The Hotel Rhea — Hotel in Walnut Ridge

I like this hotel. It's quaint. It is managed by Williams Baptist University and run by students. I was passing through for one night and stayed here at the recommendation of a friend who is a professor. It was $100 per night which I thought was a good price.

There are 4 rooms in the hotel. I stayed in Lizzie's office, which is spacious. There is a living room area with couch, chair, board games, and a TV. There is a small kitchen area (microwave and sink) behind it with a small table and a coffee maker. The bedroom is on the other side of the suite and has a TV as well. The bathroom is pretty big but the shower is a bit small for a tall person. I suggest packing your own body wash as only one small bar of soap is provided (shampoo, conditioner, and lotion are provided as well) for hand washing and showering.

The hotel is located right downtown and loud trains pass by so there is a significant amount of outside noise and light but I still managed to sleep well. The bed was comfortable. Instead of a modern hotel style comforter the bed has quilts (again, it's quaint) which I thought was neat. Overall, the room was pretty clean and I had everything I needed for my stay.

Check in consists of receiving an email with a code to open the door to the building (there is no lobby to speak of). The room key is found in envelope with your name on it on the entry table. There is no attendant so this is not a hotel where one can just walk in and get a room. Reservations must be made on the website. The hotel provides a phone number to call an attendant if attention is needed in your room.

There is one room with outside entry but the other three rooms are up a flight of stairs. It's an old building so the hallway is hot but the rooms themselves are cool, having both AC and ceiling fans. Parking can be easy to miss if your drive by the building too fast but there is ample parking in a side lot.

Overall, if something brings you to the small town of Walnut Ridge I think Hotel Rhea is the...

WoW! This was an awesome find for an overnight on a long road trip, with an extremely spacious space that included a small kitchen area, sitting area with sofa, massive bathroom, and nice cold A/C ... a fireplace you could run without heat. Coffee in the morning from the Kuerig topped off a good night of sleep in this quiet room. Everything was perfect. The entrance was a little bit of a challenge to find, but we did arrive at dusk. The trains warned about in other reviews were no issue at all. Indeed, the few that rolled through only partially woke us, and the rhythmic rumble of wheels on track set us right back to sleep. I wish we could have stayed longer to have a closer look at the surrounding community. A binder in the room provided all sorts of interesting little facts about the people and the history of the hotel and area. The only downside turned out to be that most of the local breakfast type places had closed up for this post-4th-of-July date. Black Rock offered a good hometown breakfast a short 10 minutes down the road. We look forward to...

We stayed here with our children. I love history so this historical hotel was super fun for me! We stayed in the suite with 2 bedrooms a little kitchen & a living room. Our kids played a few games in front of the faux fireplace. It was very peaceful. The 1 thing I think they could add is complimentary ear plugs for the train noise! It didn't bother me, but it did wake me up a few times. I was able to go back to sleep easily each time. I asked my kids if the trains bothered them & they said they didn't hear a thing! Our room was clean & homey. Not modern, but it felt like being a guest at someone's home! The only little thing about cleanliness was it looked line out could use a good vacuuming. It wasn't horrible, I won't deduct stars for it. The best thing about this hotel was that I felt safe! We'd had a crime committed outside our hotel the night before & coming here for the night was such a...