Crisanver House

This review is an extension of the review by Athena N. I am her husband. After we posted our review, the Crisanver House reached out to us to apologize and offer us a free night in response. We do greatly appreciate the gesture, but feel it would be an awkward experience, like hanging out with an ex. All we are looking for is them to accept that a mistake was made and make every effort to not have this situation occur again. It’s human nature to mess up and learn. The lack of truth in Andrea’s response to Athena is worrisome.
If you are planning a get away to Vermont, then this would be a decent option. The venue is gorgeous and the staff is amazing. If you are having an event, not matter how small, hire someone to manage the communications with this location. It leaves a lot to be desired.
I would like to call out that Andrea, who responded to Athena’s comment, had nothing to do with the event or the planning. We have never met Andrea and she had no involvement in the discussion of where on the property our wedding would happen. My apologies if the family is upset about these reviews. However, the response to Athena’s comments are misleading and entirely untrue.
When we worked with Crisanver House, we initially signed up for their elopement package, but because questions went unanswered, we ended up planning the wedding ourselves. We had to drive the 2 hours to visit the venue to feel as though any forward progress had been made. During that visit, we agreed that we would utilize the outside lawn, but due to the rapidly changing weather in October, we were told the barn could also be used.
The barn was clearly not closed for the season. When we viewed the barn upon our arrival for the wedding, the area was covered in tables and had numerous, partially full champagne glasses as the cleaning crew had not yet arrived. The most we asked was that the tables could be put away and out of sight so they would not be in our photos. The response from Carol, the owner, was, «That won’t be necessary. Your photographer won’t get a wide enough lens.» We have many wedding photos that show the effort we made to hide the tables was absolutely necessary.
As I said before, the venue at Crisanver House is gorgeous and the reason we booked after having so many communication challenges with the owners. The serving staff is amazing, friendly, and well organized. However, the organization and level of communication from the Crisanver House leaves a lot to be desired. The 2 months it took to respond to Athena’s original review should be an indication of that.

And it gets worse…
The reaction of the Crisanver House to our negative review has been unprofessional at best, and a bit sleazy at worst. The response posted to my Unilocal review is alternately misleading and downright untruthful.
For one, we dealt exclusively with Carol Calotta when booking what was supposed to have been the elopement package. I have no idea what role this Andrea person played at the time of our wedding, but if she was involved in the business in any capacity it certainly wasn’t in dealing with our wedding. We had never even heard of her until a few weeks ago.
As I mentioned in my initial review, Carol was vague and difficult to to get a hold of. She was also unreliable in providing quotes from vendors or offering any kind of information about options, like cake flavors, decorations, etc. which is why we felt compelled to have to organize everything ourselves. We have many, many emails documenting our struggle to make things as easy as possible on Crisanver House — not on us — because the venue appeared to be terribly unorganized and rather uninterested in assisting with our small wedding.
What Andrea claims about using the barn is flat out untrue. We discussed using the barn as a ceremony space multiple times with Carol, as we wanted assurance that we had both an indoor and outdoor option for the ceremony (it was autumn in Vermont, after all — it could have snowed!).
During our September 27^th, 2015 meeting with Carol we walked through the barn with her and she was VERY CLEAR that the barn is where we would be holding the ceremony if the weather was undesirable for an outdoor lawn wedding. There was no indication that the barn was or would be closed down, or that there would be an additional cost for using a different part of the grounds. If there had been, we would have found another venue.
To add insult to injury, the barn was clearly not shut down at the time as Andrea claims in her response since — as previously mentioned — we had to clean up from a party that had just been held there! There were still empty wine glasses on the tables along with other decorations.
We understand that you want to save face, but making misleading statements and /​or lying to cover your own tasteless choices is beyond the pale and speaks very poorly for your customer service.

Having lived in Vermont for many years, I am no stranger to the B&B experience, and I generally recommend them. But the Crisanver House is a true stand out.
The location is perfect to have you close to Killington, Pico, and Okemo. It is certainly off the beaten path, though, on a dirt road out in Shrewsbury. This was exactly what we were looking for in a B&B so we could really feel like we were escaping the ‘burbs.
What makes the Crisanver House excel is the attention to detail — every detail — as it ought to be in the hospitality industry. Every room here is unique, charming, and full of decorative touches. The food was excellent, including the little nibbles we had when we first arrived (fresh homemade brownies waiting for us? Well you had me at hello, Crisanver House). The view from the main room is gorgeous. Who needs a TV when you can just stare at that all day?
Our breakfast was waiting for us first thing in the morning. We had a table set up in the main room and had the whole place to ourselves to enjoy the view in peace and quiet. The food was outstanding. It is going to be tough to go back to continental breakfasts at Hiltons and Ramadas after this.
I think the key to a good B&B is to make you feel like you are staying in a friend’s home and that is exactly how we felt here. We will be making every effort to make a return trip to the Crisanver House.

My wife and I were looking to getaway from the hustle and bustle of the city and stayed at the Crisanver House for 2 nights in the Pinnacle Room. We thoroughly enjoyed our stay here. Not only were Carol and Michael the perfect hosts and wonderful people, and not only was the renovated house so homey, clean, and had all the little details and special touches, the food was INCREDIBLE!
We had dinner our first night here and they had setup a table for 2 with candlelights surrounding the room and classical music in the background. We felt we were on our honeymoon again. Carol knocked our socks off with her cooking. Baked wild sockeye salmon and pan-​seared lamb chops cooked medium rare to perfection? I though B&Bs were only supposed to specialize in breakfast. Carol is more than an inn keeper but a talented cook in the kitchen. Her French Toast, blueberry pancakes, Proscuitto omelet, brown sugar caramelized broiled grapefruit, pepper crusted bacon, were more than we were expecting and everything was served at the right temperatures and nothing was over or under flavored. Her hot chocolate also rocks!
The property sits on a ton of acreage and is surrounded by meadows, trees, and mother nature is all that you experience. Talk about getting away from everything. I did not hear 1 car, plane, or helicopter during my time here. What you hear is little birdies, light snow falling, fireplace crackling, and yummy cooking in the kitchen.
Michael and Carol are from New York but have been running the inn for over 30 years. It feels renovated and new but retains a lot of original character through the exposed wood floor joists, beautiful wide pine floors, original trim work, and rugs, clocks, figurines, lights, furnitures, and art have all been carefully selected to make you feel like you are in a New England home.
Some of the more deluxe rooms have fireplaces, but ours didn’t. Even though the outside temperatures were sub-​zero, our room was very warm night, actually so warm that we actually turned off the heat in our room because it was too hot. We could not have asked for anything more in our first stay at a New England B&B.

Crisanver House was fantastic! It was my first stay at a B&B and now I am hooked. I don’t drive so I took Amtrak and the Innkeeper picked me up at the train station.
The grounds and views were breathtaking (see my photos), and the room was perfect. I stayed in the Shrewsbury suite, which is a private cottage shared with the Saltash suite. My suite had a huge bed, fireplace, whirlpool tub, desk & chairs and flat panel TV with DVD player. The room comes stocked with some books, DVDs, magazines & games for you to enjoy.
The main house has a lot of things to enjoy like two fireplaces, a grand piano, a telescope overlooking an amazing view, tons of books and reading materials. The Innkeepers were very nice and on top of things and the food was excellent.
I really enjoyed walking through the grounds and to the pond. It was just beautiful.
I LOVED my room, LOVED the views and the grounds and just LOVED this place. I cannot wait to go back again.