Hill House Inn of Mendocino

Everything that has been said already: tired furnishings, some stuff works and some stuff doesn’t, nice grounds, great location. Great potential in indifferent hands. Oh, and the internet blows. Got a speed of 0.12 Mbps, about ¹⁄₅₀ of what crappy ATT gives me at home. Phone couldn’t get on at all so had to go data-​plan only. Wireless is as important as a good bed these days, so its absence really impacts the stay.

I was unsure what to expect after reading some reviews on this hotel. I was more than pleasantly surprised. We got a pet friendly room with a garden view and king bed. The room was very clean, I loved the little touches like antique lamps and blue velvet settee and chair. This is a historic hotel and it was furnished as such. The bed was very comfortable, with lots of nice fluffy pillows even extras in the closet. The grounds are well kept and filled with beautiful flowers. The atmosphere is relaxing and the ocean air refreshes the soul. We didn’t get a chance to try the restaurant so I cannot comment on that. I will say we will absolutely be back. The bargain price of this hotel in comparison with other hotels in the area plus the unique and stunning grounds, building and history in make this an incredible deal.

What a disappointment! We were met with a very cold young woman who never smiled once nor did she welcome us to the hotel. Our room was billed as one with a view of the ocean — which it wasn’t unless you caught a glimse through the trees. We called the desk to see we could get a better room with a view. We were told they were booked, and that the trees are blocking the view because they’ve grown up. True! The bed had no mattress cover and the sheets were worn thin. A well-​stocked bar was closed and «would open when the new owners figured how to do it.»
When we checked out, the woman at the desk asked how our stay was — my wife said it wasn’t great to which the desk woman simply said, «oh.»
In short it was a not a very nice place to stay.

If we hadn’t been given 2 nights as a gift I would have left as soon as I saw our room! Yes it was clean, but the bed/​mattress clearly was about 20 yrs old. Maybe a slight exaggeration but not much… it was so sunk into the middle we laughed about not being able to roll out of bed. The breakfast consisted of cold (probably previously frozen) bagels, cheese Danish in a bag, yogurt, oatmeal. No food of any substance, just breads. The restaurant was a joke. The menu was tacos, nachos, burger, salad. It should have been advertised as bar food. It was only mediocre at best. The bar drinks were good though! Easy walk to town was a plus but that was the only thing that was good about our stay

Booked a 2 night stay on
. Specifically asked for a room with two double beds, when we arrived they didn’t have the room available but had already charged my card the full amount. The front desk worker was nice and gave us a suite. When we got to our room it seemed like no one had used the room in 10 years … VERY OLD feeling and just felt dusty and musty, and not very clean. We stayed the first night and didn’t sleep very well, woke up the next morn… Went in to take a shower and the water came out from the faucet DARK BROWN! That was the end of that stay for us. Thankfully they were nice enough to refund one of the nights. The staff seems nice enough, but this place needs a lot of work for the prices they charge.

My boyfriend and I chose this hotel because it had three stars and the exterior looked beautiful. A hotel doesn’t have to be perfect or 5-​star-​elegant to be enjoyable. The pictures of the lobby and the rooms also gave the appearance of a Victorian charm.
The young woman who checked us in was very nice and we even got an early check in on a Saturday. When we got to the room, I thought to myself, «this is charming, but the carpet reminds me of an old elevator floor.» As we approached the bed, that’s when I realized we would have a problem. The bed had sunken in body marks and was very hard. I called the desk soon after check in for three additional blankets so that I could soften the bed. There was a stain on the bottom sheet, but it was faded and didn’t bother us too much. There was very slow internet, so I’m not sure why they had it at all. You could hardly check your e-​mail. The sink faucets need major renovation – one turned the wrong way, and if they weren’t on full blast, the water seeped down the faucet and onto the counter. On top of all this, the fire alarm went off in the middle of the night in the room above us. Apparently that alone has been an unchecked issue.
Truthfully, they shouldn’t charge what they do unless they renovate the rooms a little more and buy new beds. One of the most important parts of a hotel stay is, obviously, a good night sleep. The bed is very important. Our bed was absolutely horrible, and like I said, we had to put three blankets down for additional softness, and even that didn’t help.
Overall, our stay was under-​satisfactory. At this point, unless I am completely broke and all other hotels are booked, I will not be staying here again.
With that said, I do think this property holds great potential. It would take some money out of the owner’s pocket, but it would be well worth it and appreciated by those who had previously known this hotel at its youth.

