The Blackburn Inn and Conference Center — Hotel in Staunton

Other than the location, which is a short walk from dining and shopping in the downtown district, I would avoid this overpriced former hospital and jail at all costs. The room was lightly furnished. By that, I mean it had a bed wedged into one end of the room and a single ratty chair. There were two TVs, and a desk, small fridge, and Keurig as well. No carpets to warm the concrete floor. A small hanger for coats. No dresser, but two large window ledges to place your clothes, if you want your stuff sitting out the entire time. On my side of the bed, there was barely six inches between the bed and wall, so I kept getting stuck! Oddly, the bathroom was fantastic. It was about 1/2 the size of the rest of the room, large glass rainfall shower, dual sinks. The bathroom was great, but the towels were extremely scratchy. ALL THIS FOR OVER $200 PER NIGHT, AND WE HAD PERHAPS THE LOWEST RATE! (I ran into several other guests who had the same complaint. ||Also, no daily made service, unless you either stayed for more than 3 days or asked between 8-4 at the front desk. We did not know this until we came back from sightseeing on day 2 to find our room was not refreshed. ||Our room (room 100) should be avoided. It is by the parking lot entrance on the first floor and is the only room not separated from the passageway by a glass door. Therefore, we heard everyone coming and going all night. Moreover, the wooden stairs from the 2nd floor terminate right outside the room, so--you guessed it--clop, clop, clop down the stairs, usually early in the morning. Maybe a small sign on the 2nd floor landing to ask patrons to be quiet might have helped or at least been a thoughtful gesture by the hotel.||If you stay there, skip the gym. It is in a building reserved for condo owners and you need to check out a fob at the desk to access it. That isn't a problem, but the gym itself is lacking! One bike was broken, and there are now wipes to clean off the equipment. One condo owner ran for over an hour on the treadmill and promised to come back and clean it up. (Never happened. It was still dripping his sweat 40 mins later.) I could have wiped it down (or he could have) if there were wipes available, as there are in even most chain hotels.||You can also skip breakfast or dining in the hotel. The Second Draft lounge/restaurant/bistro (whatever) is about 6 tables. The day we ate there, only one person was staffing it. He did his best to feed the room quickly, making coffee, cooking, serving, and checking you out, but you are better off eating downtown or at Kathy's, which is about a mile away and a favorite of locals.||Finally, if you own an EV, this last part is laughably sad. The desk told me where to find the EV destination charger. It was a 110v outlet located behind a couple of breaker boxes. Fortunately, I had my 110v adapter and was able to get 5 mi/hr out of the "charger".||In closing, try somewhere else. It is obvious that the hotel had raised its prices to gouge customers during the weekend run of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (which was fantastic). You can get something much better for about the same price elsewhere in town or at one of the Bed &...

We stopped here unexpectedly after a day of hiking. We had planned to drive 3 hours back home, but were pretty tired and did not want to make our 1 year old and dog sit in the car any longer. I came across this hotel because it was kid and dog friendly, but the history (more on that later) piqued our interest.

We got there somewhat late, around 9pm. From the moment I got there, without a reservation might I add, the staff was outstanding. The suite we wanted wasn’t available, but we were upgraded free of charge to a bigger room, which was so kind. The next morning the staff entertained our baby while she burnt some energy before our drive home and were once again SO kind. I have been to hundreds of hotels across 46 states and the staff at this location was easily the sweetest I have ever had the pleasure of meeting.

The room: My only criticism and reason for 4 stars rather than 5 was that the shower could use some love (like extra extra love). I’m not sure if there is hard water in the town, but it was pretty bad with orange, pink, and black all over the floor/ lower wall. The inner shower curtain was also orange. We didn’t let our baby touch the floor during her shower because it was so gross. I did see another review with pictures about this, so this appears to be an ongoing issue that needs to be addressed. Otherwise, the room was great. Upgraded while maintaining the original features of the building. Overall, the building was beautifully upgraded without taking away from the original charm. Sounds from other guests wasn’t loud at all like a lot of the other reviews I have seen said. The fridge made some loud noises every few hours, but it wasn’t a huge deal. The pillows were very soft, so if you need firmer pillows you may need to bring your own!

The history: I saw a handful of reviews upset about the history of this Inn. Personally, I found it quite easy to find information on this location and what it was in the past. For those who feel they were lied to, I’m shocked you didn’t consider the history of a clearly historical building even if the hotel did not mention anything about it. At check in I was pointed to a historical guide, which I appreciated as both a history “nerd” and someone in the psych/medical field. The current owners do only touch on the more palatable history, but their goal isn’t to be know as a haunted sight, rather to be a boutique inn. This is INCREDIBLY common, especially on the east coast, so to say they are trying to erase or cover up history is a stretch. There are without a doubt sad things that occurred here, but that is true for most of the land in Virginia as a whole. We did notice construction near the cemetery and hope that whoever owns that part of the land chooses to allow the many unmarked graves to continue to rest in peace.

For anyone wondering if it is haunted: we did get some weird vibes as the night went on, but nothing major to note. If you consider yourself an empath you may feel the heaviness from what it was...

We chose this particular Inn because the price was a great value compared to other motels in Staunton. If the price had been higher like the other places in town the rating would have been lower. However, we felt that for what we got it was a great value + nice enough spot that it warrants the four stars.

What we liked The parking lot was fairly empty, keyless entry, loved the water dispenser next to the ice machine.. why don't more motels do this? Nice sitting areas. Loved the history of the building and being able to explore the building was a lot of fun for us since we like old buildings a lot. The room had a Keurig and a refrigerator. It had a television with Dish Network and a channel guide.

Special mention is the bathroom because it was so very large in comparison to the rest of the bedroom. There was a full size shower stall with a rain shower head in the center and the pressure was lovely. There was an unusual amount of floor space in the center of the bathroom and it was luxurious feeling in that respect.

What we didn't love The room was just very tiny for us. There was a queen-sized bed and a night table on either side and that was the total of the room's width! It wasn't much deeper than it was wide. It truly was tiny. The tiniest room I've ever been in.

There was no closet, just three hooks on the wall. There was only one place to set luggage down, which was a foldable luggage table. We had two suitcases so the second one had to sit on the window ledge, which was almost deep enough, but not quite.

When you walked into the room there was a very narrow hallway with the bathroom straight ahead when you walk in and then the tiny room containing the bed and night tables at the end of the hall. The queen-sized bed was minimally made up and was comfortable enough although I did wake up with a new backache. It wasn't my favorite mattress but it wasn't terrible.

Dirt.... My husband found a coin on the floor, which kind of indicates to us that they didn't do a good job sweeping up. He also noticed a spider web in the hall doorway. He does not typically notice or mention things like this so that's saying something. Everything else seemed clean enough.

Noise! We were extremely tired and we were looking forward to a nice quiet night of sleep, but it was not to be. We fell asleep around 10:30 and we were woken up not very long afterwards, likely around 11:00. My guess is that there was a family that checked in late and they were in the room above us walking around and getting settled and it took them quite a while. But the annoying part is that the floor above was very squeaky and apparently not carpeted and the folks had some shoes on and they were very clunky and squeaky and through no fault of their own they were...