000-000-0000 · desk open 7am to 10pm
Woodside, Queens · since 2012
Fifteen rooms in a 1926 brick house with a walled garden behind it, two minutes from a station that reaches Grand Central in eighteen minutes and Times Square on a train that runs all night. Breakfast is cooked and it is in the rate, for everybody in the room. There is no lift, and this website tells you which eleven rooms that matters for.
Each page says which floor it is on, how many stairs that means, which way it faces, how big it actually is — and what the room does not have. That last list is the one worth reading.
from $164 a night
The four ground-floor rooms at the back of the house, each with a sash window that opens onto the garden and very little between you and it. They are the quietest rooms we have, because the garden wall takes the street noise out, and they are the ones people book again.
from $204 a night
Three front rooms on the first floor, each with the original bay window and the deep sills that come with a 1926 house. They are the biggest doubles in the building and the lightest rooms in the morning, and they face the street, which is a trade you should make deliberately.
from $184 a night
The three rooms on the top floor, each with two double beds under a sloping ceiling and a dormer window looking over the rooftops towards the elevated line. They sleep four, which makes them the rooms families and pairs of friends take, and they are two flights up with no lift.
from $304 a night
There is one of these. It runs the full depth of the top floor, with a king bed at the garden end and a sitting area at the street end, and it is the only room in the building with a bath you can lie down in. It takes a two-night minimum all year, which is stated here and enforced by the booking engine rather than mentioned at checkout.
Six things, and none of them is a fee with a friendly name. The total on the booking page is the total.
Not a continental tray and not a voucher. Eggs done how you ask, bread from the bakery four blocks away, fruit, yoghurt, coffee and tea, served in the breakfast room between the hours on the breakfast page. It is in the rate for every guest in the room, including children.
One network, the same speed in every room and in the garden, no charge, no tier and no captive portal to sign into every morning. It is fast enough for video calls from the top floor, which is the test that actually matters.
Ninety feet of walled garden with a terrace, and a front parlour with a fireplace that is lit from October. Both are open to guests all day and neither is bookable, so they are always there.
A kettle, a grinder and decent coffee on each of the three landings rather than a sachet tray in each room. It is a better cup and it means less of what the housekeeping page calls the small plastic problem.
Breakfast is cooked, it is included in every rate for every person in the room, and it is served in the breakfast room at the back of the ground floor with the doors onto the garden open when the weather allows it.
Eggs however you want them, smoked fish, pancakes at the weekend, a vegan plate that is on the list rather than an afterthought, bread from a bakery four blocks away that arrives at half past six. Children eat at no charge. There is no tray, no voucher and no better breakfast to upgrade to.
Most booking pages ask whether one moment is free. This one asks whether a room is free on every night between two dates, which is a harder question and a different piece of software.
Arriving and leaving, adults and children. The number of people changes which room types can take you, so it is asked first rather than at the end. The night you leave is not a night you are charged for.
A room type is offered only if one of that type is free on every night of your stay. If the Wednesday in the middle is full, the stay is not available — and rather than a bare no, the page shows you the ranges near your dates that do work.
Each night is priced on its own — the room's rate, plus the weekend uplift if it is a Friday or a Saturday, plus or minus the season. You see the nights listed with their own numbers before you enter a name, and the tax on a separate line under them.
The confirmation e-mail carries two links that need no password: one confirms, one cancels. Cancelling puts every night of the range back for somebody else within the second, which is why we would rather you used the link than left it.
No lift, and eleven of the fifteen rooms are up at least one flight. No car park. No restaurant and no room service. No gym, no pool, no television in any room, and a desk that is staffed until ten at night and no later.
Every one of those is discoverable on arrival, and each of them ruins a stay for somebody. So they are on a page of their own rather than left for you to find out at the door — and a guest who reads it and books anyway has chosen this building for what it is.
The desk closes at ten at night. Check-in is from 3:00pm and the desk is staffed until 10:00pm. Arriving later than that is fine if you telephone before 6:00pm the same evening; arriving later without telling us may mean nobody is here.
The reason a small inn works here. The station at the end of the street is served by two railways, and a room here costs a third of what one in Midtown does.
About eighteen minutes to Grand Central on the rail road, or twenty-five to Times Square on the 7, which runs all night. Both from the same station building at the end of the street.
LaGuardia is about twenty minutes by car, Kennedy about thirty-five. Both are reachable by train from the end of the street, which is why people stay here the night before a flight.
Four blocks of Roosevelt Avenue that people cross the city to eat on, a park five stops east with a science museum and a zoo in it, and a waterfront eleven minutes away.
Check-in is from 3:00pm and somebody is on the desk until 10:00pm every day. If you will arrive after ten, telephone before 6:00pm that evening and we will leave a key in a box and text you the code. If we have not heard from you and you arrive at midnight, there may be nobody in the building. This is the single most useful thing to know about staying here.
Yes, cooked, for every person in the room including children, in the rate. It is served from 7:00am on weekdays and 8:00am at weekends. There is no tray, no voucher and no upgrade to a better breakfast.
The station is two minutes' walk. The Long Island Rail Road takes about eighteen minutes to Grand Central; the 7 train takes about twenty-five to Times Square and runs all night, which the rail road does not. Both leave from the same platform building at the end of the street.
No. Eleven of the fifteen rooms are up at least one flight of the original 1926 stairs. One ground-floor room is step-free from the garden entrance and is described in detail on the accessibility page. If stairs are a problem, book that room or stay somewhere else — we would rather say so now.
Three things move it and each is a flat number you can check: thirty dollars more on a Friday or Saturday night, and a seasonal adjustment on certain date ranges. The booking page lists every night of your stay with its own price before you enter your name.
Free up to three days before the day you arrive. Inside three days we charge the first night. That is the whole policy and it is the same for every room. The confirmation e-mail has a cancel link in it that works without a password.
Fifteen rooms · breakfast included · no lift
Give the form the night you arrive, the morning you leave and how many of you there are. It checks every night of the range rather than the first one, prices each night on its own and shows you the arithmetic before you type a name. If a night in the middle is full it says so and offers you the ranges nearby that do work.