You get what you pay for but this place has potential so it’s sad to see it falling apart. Parts of the hotel is close to a high traffic road so make sure you get a room facing away from the road. The Continental breakfast is the saddest I have ever seen. It was so sad that we left to get breakfast in town! Love Mendocino but will never return to this place.

We stayed at the Hill House on 1-​16-​2016 for a quick trip to scope the Mendocino area for a wedding venue. My wife and I have stayed at the Hill House before, many years earlier. Hill House has a great location in the town of Mendocino and the room rates are reasonable considering what other hotels in the area are charging. That being said, I probably won’t be staying here again.
Our trip started off with my wife booking three rooms on a major online travel site. She held the rooms on our credit card but each person gave the hotel clerk their own card upon arrival. The clerk was a very unhappy looking male subject. As we walked up to the counter he didn’t greet anyone and looked annoyed that we were there. Then he seemed to be having a hard time finding the reservations. He eventually did and I am not sure why he had difficulty. There aren’t that many rooms at Hill House.
We each went to our rooms and met a short time later to go to dinner. Our room was pretty much as I remembered the rooms from years past. The carpet was a navy blue with red roses (Yuck). The walls were a light blue with some kind of textured white boarder at the top. The furniture was kind of an enclitic mix of worn antique tables and chairs. The room was huge… in fact uncomfortably large. A 19″ HD TV sat across the room from the foot of the bed… way too small for the room. The bed was a large king and the mattress was fair… not a quality pillow top but I slept ok on it. In contrast to the room, the bathroom was tiny and the shower head was too low for my 6′ frame.
I noticed a lot of wear and bad repairs here and there. Wall paper peeling away in the bathroom, etc. All in all, the room seemed clean except that it had that overpowering sweet cleaner smell that some hotel rooms have. We had a balcony/​patio that allowed access to the parking lot directly behind our room. Despite the room facing the ocean, there was no view because of large trees and bushes at the edge of the parking lot.
The next morning, we went to the included continental breakfast located in the upstairs lounge. It was your standard lower end «free breakfast» which included prepackaged muffins and sweet rolls, bananas, pre-​peeled hardboiled eggs and beverages. I was a bit put off by the tips tray on the table first thing when you come in. I am usually a generous tipper but only when I receive personal service, not for simply putting things on a table for me to get myself. It wasn’t like they came around and poured refills of coffee or anything.
After our trip was over we checked our charges online and found that the hotel had charged all the rooms to our credit card plus an undesignated $ 25 charge. We called the hotel and my wife talked to Trish, explaining the credit charges issue. She took our phone number and said she would get back to us but never did. After a day and a half I contacted the others in our party and confirmed that they had not been charged. A check of the bills showed that the $ 25 fee was a «pet fee». None of us had a pet. I did notice the people in the room next to us had a large dog. I did call back and got Katlynn to reverse the pet fee. Our friends will reimburse us for their rooms. What a pain in the ass though.
In conclusion, the Hill House has so much potential but is in need of some serious updating and customer service training. It is still promoting its self as the location used in the 1980’s television show Murder She Wrote. The lobby wall is plastered with 70’s photos old celebrities, most of whom we couldn’t identify. Our stay there would have been ok except when you have to add all the other hassles with the charges and such. We are coming back to the area in June… We rented a vacation house.

