Blakely Hall — Local services in Issaquah

Beware of Renting Blakely Hall in the Issaquah Highlands

On Saturday October 12, 2024, my wife and I rented Blakely Hall in the Issaquah Highlands (operated by the Highlands Council) to host a baby shower for our son and daughter-in-law with about 30 friends and family in attendance. We reserved the hall for 4 hours from 10 AM to 2 PM at an hourly rate of $150, or $600 total for the event. The guests of honor were late arriving at the shower (they had a couple of errands to run), and so we stayed a bit beyond 2 PM to finish cleaning up. A few days later we received an e-mail from the manager of the facility saying that we had stayed an extra 38 minutes. Per their policy, they rounded that up to 1 hour and charged us twice the normal hourly rate for being tardy vacating the facility, or an extra $300. We tried calling them twice to discuss what happened, but they never returned our calls. We then e-mailed them to explain what happened and to see if we could get the overage charge reduced (per their website we could have simply added an extra hour for $150 when we made our reservation). We agreed that an extra $150 was warranted for not leaving by 2 PM but that doubling the charge to $300 seemed punitive and unfair. They replied that doubling the hourly rate as a penalty was their policy and they would not work with us to lower the charge. We never heard from them again. I would caution anyone thinking about using this facility either to look for an alternative venue or at the very least be aware of the onerous way that the facility is managed and plan accordingly. We will certainly never use this facility again or recommend...

Had a wonderful experience working with the staff to host a community event! They really went above and beyond to ensure all of our questions were answers and always found a way accomodate our requests. Beyond that, the space is beautiful and suited our needs perfectly. Huge shout-out to Carol and Lindsay for their support and...

Good convenient place for any social event. It has a nice large kitchen with all required appliances and you can use them for the event. Also has a few outdoor seating and a nice large hall room with an extension room that you can also use...