The Devlin — Hotel in Town of North Elba

We recently visited Lake Placid for a few days, starting the day after Christmas 2018. We had been there once before with our kids about 10 years ago, and now that they are 21 and 22, they wanted to go skiing and see the Olympic sites. I also wanted to go skiing as I have not ski'd in over 30 years, having grown up in the Hunter Mountain area. We rented two rooms, one for me and my wife, and one for the kids.

Art Devlin's is great. You often hear people say they want three things from a lodging facility: 1) quiet 2) clean 3) comfortable. This has all of the above. They are able to strike that unique balance between old school motor inn and modern, comfortable hotel. Yes, the decor is a bit rustic, but it reminds you of where you are: Lake Placid, home of two Olympic games. It's just close enough to town that it's an enjoyable 10-15 minute walk to the far end of town, so there's no need to taxi or Uber if having drinks. The beds are very comfortable, and in fact I often wake up with something a little sore when staying at a hotel, and I did not have that problem on this trip. The rooms are very dark and we did not hear a single noise during the night. No cars, no footsteps, no toilets flushing, no doors closing, no air handling unit cycling on and off.

The amenities, while not amazing, are good enough. The coffee and donuts in the lobby are enough to hold you over to a real breakfast, but it's quaint in it's setup. While I was sipping my coffee in the lobby I was looking at the sizable trophy and photo case which includes a small write-up of Art Devlin's interesting life. The WiFi is overall reliable, decent speed and decent coverage, which was helpful because the cellular coverage was not great in much of the area. The shower head is about eyeball level, but the water pressure is great. The maid service gave the room a fresh feeling every day. The physical room keys are a nice reminder of the days when things were not so electronic.

Overall, we chose Art Devlin's because it had the best combination of price and positive reviews. I can say we were pleasantly surprised and we will likely be staying here on our next trip. Thank you to the hotel staff for a pleasant stay. We really love...

This lodging has very variable rates, and I was able to book a King room for $120/night over the weekend before xmas. For that very reasonable rate we had a huge room (no. 9), with parking right outside. Not all the rooms have parking right outside. A couple great things about this room is that it's behind the main hotel, and you don't hear any traffic noise at all. Another great thing is that the fridge is in the bathroom. One may think that a fridge in the bathroom is odd, but it is great because you can close the bathroom door and you don't hear the fridge at all while you're trying to sleep. However, you do hear clunking from upstairs when the guests are walking around. That wasn't a problem, since there was no clunking during sleeping hours. At no time did we hear any talking from rooms beside or above us.||I had read that the breakfast wasn't great, so I brought our own breakfast food, but in the lobby you can get hot water and tea, or coffee, anytime. The breakfast was mainly sweet stuff: donuts, muffins, packaged waffles, boxes of sugary cereal, sweet yogurt. They did have multigrain bread and a toaster, with jam and butter on offer, as well as a kind of breakfast sandwich in a croissant, but not the type of croissant that you will find at a French bakery.||Front desk staff was very pleasant. The location is perfect, just a couple minute walk to the main stretch of "downtown" Lake Placid. We went skating at the outdoor oval 2 evenings that we were there, which was fun and a 5 minute walk...

Until this past week, we hadn't stayed here since the 1980s. The location, at the edge of Lake George Village, means that you can easily walk to the many attractions, shops, and restaurants in town. Our room featured a balcony that afforded views of the Olympic ski jump complex at Intervale.

The room was understandably older in design and furnishings, but clean and comfortable. Service was accommodating. So, why the 3 star rating instead of 4 or 5? No housekeeping for our 4 day/3 night stay. We were told that at check-in, but still, for what we paid, taking out our own trash and walking across the parking lot to trade old towels for new wasn't exactly what we expected. I understand that staffing is an issue in most places...I understand that there are new owners now, and the Devlin family isn't running the place any longer. I met the new GM who started 2 months ago, and he was friendly, but I really felt there should have been some sort of monetary adjustment for being self-service when it came to staying here.

Will we return? Yes. It's still a nice place. But will we hope for more of a hotel experience next...