This is a charming, recently renovated Tudor-style inn between St. Mary's hospital and the giant Amoco sign. Each room is named after a different English author. We stayed in the Harold Pinter room, and I confess that I had not heard of this playwright so it was an educational stay right off the bat! There are some novelty suites for some of the more popular authors such as Shakespeare, Ian Fleming and Robert Louis Stevenson. For some reason, Tolkien's is just a regular room -- I think it would be great if they could turn it into a Hobbit Hole but I suppose that might go over-budget. I asked to look at one of the novelty suites but unfortunately they were all occupied. Next time I come back, maybe I will stay in the Passage to India suite.

Here were some pros and cons of this hotel:
Pro:
- super-friendly staff
- Fox and Hounds pub is cozy and they give a generous pour. To get an idea about the ambience, imagine one of the old Steak and Ale restaurants only nicer and smaller.
- Carl's deli down the street makes the best hot pastrami sandwich I have tasted.
- you can rent a bicycle for free (3 hours) and ride around Forest Park.
- our room was very quiet and dark, so we slept well.
- 4 computers with large monitors in the business center. I have stayed at a Marriott which was much larger but offered only 2 computers.
- Aveda bath products.

Cons:
- as at least one other reviewer pointed out, those sharp wooden bed posts jut out right around knee level. Ouch! I hit it 3 times (ok, I am a slow learner), and my wife also hit it and got a nasty bruise.
- the closest Metrolink station is about 2 miles away and the hotel does not offer shuttle service.
- the accomodations are not super-remarkable or plush, just cozy. No bathrobes or slippers, etc. And the breakfast was also just ok, nothing remarkable. On the other hand, usually one has to pay more for those things so I am still giving an Excellent overall rating for value.

We stayed for one night during a vacation, and it was the closing night of the London Olympics, so apropos! First off, the location and area are excellent; having never stayed outside of downtown on business trips, the Forest Park area was a wonderful surprise. The common areas at the Cheshire are really charming and unique, and this made for a nice breakfast. The room itself was standard set-up and nicely decorated, but there were definitely some less-than-clean sectors of the bathroom and the housekeeper seemed pretty harried overall. In addition, the pub served me the absolute worst whiskey sour I've ever had ... not even close to right. Still, it was a more than adequate hotel with good proximity to Forest Park, the Missouri History Museum, Wash U, and the home of the best burger EVER, O'Connell's Pub on Shaw.

First off, I'd like to say that this hotel had its charm...like if you were going to visit your grandmother who had collected all sorts of knick-knacks during her travels. The hotel was richly decorated and was fun to walk through. My kids enjoyed doing the scavenger hunt through the hotel. If we were there longer, it would have been fun for them to create their own.

The one thing that left a horrible taste in my mouth was finding that my room was not made up after returning after a day of sightseeing with the kids. Furthermore, the lack of concern from the front desk other than the obligatory "oops, sorry about that" was more reminiscent of a poorly managed budget hotel than one would expect from a specialized boutique hotel.

For a family that is traveling, being able to come back to a room that is freshly made with a turn down service (which they advertise and we did not get) is a simple and important way to end the day and get recharged for the next.

Okay...with that out of the way, some other details.

The clientele of this hotel is a much older crowd...sometines with dogs. I like dogs, but with the obvious shorthandednes of housekeeping, I am a bit wary of the cleanliness of the rooms even more now.

There is underground parking, but if you need above 6.5' clearance, you may not fit. There's a parking lot that you can use instead, but it may be difficult to find a spot if you come at a busy time.

Breakfast was decent. Not as good as most chains, but they did offer fruit, cheese, and turkey for those of you who are trying to stay away from sugary cereals and pastries. The breakfast burritos were pretty dried out from sitting on a hot plate, but my 9-year old loved then anyway.

They had tea and coffee available at all times in the lobby which was nice after a cold day.

We stayed in a double Queen room. The beds had down blankets and were wonderfully comfortable, but they seemed smaller than Queen. They felt more like full-sized. I didn't measure them so I cannot say definitively.

The one word of caution is beware of the bed frame! Each person in our family got hurt by hitting our knees/legs on those danger zones even after watching each other experience that pain. The frame juts out just enough further than the post so that you will inevitably hit it if you're using the posts as reference for how much clearance you have.

The bathroom was arranged a bit oddly. The sink was in the corner next to the toilet and the wall which meant that if you had more than one person in there, it was very awkward. Again, this really applied to folks traveling with families. If it was just me, this would not have been a bother.

Overall, it was a nice hotel that I would recommend to local folks who are not travel-weary with family. In those situations, you need the function of an efficiently run hotel and not the gimmicks. It could have easily been a much better experience, but they fell short.

I wasn't sure if this would be a good place to stay while I was visiting the undergraduate campus of Washington University. It turned out to be an excellent choice. It was a very short drive to the campus. I enjoyed the old world charm of the lobby and the room that I had. The staff were quite nice, the hotel was clean and the room room had been updated not too long ago. On the negative side, there was a charge for parking the car in the garage; the lot outside was not available at the time...it may be useable now and hopefully free.