by Christy Solo – Editor
With vacation season upon us, over the next two weeks we’ll explore a handful of Oregon’s many quirky/unique hotels.
Maybe you need a weekend getaway or need a recommendation for out of the area friends or relations.
We’ve picked a peck of places in the “affordable” range – at least the least expensive rooms in each of our featured hotels falls into that category. You can always go nuts and spend more if you are able.
Well…we have included one hotel that is not “affordable” but what’s life without a “maybe someday” fantasy vacation spot.
We’ll start off with two McMenamins hotels, they excel at quirky.
Fun fact: McMenamins is an American chain of pubs, restaurants, hotels, breweries, and other entertainment venues in Oregon and Washington. McMenamins is notable for rehabilitating historic properties for many of their establishments, and several are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
In addition to pubs, restaurants, hotels, and breweries, McMenamins also operates movie theaters, music venues, spas and golf courses.
First we’ll check out the McMenamins Old St. Francis School in Bend. The school was built in 1925 and when they relocated to a new campus in 2000 McMenamins purchased the property and all the buildings. In 2004 it opened as a hotel with a pub and guest houses.
They did more renovations in 2016 now the pet friendly hotel has 60 guestrooms, a pub, brewery, private meeting and event space, live music venue, onsite theater, and soaking pool. Two additional buildings—the Art House and Ed House—have been constructed on the property. Both additional buildings feature original art from local artists in the guestrooms, as well as “secret rooms.”
The main school and both the Art and Ed Houses have Queen, double Queen and King Rooms.
Booking during the summer season can be tricky, you may have to book a two-night minimum, but even then, the rates are quite reasonable for such a lovely and historic hotel. When you can book just one night Queen rooms start at $175 but go down 15% per night if you extend your stay.
Even the most expensive room, a King with pullout sofa, kitchenette and patio starts at $185 per night.
Don’t forget the hotel has five restaurants and bars, a movie theater showing current hit films, a pool and live music most Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays.
Let’s move on to our second McMenamins hotel; McMenamins Grand Lodge in Forest Grove. This is another historic hotel. It was built in 1920 – 1922 as a home for Masons and their families in need. Despite setbacks, the building continued to serve that purpose until 1999 when the Masons built new facilities and McMenamins bought the property.
The Grand Lodge now has 90 guestrooms and is known for being quirky. Many rooms feature unique decorations honoring a different literary author, with hand-painted headboards that bring their books to life. There are also two restaurants, three bars, a spa, soaking pool, movie theater (currently playing The Mandalorian & Grogu), disc golf course and beautiful grounds, perfect for strolling, surround the property. Oh! There is live music most Wednesdays through Sundays as well.
With 90 rooms available, The Grand Lodge packed in a variety of options. There are Bunk Bed Rooms, Full Rooms, Queen and Double Queen rooms and King Rooms.
Some Quirky Caveats: There are no TVs to be had in any of the rooms, though Wi-Fi is available. Also, while each room has an original porcelain sink – you may need to share a “conveniently located” common bathroom. Yup. The common bathrooms are guaranteed to be much nicer than common bathrooms at campgrounds, however. So there’s that.
There are three levels of rooms: Foundation, Main Floor and Third Floor. Foundation floor rooms have no air conditioning and are priced lower than rooms on the other floors.
However, the Grand Lodge has recently added private baths to many of the larger sized rooms.
Pricing at the Grand Lodge is less expensive than the Old St. Francis School. The Foundation (no A/C) bunk rooms are $94 per night and so quirky and cute.
Queen and King Rooms run a range from $111 (common bath) to $179 (private bath and A/C).
Even if you want to go all out with the King Suite Guestroom featuring King size bed, original artwork, cozy furnishings, separate sitting room with pullout couch, cotton bathrobes, en suite bathroom and A/C you’re still at $259 per night.
As with the Old School hotel, the Grand Lodge per night price drops 15% for each “extended stay” night. Depending on your room and dates extended stay may kick in at two nights or three.
We’ll finish up this week’s round of quirky/unique hotels with The Vintages Trailer Resort.
We admit this is more “glamping” than hotel, but when you’re done reading about The Vintages you’ll be packing your bag and making your reservation.
Located near McMinnville (wine country!) The Vintages has 34 fully restored and delightfully decorated vintage trailers for you to stay in. “OMG it’s so cute you could die!”
Options include King, Queen, Full, two Twin and Twin. There are 23 different specific trailers so we can’t list them all, but some highlights: 1947 Spartan Motor, 1953 Vagabond M3I, 1956 Spartan Royal Mansion and 1966 Airstream Overlander.
Most sleep two adults, you can fit three adults into three of the trailers, and there are eight options for two adults and one child under eight.
Because The Vintages are more on the glamping side there is not much on site. There is a small store where you check in that has wine, some souvenirs and supplies for s’mores basically.
Trailers do have bathrooms, most also have very small showers, but there are nice showers in the community pool house restrooms. So yes, that means there is a pool!
Amenities include pour-over coffee, mini fridge, bath amenities, robes, an outdoor grill, cruiser bikes, heat and A/C, dinnerware and toilet possibly shower (most). Some trailers have a flat screen TV. Trailers each have a little outdoor sitting area as well.
Each visit comes with a wine tasting passport as well.
There is a communal guest house with a flat screen TV, sofas and a kitchenette as well as an onsite laundry facility. There is also an outdoor firepit if you’re feeling social.
Trailers are pet friendly with a two dog 50 lb. max limit (both dogs combined) and an additional $75 pet fee.
Rates for The Vintages are…all over the place. Depending on which trailer and which nights they go for $156 per night to $561 for the Spartan Royal Mansion. If you’re itchin’ for The Vintages experience, best advice is to be flexible in your stay dates and you can get an affordable stay at this postcard perfect resort.
We’ll finish up our look at quirky/unique hotels next week with some deep woods experiences.