This place holds SO many memories for me in the place I grew up in and has SO much potential to be outstanding and far better than it is! I won’t say I was disappointed beyond all measure on a recent visit home last month, as I was, well home! The beauty that surrounds the place I grew up in can make the worst bed and breakfast or hotel/​motel experience not seem as bad when you walk out your door to the beauty of Mendocino. That said, nothing in Mendocino is ‘budget friendly’. The grounds and the exterior of the Hill House are as pretty as I remember. As many of the other Unilocal reviewers have stated, though, the rooms need revamping. Why not put some money into upgrading the rooms with new linens? New paint? Strip the old peeling wall paper? Much of our room ‘worked’, but it was like stepping into a budget hotel and not into a romantic bed and breakfast. THIS place should be that! It’s in lovely, romantic, quaint, ON the ocean, village Mendocino. So how the owners of this place can let that go to waste is beyond me. Our room was quite large, as was our dressing area with two separate sinks. The bath/​shower/​toilet area was small and again in need of renovation. The cleaning was, at best, lackluster. The bed was a king and it was comfortable and firm, but the linens were old, dingy and very outdated. There were two chairs just kind of ‘tossed’ into the room into the corner and not even in a strait, decorative way; more like, ‘here are two chairs for this room. Done’, kind of way. We were given toiletries such as the usual shampoo, bath soap and shower cap on the day of arrival that were in the room when we arrived, but that was it! Since this was a road trip for us and we had been driving for about 3 days, we were running short on our basic toiletry needs. Again, its the little touches that make a difference. The breakfast room had no attendant when we were there any of the 3 days of our stay, at least that we could find. The breakfast is gratis with stay, but is again, not what one expects from a place like this: boxed cereals, instant oatmeals, packaged processed danish. The clerk who checked us in did give us 15% off coupon for the sister property down the way for meals, but we opted to drive to The Heritage House Inn for a scenic brunch. We don’t mind paying what we pay, we just expect to get what we paid for. I am again not way, way disappointed, because I am a Unilocaler and went into this realizing it wouldn’t be great, possibly. I just hoped that I would be wrong. and sadly, I wasn’t. Upon checking out, the clerk at the desk told us our credit card was declined, which is always a scary thing when you are in the middle of a trip; since we had no fraud alerts, we knew something was amiss. After a little investigation on our part, we asked her to re-​check her data, it turned out she had a Discovery card in our file, (or someone did!). Little fact. We don’t have that credit card! It took several minutes to figure that out! We don’t know how, when or why that was transposed but be on guard to your credit information on check in and check out. What if that had not declined on check out? Someone may have ended up with our hefty hotel bill! Another note: the restaurant here is not open and the bar is only open on the weekend. The Grey Whale Bar next door is nice and open only on the weekend too. From a map you can walk down to the village for food and drinks and shopping, but I would not recommend at night as there are no sidewalks and its dark. Would I stay here again? It’s likely, in hopes that many reviews such as this will convince the owners of this beautiful gem to renovate the rooms, update the furnishings to period ones, open the bar with some apps and drinks on busier nights and upgrade that breakfast, if even for a fee. Little changes make all the difference!

The Hill House looks nice from the outside but beware! My first impression was several leaks in the stairs and walkways outside, I wondered if I would fall through a couple of times. The door was hard to open and close. The room smelled god awful! (My brother-​In laws was worse). The knobs of the shower are mislabeled, the shower was tiny and the water leaks through the shower curtain all over. The toilet is tiny and awkward with a bonus of being crammed next to the shower (no room for shower toiletries). The back door was a pain to open and close and the beds (we were a group of 10+) were all indented, ewww; plus it was hard as a rock.
My sister-​in laws shower ran for over 4+ hours before they could fix it. The décor reminded me of the shinning/​: The carpets match the drapes that match bedspread. The room coffee tastes like crap.
The staff is friendly.
All around the place stinks for what we paid for. Keep your cash and go somewhere else. Seriously. Just walk away– just don’t do it after you reserve a room, if you cancel one week before your stay date, your out the cash.

