The Flemish House - Chicago, IL Review

I had never been to Chicago for anything other than business trips, so when my husband went last year with a couple of his friends and fell in love with the city, I readily agreed to his suggestion that we go back together this year for my birthday to discover the city. Jay booked us a room at The Flemish House, a B&B on East Cedar Street in Chicago, in the famed "Gold Coast" area.

About The Flemish House
The Flemish House is a brownstone B&B in a very nice area of Chicago that's north of the downtown area. The location is spectacular, at only a block from the lake. The residence is within easy walking distance of a subway stop, and just a half block off a bus route stop as well. The Flemish House doesn't provide a standard B&B experience: all available rooms have a kitchenette with a sink, refrigerator, microwave, stove and oven. You can rent a room at The Flemish House to include breakfast, and if you do so your kitchenette will be supplied with a continental breakfast stash each day. We opted to take a few dollars off the cost of our room by renting a room without the breakfast service, preferring instead to drink the house coffee in the room and then head out for a pastry each morning. It's worth noting that we found some small single serving cereal boxes in our room, along with the coffee and creamer, even though we didn't do the breakfast service. So if you want to bring your own milk for cereal, you'll likely be all set in the morning.

The Rooms
My husband requested the "Ground Floor" (aka GF) room and found that it was only available for our second and third nights. The owners of The Flemish House graciously agreed to move our luggage for us down to the ground floor suite after our first night. We spent our first night in the First Floor - Rear Studio room and found it to be an absolute treat. The room was quiet, comfortable and beautiful.

The Ground Floor room? Well, not so much.

The looks of the Ground Floor room were great, as it's been decorated well and is quite cozy. It's biggest problem however is that it's a basement room, and it suffers severe noise problems, as it's located just below the First Floor - Front room. We loved the Ground Floor room until our neighbors up on the First Floor came home. The minute they walked in each evening we heard loud thuds from footsteps and chairs scraping across the floor just above us. This wasn't a problem in the First Floor - Rear Studio room that we'd had on our first night. I woke each morning at 6:30AM when our "First Floor" neighbors up above woke up. They were surely not abnormally loud people, but in the GF apartment, every sound was magnified exponentially.

The rest of the accomodations were great. The proprietors provide bath soap, hand soap, shampoo (no conditioner) and hairdryers in each room. There are also high quality irons available, and a laundry setup is available nearby as well. The proprietors also include a booklet in each room listing good restaurants and info nearby.

Cat's Bottom Line
The Flemish House is in a wonderful location, with gracious hosts. The rooms are all beautiful, but I would absolutely avoid the Ground Floor (GF) room due to noise issues. Prices are reasonable, at well under $200 a night, particularly if you don't purchase the continental breakfast option. We'll stay at The Flemish House again on future visits, but we'll definitely pick a different room. Recommended highly with caveats about the Ground Floor room.