What this house does not do
We are not a hotel
No front desk, no porter, no room service, no daily housekeeping and nobody in the building overnight.
Policies
Every policy this house has, in one place, plus the house rules and the boundaries — the eight things it will tell you outright it does not do, rather than let you find out at the door.
- The deposit
- A quarter of the total is taken when the booking is made and the balance is due on the day of arrival. The total includes the cleaning fee, because it is part of the price rather than an extra.
- Cancelling a stay
- More than fourteen days before arrival, the deposit is returned in full. Between fourteen and seven days, half of it. Inside seven days the deposit is kept and the balance is not taken. There is no charge for shortening a stay that has already begun, but the nights are not refunded either.
- Cancelling an event
- An event takes the whole building out of sale for up to three days, so the terms are firmer: more than sixty days before, the deposit is returned; between sixty and thirty days, half; inside thirty days it is kept. It is the only thing on this site with a sixty-day line and the reason is that the house cannot re-sell a Saturday in June at three weeks' notice.
- The refundable hold
- Three hundred dollars for an apartment and seven hundred and fifty for the whole house, taken as an authorisation on the day of arrival and released within five working days of departure. It is not a payment and it does not appear on the quote as one.
- Damage
- Things break in a house that is a hundred and fourteen years old and most of it is not charged for. A glass, a plate, a chair leg — no. The parlour floor, the plaster cornice and the original sash frames are the three things that cannot be replaced, and they are the three things the hold exists for.
- The number on the booking
- The rate is for the apartment, not per person, up to the number it sleeps. What is not allowed is more people than the booking says, because that is the number the linen, the insurance and the fire arrangement are set for. Adding a person is a telephone call and usually costs nothing.
- Children and infants
- Children are welcome and are counted in the number the apartment sleeps. An infant in a travel cot is not counted and there is no charge; there are two travel cots and one high chair in the house. The loft mezzanine is not for a child under eight.
- Stays of a month or more
- A stay of twenty-eight nights or more is quoted separately and is cheaper per night than the calendar shows, because a changeover is the expensive part of a short let. It is not bookable online — telephone, and the answer is a figure rather than a brochure.
The rest of the arrangement
House rules, and before you book
Policies cover money. The house rules cover behaviour, and the pages below cover everything else worth reading before an arrival date is picked.
What this house will not pretend to be
The eight boundaries
Each of these names a claim this trade often makes, and says plainly why this house does not make it.
What this house does not do
One apartment is not the house
Book an apartment and you have that apartment. The other two may be let to somebody else on the same night, and usually are.
What this house does not do
We do not hold a liquor licence
Drink at an event is brought in by you or by your caterer and served by them.
What this house does not do
Nobody here can marry you
The ceremony can happen in the garden or the parlour. The legal marriage is a separate thing and it is not ours.
What this house does not do
The house is not step-free
A 1912 house with a stoop and three floors. One apartment is nearly level; the other two are not.
What this house does not do
We do not take a booking we cannot honour
Three apartments and one house, and the calendar will not sell the same night twice.
What this house does not do
The price on the screen is the price
Nightly rate, cleaning fee, and nothing else. No resort fee, no service charge, no city surcharge invented at the end.
What this house does not do
We do not promise quiet, and we do not promise the garden
An elevated railway four minutes away, a city garden, and a house in Queens.
Check the dates you want
The calendar is live. It shows what is free, it will not sell the same night twice, and it prints the whole total — cleaning fee included — before it asks for a name.