The Schoolhouse Hotel — Hotel in White Sulphur Springs

This is an amazing hotel and I truly wanted to give it a higher rating. The building is an old school, circa 1912, that has been completely renovated into a beautiful boutique hotel, the first of its kind according to the website. It is the only 100% ADA compliant hotel in the world and I am incredibly proud that it was built in my home state of West Virginia. ||THE GOOD:||The hotel is conveniently located a short distance from The Greenbrier entrance. The decor is beautiful and I love that they kept the history and theme with the renovation. The rooms are named after classrooms. We stayed in a king deluxe, room 108, which was Sociology. The room next to us, which was very close & oddly positioned, was 106, Home Economics. More about that later…|There is a rooftop bar that would have been amazing if we had gone in season. |There is an on-site restaurant which we did not dine at only because we had dinner plans elsewhere, but the reviews make it sound amazing. There was a full bar in the restaurant area. The staff was very friendly and personable. The hotel is definitely ADA compliant & it seems as no expense was spared. There are even stairs in the corridors to the rooms that convert into ramps/platforms. The technology in the rooms is pretty amazing & very Euro-style. I have seen others complain about the technology and I think part of that is based on comfort level although there are some legitimate issues that we noticed as well (more about that later). It is probably not a good fit for someone who is not tech savvy. |The bed was very comfortable with nice bedding and plenty of pillows. The room and common grounds were clean. The curtains & window blind are electronic & the button is beside the bed on the wall. This is a cool concept and reminds me of rooms we have stayed in Las Vegas. There is an Echo Show in each room (also mentioned in The Ugly).|You have the ability to control the thermostat with the television. There is a pool, fitness room, and even a meditation room.||THE BAD:||The shower had no shelving. While there were wall mounted dispensers containing shampoo, conditioner & body wash, not everyone uses hotel dispensers due to fear of tampering or if they have allergies or hair treatments which require special shampoo. I also use a specific face wash and there was no area to place items such as this or razors, etc. There is a small folding bench in the shower for someone with a disability or inability to stand for long periods of time/to shower; however, when it is folded down you aren’t able to stand under the shower head. |Because the bathroom door is electronic and opens/closes automatically, the shower steam stays confined in the bathroom for a long period of time. You don’t have the ability to leave the bathroom door open or ajar. I could be incorrect, but I am fairly certain there was no exhaust fan. |The bathroom lighting leaves a lot to be desired. I applied my makeup in very dim lighting and felt like I looked like was going to a nightclub rather than breakfast when I went outside in natural lighting. ||*THE UGLY:||There are TWO lights in the main hotel room. These lights are controlled with a button in the entryway or by the bed. Due to this being the only light in the room (aside from the bathroom), if someone is lying in bed, the light is directly above their eyes. Since there is only one lighting option, you can’t see to walk around without some sort of light. Nightstand lamps would have been nice…even wall mounted lighting above the nightstands with separate switches. I mentioned the electronic bathroom door previously so I will address the worst part of that here: the bathroom door can only be opened by waving your hand in front of a sensor. This activates the door and opens it. Very shortly (and loudly) after, the door closes automatically. This is a great idea until someone has to get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. Imagine if you were staying with a chronic urinator or a diabetic…|I mentioned the Echo Show in the room. This is a very nice concept; however, having owned numerous Echo devices I have noticed that the Show device has much more bass than the Dot. The walls between rooms were already thin enough to hear the conversation in the next one, but add to that a device with a speaker that is known for bass & don’t expect to get any rest. We first listened to their television shows and they then decided to play some tunes. It is one of those situations where you can’t make out the song because all you hear is monotonous and continuous bass. After being kept up late, our Home Ec neighbors decided to get up bright and early to play yet another round of bass. To put this into perspective, I wear earplugs when sleeping every night. I had earplugs in my ears and their music still woke me up. |The toilet with bidet is a very nice addition to the room; however, it requires a remote control which is mounted on the wall beside the toilet paper. There is a printed notification hanging on the wall informing you that you will be purchasing a rather expensive bidet remote should it be broken or damaged. Considering the remote is the only way to flush said toilet, I don’t recommend this property to those with small children that may be...

5 Stars for The Schoolhouse Hotel which is less than a mile down road from The Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs, WV. The Schoolhouse Hotel is America's first fully handicap access hotel, but you don't need to be handicapped to enjoy this unique hotel.

In the large lobby, Madison was super nice and helpful in getting me squared away. Oranges were there for the taking and in the morning there was a pastry table with an assortment of wonderful, flaky pastries and rich black coffee. I left a trail of crumbs that Hansel and Gretel could have followed me back to my room. Mummmmmmm -Good.

You could happily choose to dine in the dining room and bar area, but I never got past the pastries.

Walter, a friendly staff member, gave me a guided tour through the building. The Schoolhouse has a rich and wet history since its 1912 opening and the 9 inches of rain that flooded the town.

