Golden R.
Yelp
My daughter and I thought this trip would be a nice little getaway and a wonderful fancy "princess" adventure for my 7-year-old granddaughter. Au contraire!
The property is beautiful inside and out. The owners, sadly and critically, not so much.
Unlike many of the reviewers here, the neighborhood, though a bit rough and seedy, did not make us nervous or scared. But that might owe to our NYC and Chicago roots, so trust your own comfort zone in this.
The scary part for us was what awaited INSIDE the mansion.
It's difficult to time a long road trip to the minute, and we arrived slightly early. Laura Sue was quite visibly put out and irritated by this, despite our REPEATEDLY assuring her that we'd be happy to go out for dinner and come back later. Unable to take Yes for an answer, she told us to wait in the parlor.
She then, unprompted, proceeded to enumerate for us all the wonderful extras we would be missing out on because we hadn't purchased the premium package. So no wine, no coffee brought to our room, no mansion tour (all fair enough -- and already covered in the website).
But then she felt the need to add: "And you can't ask any questions about the mansion." Her exact words. Repeated twice.
My daughter did have one very practical question about the timing of the low tea. And though she posed it simply and politely, Laura Sue was oddly impatient and surly. Then, not more than three minutes into this brief conversation, the strained Stepford Wife smile suddenly vanished, and she snapped at my daughter:
"All the time I'm wasting standing here discussing this with you is time I could be using to get your room ready."
We were left speechless by her appalling, completely unprovoked rudeness -- and saddened that my sweet granddaughter had to witness such deplorable behavior, directed at her mother who'd done nothing to deserve it. (Did I just use the D-word? Oh, I think I did.)
We would have turned tail and walked out right then, but my granddaughter had really been looking forward to her stay in a fairytale mansion -- and it was at least that.
(And now, reading all these reviews reporting refund denials and disputes over some pathetically petty $ issues, I'm sure the walking away option would not have led to a happy ending, either.)
Laura Sue, overworked as she was, did find time to let us know (in a very typical interaction) that we could use just one teabag for three cups "because this is very high quality tea." She told us she made all the food herself, which ranged fair-to-very good. Loved the yummy homemade pumpkin bread. Didn't love the Trader Joe's chocolate babka. The scones, like the entire experience, looked great but left a lasting bitter aftertaste.
From the moment Laura Sue opened her front door to us with that snarly What-are-you-doing-here? unwelcoming welcome, every interaction with her was tense, terse, needlessly complicated, and painfully uncomfortable. It was the exact opposite of hospitality. That we were actually paying for all this snotty, haughty nastiness cast a surreal pall over our entire stay.
We kept wondering, What might we have done to so set her off? Was she triggered by our wearing masks? (She did make a few passive-aggressive comments about them.)
Also possibly germane: We the people (especially as the paying guests kind of people) could not help but notice that these are ostentatiously pious, proudly hardcore Trump folks: e.g., see huge "Trump Neighborhood Headquarters" sign prominently posted on refrigerator. The whole vibe just reeked of in-your-face angry-right virtue signaling. Right down to the cheap, lumpy My Pillow pillows. One reviewer noted a Q flag on the porch. Yikes!
Would you like a dollop of clotted cream with your lovely scones today .... or sick, twisted blood-libel conspiracy lies about falsely accused pedos and baby-eating libtards?
Not sure if that's the best atmosphere for an all-are-welcome, mi casa/su casa type of business that ostensibly exists to serve customers simply trying to "get away from it all." Just a thought. And sorry for talking Mexican.
Speaking of pillows, Rick called my daughter several days later and said they were missing a small decorative pillow. Did we have it? Oh, poor obedient Rick, you seemed like a very nice guy, and I'm sure Laura Sue made you make this silly phone call -- Happy Wife/Happy Life is a real thing! But we can afford and strongly prefer our own unused pillows. And the last thing we'd want would be any mementos of an awful "vacation" we couldn't wait to end.
Schuster Mansion was a miserable (bordering on creepy) experience, a huge waste of time and money, and we were counting the minutes till checkout.
On a positive note: We briefly escaped Crazy House for dinner at Le Reve Patisserie (a quick drive) and it was AMAZING -- everything Schuster Mansion was not.