Short Stay: Landsdowne Resort, Leesburg, Virginia – Hotel Review
It looked enticing on paper, but the Landsdowne Resort, set “on 500 lush green acres” in Washington, D.C.’s wine country, proved to be a bundle of contradictions during a recent stay.
I arrived after a quick flight from New York City to attend a meeting taking place at the hotel. The front desk clerk seemed friendly enough and I was soon en route to my room. Pausing in the hallway as I noticed a chemical smell, evocative of industrial cleaning fluid, I opened the door to my room on the seventh floor with some degree of trepidation. My eyes began to water and I immediately called the front desk and asked for another room. A friendly bellman appeared a few minutes later with a card key and invited me to inspect the room first. There was a slight hint of the smell on the eighth floor but the room itself had no odor.
It was then that I noticed the slightly obsequious and almost robotized manner in which every staff member recited “our pleasure” after I said thank you. It didn’t sound sincere – indeed it became grating – and it had the opposite of the intended effect.
THE ROOM
My odor-free Deluxe King Guestroom had a large bed, two comfortable chairs, an ottoman (placed in a manner blocking access to one side of the bed), a reading lamp on a stand (further blocking access to the window side of the bed and placed over the middle of the bed), and an armoire with an LCD television concealed inside. The bed was comfortable and I woke up feeling refreshed and ready for the meeting and events of the day. Fortunately, since I was alone, no one had to negotiate the obstacles to the other side of the bed.
The marble bathroom had ample counter space for toiletries. It lacked a stall shower and the bathtub only had a single shower curtain, which seemed a bit odd. However, water pressure and temperature were both perfect.
The hotel’s website refers to the room as having “country décor” but it just seemed a bit dated to me. The carpeting in the hallway was visibly worn in some spots and an update was clearly in order.
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