MEETING ROOMS: There are several meeting rooms. My company held their annual "ThanksMas" (Thanksgiving & Christmas) dinner on The Schoolhouse Hotel basketball court. The food service reminded me of an exquisite restaurant in France. The food was artfully displayed, served, and delicious.

The Schoolhouse Hotel has a "Teacher's Lounge" meeting room with an assortment of current novels and the School Yearbook "1952 Devils Diary" (the school team was called the Green Devils). I was told that members of the Army recently held a conference in the Teacher's Lounge.

There is also a rooftop meeting area with a great view of the White Sulphur Springs area. The morning I took pictures it was 28 degrees with frost covering the roof.

ROOMS: I was privileged to stay a few days in one of the thirty remarkable hotel rooms (My room was the "Art" room). The Schoolhouse was originally built in 1912, so the ceilings and windows are high and the room cheery. While the outside of the schoolhouse is old fashioned brick, the rooms inside are totally modern.

A large screen TV remote operates the large window curtains, A/C, TV and other features. Wave your hand by the bathroom door and it slides open and shuts like in Star Trek. The bidet toilet opens and flushes automatically and has more features than I thought was possible included a heated seat. The bad thing about the bidet was the night I didn't wear my glasses and pushed a wrong button... SURPRISE!

Walter showed me one of the hotel suites which was very impressive.

MEDITATION ROOM: To soothe the body, mind, and spirit, there is a Meditation Room with mood lights, a bubbling fish lamp, yoga mat, bean bag, tent, etc. for grownups to relax and Autistic children enjoy.

WORKOUT ROOM: There is also a workout room with a weight machine and several walk to nowhere treadmills which are helpful in burning off a few pastry calories.

PARKING: There are 4 handicapped parking spaces and 12 lined parking spaces around the hotel. Next door is the Emmanuel United Methodist Church and parking is permitted in the church's parking lot. Of course, there is street parking available so parking should not be a concern.

AIRPORT: I flew into the Greenbriar Valley Airport/Lewisburg (LWV) with American Airlines and Contour Airlines. It is only 13 miles to The Schoolhouse Hotel. I used from Enterprise Rent -A-Car. They have a booth at the airport, but an airline staff called them and they picked me up in less than 5 minute. There are drop off parking spaces and a key drop box for after hours drop off such as weekends.

If you are in the Greenbrier area and want a quieter and less expensive 5 Star experience than the massive Greenbrier Resort, please check out The Schoolhouse Hotel, 125 Schoolhouse Way, White Sulphur Springs, WV 24986. You will be glad you did. Tell 'em...

Great concept, poor execution. I love to stay at these types of boutique or unique hotels. I have stayed in may similar hotels throughout the world. Many of the accessible features of this hotels are standard fair in other parts of the world and even the US. One big difference here is the functionality of these features. The fun and usefulness of the automatic bathroom doors wore off quickly. Beyond that, I'd argue there is a safety issue at hand... Our eight year old son managed to lock the door in the bathroom (same door that lock had not worked for beginning portion of stay) Upon successful locking, he was stuck in the bathroom as the mechanical lock became stuck. Additionally, the motorized door was trying to open and making a horrific sound that scared our son and family as we suspected he was stuck somehow in the door mechanism. If our son can get tangled up in the thing, I can't imagine how this would be useful for any disabled person. The bathroom door in the other room also had issues, the safety curtain that's meant to keep the door from closing did not fully work. Only the upper pair of sensors worked, so a short person or wheelchair bound person may experience unexpected door closure while in the door threshold.

We stayed in rooms 201 and 203. Two largest suites in the hotel. Each room was plenty roomy, with separated living room that contained additional TV, mini fridge, seating area and counter space. The beds were comfy and furniture was standard modern hotel affair... not luxury by any means, it was a step above Ikea or other trendy furniture, the wall mounted TV stands suffered from typical particle board construction with misaligned doors and pulls. No big deal here... just not in line with the over $300 per room price tag.

Room 203 was directly under several large HVAC air handling units and directly above some VERY loud equipment with a pump or other motorized unit running every 30 minutes or so. I did not sleep well with this noise droning on all night long.

Overall, the technology for lighting, AC controls, etc. was interesting but not well integrated. Switches for lighting, automatic curtains, etc. were scattered throughout the room. For instance, our King suite had lighting controls on one side of bed and curtain controls on the other. If only one person (disabled or not) were in the bed alone, it would be a task to access both sets of controls. It seemed impossible to turn off bedroom lights without also turning off lights in the bathroom. We experienced this accidently when turning off main room lights and accidently turning off bathroom lights while a family member was alone in the bathroom. This does not seem very intuitive and even a bit unsafe...

The best part of our stay was the dinner in the Varsity Club Restaurant. The food was good including a couple nice cocktails and desserts. I might stop for dinner when passing through in the future, but will likely avoid another hotel stay.

I should also note that all staff members were very friendly...