Cornerstone Inn — Hotel in Washington

My wife & I stayed two nights over the New Year's weekend at Cornerstone Inn in Washington, IL. I had read about the Inn several years ago while looking for accommodations in the Peoria area, but this was our first opportunity to stay & enjoy the property. The building complex is huge with 7 separate & unique bedrooms upstairs, a very good restaurant near street level (site of the breakfasts that come with your room price - a daily voucher per guest should easily cover your tab), and a pub in the basement. All three businesses are owned by the Washington-local property owner couple, Dr. & Mrs. Tom Gross; we met & chatted with Judy during our second breakfast. Their property general manager, Scott, primarily runs the food services; he gave us a grand tour when we arrived before showing us to our guest room. Christine is the property innkeeper, and was very friendly & accommodating during our booking and our stay.||||The listed property address is "101 Washington Square" - a small & attractive downtown business district with several specialty shops to explore - but the Inn entrance is on North Main just off the northwest corner of the square. The North Main door markings are a bit misleading; skip the one with a short staircase from the sidewalk with the "Cornerstone Inn" sign above it, and look for a door by the Peddlers Way alley at the rear of the building with an awning marked “Denhart’s.” There's a small parking pad just outside that door (room for two or maybe three guest cars), and angle parking across North Main. Immediately inside the Inn's entry door you'll find a small elevator & an adjacent short stairway to the right that each lead to the reception space for the Inn. That's where we met Scott, who checked us in while Christine (who lives in an apartment at the Inn) was temporarily off-property. From the reception space, you can either walk up a full flight of stairs or take the painfully slow elevator up to the level where the bedrooms are. It's a bit of a maze up there, laid out in two split levels; but once you are shown to your room it will be easy to find your way in & out for the rest of your stay.||||We stayed in the Garden of Eden Room, with its windows facing west over North Main which escapes the early morning sunshine. The room is large, well furnished (queen bed & three chairs), comfortable & has lots of natural light available as well as individually controlled artificial lights. The en suite bathroom is nearly as large as the bedroom, with a pedestal sink & toilet stool & double whirlpool tub & a separate shower stall plus plenty of floor space to move around. The bedroom closet has sufficient room for hanging & storage during your stay, and there are two small dressers/stands with drawer space (one supporting the small TV). There's plenty of room in the Garden suite to sit & read or otherwise relax. I was especially comforted by the property owners’ attention to guest safety, with a smoke alarm & CO2 detector in the bedroom area and an emergency exit stairway very near the suite exit door. There is a large microwave & a soft beverage stocked mini-fridge in the adjacent Inn laundry room (less than 10 paces up the hall from the Garden bedroom suite and not far from the other guest rooms), which was handy for storing & for preparing our dinner leftovers on our second night. Christine showed me several of the other bedrooms while I was snapping interior photos in the morning, and they were all equally well appointed & roomy & attractively decorated.|| ||We had a very tasty dinner at the property restaurant, Denhart Baking Co, on the evening of our arrival; the lunch/dinner menu is simple - pub-type dishes & appetizers, sharing the menu with the pub below - but the portions are huge (we had enough left to fill us up for reheated dinner in our room upstairs the next evening). We did not try the downstairs pub, but another couple staying at the Inn described it as equally good. The breakfast menu in the restaurant has large portions of very tasty dishes as well, and some delicious looking baked goods if you haven't stuffed yourself already.||||Washington, IL, turned out to be the perfect weekend base location for us to relax & do a little shopping, while still having easy access to our primary weekend tourism activities in Downtown Peoria (just a 20 minute drive each way). The Cornerstone Inn offered a unique guest facility that made our stay comfortable & enjoyable. We plan to skip the hotel options we've tried before in Peoria, and return to the Inn during our next visit...

My husband and I booked two rooms at the Cornerstone Inn as we were traveling with my elderly mother to spend Thanksgiving with friends in a nearby town. We chose this property because of its uniqueness, closeness to shops and reviews that said it was quiet. However, during our 4-day, 3-night stay I kept thinking of a quote from The Grinch, "The noise, noise, noise, noise!" There was more noise in the inn from other guests than what we anticipated; including people coming in to the property and talking and laughing loudly in the halls late in the evening. But the bigger problem came from outside. Late at night there were people coming in and out of the bar located in the basement of the property. They would stand outside by their cars arguing and shouting. Also, the night before Thanksgiving it sounded like there was live music in the bar and the music went on late into the night. Then there are the trucks. We thought that it would be quiet in this small town. However, there must be a FedEx hub nearby because trucks were going through the roundabout at all hours of the day and night, sometimes several trucks in a row. Other traffic was loud as well. It seems as though the town square on which the property is located is a main thoroughfare for the area. We all got very little sleep for the three nights we were there. While the rooms are clean and spacious, the property itself is a bit inconvenient. First, the entrance is not in an obvious place. We had to get help from an employee at the coffee shop located on the main floor to even find it in the dark. Also, the inn does not have its own parking lot. You have to park in a public parking lot nearby. There is a spot where you can park to load and unload for 15 minutes that is right by the door. Then, there are no luggage carts to haul your bags up to the third floor. There is an elevator, but when you get to the third floor you still have to go up an additional six steps to get to the rooms so the property definitely isn't accessible. There is usually no one at the front desk however, two names and phone numbers are provided of people you can call if you need something. When you arrive you find an envelope with your name on it lying on the front counter and it has your room keys in it. The heating/cooling system seems to have a mind of its own and we could not successfully keep the temperature in our rooms regulated as we wanted them. Sometimes the system would run even though we had it turned off! The "breakfast" is a selection of cereals, fruit and prepackaged rolls. Not great but better than nothing. We wish we had stayed at our usual suites hotel. My advice, stay...

I stayed at the Cornerstone Inn for three nights. I had originally planned on staying two nights and on the second night decided to stay an extra night so I could attend a clinic in a nearby town. I called the number for the inn and left a message, Brock got back to me fairly quickly and told me he would have to check to see if my current room would be available. He called back quickly and told me that my current room would be unavailable but he had another room that I could have. I have to say that this Inn is one of the cleanest rooms I have ever stayed in, the bedding and towels are white and I do mean white, no stains or yellowing. The beds were very comfortable, I did eat at the restaurant downstairs one night and it was delicious! The staff that I met were all very friendly and accommodating. The only negatives were that the restaurant is only open Wed thru Sun and I stayed Monday thru Thursday. It would have been nice to have the restaurant option more nights but there are other places to eat in town. The other negative was the traffic noise, because it is on the town square and there are like five or so streets connecting to the square it is understandable, add in that the building is old and I believe has the original windows. If I am ever in the area again I will most assuredly stay at the Cornerstone, the bathrooms are extremely nice, the rooms are clean and well maintained. I LOVED...