A very reliable place to stay in Mendocino, it looks like the rooms were recently renovated as all the bathroom fixtures looked far newer than the décor in the lobby. No complaints at all about the room itself — beds were clean and comfortable and everything was well-​kept.
As some others have noted, the continental breakfast left much to be desired… essentially the same offerings one might find at a Super 8 motel. Don’t count on WiFi as the guy at the check-​in counter mentioned it was spotty at best.
Very much appreciative of my friend taking care of our stay here for his birthday celebration, but the price was a bit much for what we received.

Hill House? More like Hell House. I had a terrible stay here for multiple reasons. When I pay 150 $ a night (that included a 20% group discount), I don’t expect amazing luxury. However, I do expect that I won’t be greeted by the smell of mold and mildew the moment I enter my hotel room. The Hill House looks charming from the outside, but this is a prime example of a hotel (in a location with limited options) that sees enough tourist traffic to allow the owners to never feel the need to complete much needed renovations. A few more of my complaints:
–Front desk staff was new; upon check-​in, we had to ask where our room was located; very little information was provided. Not a big deal, but then we also never received our welcome gift, which was supposed to be provided to all guests in our party
–No wifi in the rooms (Thanks to Unilocal,I can see that this has been an issue since 7÷24÷15)
–Smoke alarm in the room went off for no reason and would not stop (maintenance guy who fixed it, said this was not an uncommon issue)
–Tub in the bathroom would not drain
-«Partial ocean view» meant the ocean was barely visible through the trees from a shared deck, which overlooked the parking lot.
–No «Do Not Disturb sign» or even a notepad in our room, so we were interrupted all morning long, as we got ready
–Very half-​assed housekeeping. Nothing looked cleaned– things were just straightened and we were only given a 1 hand-​towel, 1 body-​towel allotment per day/​per person
–Room & bathroom décor looked like something out of «The Shining»
Apparently, outdated hotels are part of the «charm» of Mendocino, but It’s 2015 and I will not be back to the Hill House until its amenities, décor, and frankly, odor, come into this century. We expressed our displeasure upon check-​out, and were told that we already received a group discount, and that the manager would give us a call later today. I will update my review if I hear from them.

Oh Hill House, I remember you as a five star inn. But like most of us you have aged — some age gracefully and some just fall apart. Alas, you are in the latter category. Why, oh why, has such a beautiful property been allowed to fall to pieces. Our first room had popcorn and a toenail in the sheets. They graciously move us to another room — no popcorn and no toenail. But still worried as to whether the bedding had been changed since the last guest. The lamp didn’t work, there was mold in the bathroom, the slider to the balcony was hard to work and there was dirt in the runners. No wi-​fi in the rooms and not much of anything anywhere else. We were so looking forward to a wonderful time in what used to be a delightful inn. Hill House, the years have not been good to you and apparently your owners could care less. So sad.

BE WARNED THERE IS NO IN-​ROOM WIFI
Beautiful hotel, friendly staff, no wifi. I get that I should be out exploring the town. I have members of my family who are news junkies and it upset them to learn that there is no wifi in the rooms. So please keep that in mind

