Purple Sage Motel — Hotel in Panguitch

We stayed here over Memorial Day weekend on our visit to Bryce National Park. Because of our family size, we reserved and paid for 2 rooms on Booking.com. When we arrived, they said that they don't accept credit card payments online, so we'd have to pay for the rooms again onsite. I thought that was really strange but went ahead and paid for the rooms again. I had also requested 2 rooms next to each other, conjoined if possible (they don't have conjoined rooms) but they had us on 2 different floors. They were kind enough to accommodate the change so we had the 2 rooms next to each other. One of the rooms was fairly clean, but smelled really bad. It was kind of a burning oil smell that came from the ancient heater/AC unit built into the back wall. It was pretty cold outside, so we had to keep the heater blowing. The second room was filthy, and the water valve to the toilet was closed. We soon found out why. The water would run constantly when turned on due to a non-functional floater in the tank. We would sit off the water when we left for the day, but otherwise we just lay it run, which was pretty noisy. We also had to kill a few spiders in that room, which didn't even look like it had been dusted for weeks. My guess is that they weren't reserving that room because of the toilet issues, so they hadn't bothered cleaning it, but because they were booked out for Memorial Day, it was the only way to give us 2 rooms together. In the end, we had to call Booking.com to get a refund for the double payment. They were very professional and apologized for the problem. They said they would have to educate the owners to help them understand how the payments work through their site so it won't happen again...

Promised a specific room rate, but charged a much higher rate at check in. Was then told she made a mistake and would correct it. I asked for a copy upon checkout. The door to the office was locked just before 9 am when we were ready to check out. I had to call and get her out of bed. She seemed put out and explained she would do it. I had her do it while we stood there. I’m very glad I didn’t pay full price as the place was a dive. Walls are paper thin, plumbing was difficult to work with, ice machine not working, the walkway on the second story was old, rickety, uneven and was a little scary to walk on. Our door handle was extremely difficult to lock. The TV was very small and hard to figure out the channels. Beds were comfortable, but had a musty odor to the room. We have since had the original charge that was voided the day we checked out, charged to our account a second time. So, the owner not only charged us the higher rate, then voided it when we checked out and put a charge through for the correct amount, but put the original erroneous charge back on our card. We have been charged over double for our stay. We have reported it as a fraudulent charge and are trying to get it removed. I sent an email to the owner letting her know we’d seen the charge come through again and that we were reporting her. What a mess. A very dishonest owner. Stay away...

Visiting the purple sage is a must for anyone who appreciates nostalgic design, customer service and/or wants a great night’s sleep!

The exterior is gorgeous. The buildings are white painted brick + sienna red doors + freshly painted white door trim. They’re accented with an adorable white table and chairs set just outside every door. The buildings also have amazing details like neon & marquee-style ‘MOTEL’ signs on the roof tops.

It’s not only beautiful, but the service is beyond compare. Checking in feels like you’ve arrived at your favorite aunt’s house. The woman who runs the Purple Sage also works at the front desk, and greets you with radiating love and kindness.

Best of all, we slept wonderfully thanks to a very clean room, and comfortable beds. Our beds also had matching floral quilts that gave it an extra homey touch, and added to the comfort of the stay.

This isn’t a motel in a traditional sense, it’s more of a bed and breakfast..without the breakfast but all of the love and hospitality.

If you’re in the area, don’t bother staying...