heat, making drunken or sober falling a danger foreseeable to the owners. Needless to say, we drove back to the front desk and demanded a ground floor room…which they would not have been able to give us had we wanted to stay more than the one night we had booked and paid for. At neither the website nor at check-in was the absence of an elevator or the difficulty of the stairs mentioned.||The rooms themselves were well enough appointed, but it was mainly looks only. While the bed was quite comfortable, the air conditioner was situated near the ceiling so that while asleep, you were bombarded all night long by a constant stream of cold air. The bathroom in the upstairs unit they tried at first to give us consisted of one room containing a large shower (normally a good thing)…next to a toilet and a sink with very little countertop space…and a glass door through which a user of the toilet had absolutely no privacy. If your idea of bonding with your partner is to share his or her bathroom activites, then this arrangement would be the place for you. Myself, I had enough of that kind of stuff during my stay with the U.S. Army. How expensive is it for these guys to build a separate water closet? The downstairs room did have frosted glass in the bathroom, but the door had to be held open by a fake plant in a pot which had to be moved in order for the user of the bathroom to shut the door. There was no space anywhere for a hand towel or two to be hung. The knobs in the multi-directional shower were very hard to figure out and could have resulted in a scalding injury to someone too small or inattentive to figure the thing out in time. There was a nice Keurig coffee maker in the room along with a small refrigerator, but there was no microwave. The AC outlets were serviceable but not terribly convenient for the tech devices we all have in this world, as there were no USB ports anywhere. I mention this, because someone built this hotel from scratch and either didn’t know what they were doing or didn’t care.||The pool area was modern and nice and had a covered area where one could get out of the hot Texas sun.||At $300 per night, this place left a lot to be desired. We won’t be back, and sincerely hope that as the area grows new, thoughtful hoteliers come along. Maybe the owners of this place, themselves, will actually spend a little money to make the place more inviting and safe...

Please read the reviews! I wish I had done that before we booked. Especially the responses from the husband owner who takes charge of the hotel. I’ll start at the beginning. I’ve been going to the 290 castle winery for years, and was even a member at one point, and loved it! I remember when the hotel wasn’t even there, and couldn’t wait for it to open. Valentines weekend was approaching, so what a perfect time to book a really cool looking room and enjoy the jacuzzi. We normally get a room in Fredericksburg with a heated pool and jacuzzi but they were booked. So my husband booked a suite through booking.com When we arrived, we were told at the hotel to go to the castle to check in by another guest. So we drove back to the top and met “the manager” of the hotel and got a key. When we get to our room we realize just how small these rooms actually are. “I thought we got a suite?” I asked my husband. After checking our online account, sure enough. So okay let’s just enjoy the night and hit the hot tub. The hot tub is cold water! Not even on. So my husband calls the number on the paper in the room and the guy that answers says he’ll come down. He says he’ll cut it on and when asked how long it might take his response was, “Come on work with me. I don’t control the weather.” Okay. Now I’m realizing we paid over $300 a night for a basic room with no jacuzzi, no microwave, no safe, not even an ice machine, and then be treated disrespectfully for wanting to enjoy an amenity advertised online. So I called and spoke with him to cancel our second night and see if we could get a refund. He said leave the key in the room when you leave after he was rude on the phone. So we went back to the castle the next morning when they opened to do a proper check out like normal hotels do. Mind you the Bentley is a motel, not a hotel. Anyways, the wife seemed clueless about everything initially, then tried to say her husband was just having a bad week. She said all of her rooms were suites… no ma’am. The 2 suites they have are at the end by the parking lot. They’re 2 story and that’s not what key we were given. Unbelievable! Anyways she agreed to give us a refund for the night we weren’t going to stay and offered a glass of wine. The least they could do for being talked to so badly, and put in a cheaper room. Only to find out 2 weeks later she never gave us the refund so my husband had to call and go back and forth again to finally get it. Never ever will I even go back to that MOTEL or the castle. Word spreads better than advertising and explains why there were only 3 couples in that motel on Valentine’s weekend. In a prime location it should have been full. Until he learns how to treat people, he will never succeed at being a hotelier. Find someone who’s actually got some southern hospitality in their blood to run this place, not St Louis attitude. Wrong place for that behavior if you want success. It’s not the customers trying to enjoy such a great idea that will ruin you. Self...

Amazing atmosphere and was very welcoming the minute we arrived. We were able to check in early which was terrific. The manager found out we were doing a wine tasting and gave us a few chocolates on him. The female manager went and got ice for us and even turned on the hot tub jets Thursday night for my fiance.

Room was very clean and bed comfortable. Shower was terrific except there was no body wash in room.

We stayed in the Frank Sinatra Room and it was spectacular. Only downside was the record player didn’t work, but may have just been for looks.

Internet did go out around 11pm which caused tv to not to work but could have been due to storm that came through.

The pool bar area was open to us and gave us access to the tv’s and the restroom had towels for you at the pool.

Jets and heater on hot tub typically do not come on till Friday and Saturday and do not come on during the day which was a downside.

I 100% recommend this hotel to anyone passing through. We will 100%...