Old Faithful Inn

Old Faithful Inn (not my photo)

We stayed at Old Faithful Inn Saturday night, arriving late Saturday afternoon and leaving after breakfast late Sunday morning. During that time, we watched a couple of eruptions of Old Faithful Geyser, explored the Inn, attended a church service held on the deck, and had breakfast in the dining room. Our room was located just off the lobby on the first floor - #5. It was a classic log cabin interior - regretfully I forgot to take pictures of it, but these from the internet are pretty close to what our room looked like.

The room was charming,  but it had one unfortunate feature. The windows opened to a side entry to the Inn, and there was a bench right under the window. People not only sat there and talked, some of them smoked and the smoke came right in the window. That only happened once, but we had to close the windows until they went away. I wrote a note to the management suggesting that the area outside the window be a non-smoking area.

The room had a sink, but not a private bath. The shared bathroom was upstairs and down the hall. It took us a while to find it. You were provided terry-cloth bathrobes to wear to the bathroom.  On the whole, the experience of staying at the Inn was certainly interesting, and I'm glad that we did it, fulfilling a long-held desire, but it was not a perfectly blissful experience.

The architecture of the Inn is astounding. It was built in 1903-1904, and when you look at it, you marvel that it has survived over a century - including earthquake and fire. Robert Reamer, the architect, was only 30 years old when construction started, but he must have been a genius. There is a full account of the building of the Inn by Karen Reinhart at although the records are scanty and there are only two known photographs of the construction process.

Here are some pictures I took:

The Crow's Nest - now closed to visitors. In the old days, an orchestra played up there while people danced below

Dormers seen from the deck

A detail from the lobby balcony

The upper lobby

The massive lobby fireplace

Detail of stair railing

Desk lamp