Hausfrau Hotel/Motel Review

I remembered reading about Kate's Lazy Meadow Motel a couple of years ago and thought it would be really cool to someday stay there. How could it not? It is owned by Kate Pierson of the B-52s. According to the website, Kate was travelling through the Catskills and found an old motel for sale. She and her friends then redesigned each room to be kitschy and super fun. She also started buying Airstream campers and redoing those as well and parking them on the banks of the Esophus Creek. Each room is different from the next and a couple of rooms are suites with full kitchens. The website indicated that they used luxury linens and fancy toiletries from all the hotels in Kate's travels. As far as I was concerned, it was going to be a slam dunk.

I made my reservation two weeks in advance. Because they have a one month cancellation policy, I decided to only reserve one night in case my plans got ruined. I figured it would be better to be out one night's money instead of two. Ethan took my reservation over the phone and immediately sent me an email confirmation. His email was very informative and had an attachment listing several area restaurants and things to do. I had told him we probably wouldn't get here until 10PM on Wednesday. Ethan said that he wouldn't be in the office then, but that they keys would be haing outside the door. I was surprised by that, but whatever.

Let me first say that you have to really WANT to stay there. The Lazy Meadow Motel is in the middle of NOWHERE in Mt. Tremper, NY. When we pulled into the motel at 6:30 at night, we were surprised to be the only ones there. Sure enough, the keys were in an envelope on the office door. Since it was pitch black and raining, we couldn't see anything. We easily found Room #3.

The door itself was tricky. Corey had to use his body to force the warped door open. Upon inspection, it appeared that the door was made with MDF and didn't really close at the top. No matter--the room looked REALLY COOL!






We slept well in the room that night. We really weren't upset by the fact that no one else was on the property and our door was kind of broken and the heat didn't work because the room WAS SO COOL! We had a kitchen area with a refrigerator and sink, a sitting area in addition to the actual bedroom. We were pretty psyched to move to a different room the next night (because I didn't reserve another night until the day we got there, our room was taken.) Corey mentioned that the shower was the smallest one he had been in EVER so I opted to not shower until we moved to the new room, which was a larger suite. When we returned that afternoon to check into the new room, the only people there were the cleaning people who had just finished our room. We didn't see our key hanging on the office door, so we called Monica the caretaker (she's 5 minutes away) and she told us to go ahead and go back to Room #3 as she switched rooms, thinking she was doing us a favor. We were a little bummed, but we were then pleased that someone had come and fixed the door so that we didn't have to use full force to get in and out of the room. The cleaning people also said they fixed the heat.

That night, people checked into the room next door. I was at that moment we realized that our shared wall was the thickness of construction paper. And their door also appeared to be problematic, which wouldn't have been so bad except the dude kept going outside every 30 minutes to smoke a cigarette until 2AM. After the first 5 times he lumbered in and out, we finally realized that no one was trying to break in and hack us to pieces.

The next morning, I decided to get over my feelings of claustrophobia and take a shower. I grabbed the toiletries that were supposed to be from some exotic hotel. They were actually bottles from the Hampton Inn that had been refilled and affixed with a homemade label. The bar of soap was rewrapped in some sort of paper as well. No matter--I brought my own stuff. Unfortunately, having more than one room occupied at this motel apparently affected the flow of hot water that morning. I decided to wait until we checked into the hotel in Boston to shower.









I have to admit, had this been any other hotel, I would have been quite annoyed. But for the little things that annoyed us, there was something else there that made us extremely happy. For example, check out this selection of movies in our room--apparently a box of several hundred movies were purchased at a garage sale and there was a selection of movies in every room. Who WOULDN'T want to watch Smoky & The Bandit and My Fair Lady in one sitting?!










And while we never did get the heat to work, we really couldn't complain because it wasn't all that cold when we were there. And I have to admit that our room was the cleanest hotel room I have ever stayed in. Ever. There was not a speck of dust nor a cobweb or piece of lint ANYWHERE. The bedding smelled like Downy and the bed was REALLY comfortable.

Despite the fact that my review may sound lukewarm, I have to admit I would absolutely stay there again. I would stay there if I could rent the entire place out for a spring or autumn weekend and have all of my friends there. That way I wouldn't care about the person on the other side of the wall of Room # 3. This was the view from the backyard:









I would also be very tempted to come back and stay in this.









Besides, I figure if I stay there enough times, Kate will eventually be there and I can ask her what the hell they were smoking when they wrote Rock Lobster.