TL;DR version: It’s kinda cute, but don’t expect to be impressed. *Just* purchased by new owners, so maybe check back in a year or two for a better experience.
My husband got a deal on Groupon so we could go out of town for our one-​year anniversary. When he called the Monday before our booking, we were told that they didn’t have our reservation on file. Apparently Groupon typically makes the hotel reservation for you (?) but something got lost between Groupon and the hotel. Luckily they still had a room open — with two double beds. Not romantic or comfortable in the least for two tall folks (one of them pregnant). However the staff were very nice about the problem and we were fortunate that they had a king-​sized bed opening up for the next night.
The bedroom décor was cute, all vintage blue and yellow, most items obviously antiques. That’s… about as far as it went. The lobby was rather nice and antique-​y as well, but as soon as you walked out of that main room into another room, it looked shabby and bare. (My husband’s astute observation: «It looks like a ghost of its former self.») There was a bar/​lounge area that was empty the morning we explored it but may have been nice entertainment in the evenings, couldn’t say as we didn’t attend the live music performance that Saturday evening.
The continental breakfast left something to be desired, but was okay if you’re not too picky. (I just wished they had had scrambled eggs.)
The water temperature when showering was WILDLY inconsistent. I don’t know if that means that they need a bigger water heater or something, but I spent just as much time adjusting the temperature knobs as I did cleaning myself. (By the way, I hope whichever neighbor was responsible for the sudden Arctic temperature heard my loud Unilocal of shock and horror and feels REALLY GUILTY.) Small holes in the bath towels.
Despite my complaints, it wasn’t a completely unpleasant experience, but I wouldn’t go back. The «sister» hotel (Mendocino Hotel on Main Street) looked somewhat nicer.

The staff was very friendly and did accommodate me for my issues upon check out. The staff can’t be held accountable for the choices of ownership… I hope the owners have access to Unilocal.Thank you friendly front desk staff and the maintenance man who sadly has to deal with these horrid airplane toilets!

This place is okay. Me and my husband found a deal for an «Ocean view room» on Groupon. I was super excited about this and looking fwd to the ocean view. Little did I know the ocean was far to be seen and mostly of view is covered by trees, WHICH BTW I have no complaints about as I loved that view too. I liked staying here, service is great and breakfast had lots of options. In the evening the bar had a dance party which was quite entertaining to look at.
At night time, it gets a little creepy but only due to the whole Victorian and old school feel the place has. one thing I didn’t like was I found a tad stain on the bed sheet. It was very little but… ya I noticed.
Overall a good experience but was just a tad disappointed with the place selling plants with bare minimum view of the ocean on the new of ocean view. You’ll get your money’s or deals worth.

I booked a room at the Hill House Inn over the weekend of my good friend’s weekend. for my sister and I. I really didn’t mind what type of room we received, because we would be spending more of our time away from it that weekend.
We arrived late, which was a bad idea, because the roads were very dark. When we arrived the host greeted me and gave me information about the continental breakfast, local events and menus of nearby sister properties. We were lucky to get there before the office lobby closed at 9pm.
Our room was really old and outdated, but it was big. The comforter cover, wall paper, furniture (the confessional closet) and carpet — years out of date and it shows. The redeeming feature was the heater the first night. It was cold outside, yet warm and we slept well.
Next day, it was sunny and nice out. We enjoyed a cup of coffee on our little balcony with chairs outside. We never spent much time in the room besides sleeping and getting ready to leave.
Overall we enjoyed the room, because we had a great mini vacation in Mendocino. It wouldn’t be my first choice for a romantic getaway unless you can get a more updated room. Good place for a mini vacation in Mendocino on the cheap!

We stayed here for a few days, and had a good experience. The place is huge, and has a central area with breakfast in the mornings and a Victoria style parlor. It’s surrounded by sprawling lawns and a big garden out in front.
PROS: Very close to downtown Mendocino; you can walk to the market, restaurants, and coffee. Well priced in an otherwise pretty expensive town. Old Victorian charm, if you’re into that kindof thing. VERY firm pillows with soft pillows on top! I loved them, and having the selection of both.
CONS: Is an older 2 star style hotel, just be aware of what you’re getting into, it’s not a W hotel or a big Hilton.

We checked in here yesterday afternoon on our trip up the coast. It was $ 120 per night with a slight ocean view and a gas fireplace. The room looks like your grandmothers house and was almost clean. A used Kleenex was left on the floor and a few hairs on the bathroom floor and a cotton ball behind the coffee maker, I can get over that. Water pressure was good however the water saver toilets left something not to be desired in the bowl. It takes several flushes. The continental breakfast consisted of bagels, hard boiled eggs, waffles, oatmeal, fruit, coffee, tea, etc. the inn is located just up the hill from town and is a very easy walk.