Hello Everyone.  For my last foodie post, I covered the Italian neighborhood known as “The Hill”  which is within 2 miles West of The Mansion.  This time, we are going East.  St. Louis city is made up of 79 named and unique neighborhoods.  We are located in Compton Heights and close to us are the neighborhoods of Fox Park, Benton Park, Lafayette Park (seeing a theme here?), and Soulard.  Sprinkled in and amongst the houses of these neighborhoods near us is a wealth of amazing restaurants which we have taken upon ourselves to try and make sure they are OK to recomm ..read more

Hello everyone!!   This is becoming the #1 inquiry for our phone calls so I thought I would put the answer in writing.  Mark, otherwise known as “the husband” really does the cooking.  How lucky am I?  Right?   If you stay with us, you will have a trained personal chef prepare your breakfast for you every morning.  Let me tell you his story.   The husband chose to follow his dream and leave the corporate world behind.  He enrolled in the Iowa Culinary Institute at age 58.  I am so proud of him for overcoming the anxiety of going back ..read more

Hello Everyone. Before we ever moved into The Mansion, I started hearing about “The Hill”.  Everyone was mentioning how great it would be that we were so close to “The Hill”.  On our first night, Mark said – “let’s head over to The Hill for a bite to eat”.  I’m not exactly sure what I was expecting?  An uphill drive with a great elevation until we reached the top and there was a nirvana of restaurants?  A shopping mall called The Hill where there were only restaurants?  On that first night we drove down Shaw Blvd and stopped when we saw the neon sign “Guido’s”.&nb ..read more

Hello  everyone! Thank you so much for sticking with us during the last 20 month adventure and reading about the ups and downs of innkeeping.  As you all know, I have shared with you all the things we didn’t know about this business and what we have learned along the way.  You will start seeing the hashtag #stayexclusive on our social media posts.  One of the things we underestimated was the power of social media.  As of today, we are 23, yes 23,  followers short of 2000. Hooray!   We have begged and pleaded with all our family, friends, and guests to li ..read more

Hello everyone!  This is a follow up to my (very snarky) previous post.  I promise to be less snarky this time……… Yes.  I still get phone calls frequently asking this question.  “So, what do I get?”.  I don’t ever recall a time in my life that I called a lodging establishment (Ritz, Four Seasons, Intercontinental, Holiday Inn,  etc.) and asked this question.  Never.  So, needless to say, it still causes me to stumble a bit.    Usually, they follow up the question with the obvious statement:  “I’ve never stayed in a Bed and Breakfast before ..read more

Hello everyone!   No kids allowed.  Let me explain…… This is one of our policies that I get asked constantly to bend the rules on.  It’s not that we don’t like kids – Mark and I have 8 between us!  It is because we recognize the importance of reconnecting.   We are known as one of the most romantic places to stay in St. Louis.  Romance cannot be guaranteed if you hear children doing what children do.  We want to create an atmosphere where couples can leave the stresses of everyday life behind and come together again and enjoy the things about each o ..read more

Hello Everyone!   October found us for the first time as Innkeepers with a dilemma to choose between business and family.  The reason we left the corporate world so long ago was to be our own bosses and be able to make these decisions guilt free.  And so we did!  Or we tried.  The pandemic didn’t make it as easy as we would have liked to turn down reservations and income in a time of low occupancy, but we would not have changed a thing.   We closed the Inn for two weekends so we could attend family weddings in Iowa and Florida.  We were so grateful ..read more

Hello everyone!   Mark and I feel it is an obligation to our guests to eat out often.  How else can we gain the knowledge to speak with confidence in recommending wonderful dining out experiences for our guests?  I know, I know……it is a really tough job, but someone has to take one for the team.  It was a little challenging this year with shutdowns, but we we were able to push through and put together our best list.   Best pizza:  Guido’s Pizzeria and Tapas (https://guidosstl.com/ )  This was our first meal in St. Louis the evening we moved into the ..read more

We made it!   Happy one year anniversary to us!!  When we closed on the business a year ago this past week and welcomed our first guests, little did we know what a crazy year it would be.  Through all the ups and downs;  accomplishments and setbacks;  and  learning to manage our expectations, we have not regretted our decision once.  We are grateful to YOU, our guests for trusting us with your stay, your safety, and your memories.   Thank you for overlooking our dust renovations, small electrical sparks, and stuck pocket doors.  Thank YOU ..read more

Happy August everyone!  Our grandsons from Seattle visited us recently and I thought it would be nice to get a few Koi fish for our little pond in the backyard.  It would be something they could “help” me with.  Needless to say,  I know NOTHING about garden ponds or Koi fish.  I can clean a fish and fry it up in a pan, but that is not the goal here.   I went to the pond store (yes, there is a pond store), picked out the cutest fish, and was telling the pond guy about my big plans.  And then he says, “the fastest way to kill a fish is to have a grandchild ..read more