Great house, great location
Review Submitted: June 6, 2009
Date of Stay: May 2009
Our group consisted of 3 siblings and their spouses, each family having 2 kids between 5 and 8 years old. Grandma and another family friend came along as well. We all live in different parts of the country, so we were really hoping that this house would let us all spend more time together than past trips where we've stayed in hotels.
The kids absolutely loved having their own "sleeping porch" where they could watch movies and hang out with their cousins upstairs and sleep on air mattresses at night, away from the adults. The set-up of the house made it great for the grown-ups to be able to stay up, play cards and hang out until the wee hours with the kids fast asleep upstairs.
The kitchen was stocked with everything you would expect and then some. We pulled the gas grill out of the garage and cooked up burgers in the courtyard one night. I just wish I had a grill like that one at home!
My single complaint would be that we did have to space our showers out a little bit so everyone could have hot water. But, with 8 adults plus kids I wouldn't expect anything other than that, and by the second morning we had it figured out.
I had to call the owner a couple of times (to ask if we could use the grill, and to ask a question about the TV/remote programming in a bedroom), and he was helpful and available whenever we had a question.
The neighborhood was great, with a nice grocery store a block away (Harvestime Foods, great produce and meat selection!), and a lot of restaurants a few blocks away in Lincoln Square. Our favorite restaurant was "I Monelli Trattoria Pizzeria" (Italian if you couldn't guess), and the desserts at Cafe Selmarie were unbelievable. Some of the ladies found a nearby morning yoga class that they enjoyed. Gross Park was a block away and was perfect for letting the kids blow off some steam too. Really, anything that we needed was easily found within a 4-block radius.
We never had any problem with parking our cars nearby, but then again we did more walking than driving. The brown line stop being a 2-minute walk away was really convenient, and we were able to make it to the heart of downtown in 30 minutes.
In all, the house was clean, beautiful and in a great neighborhood. It was everything we had hoped for, and we will definitely stay there again the next time we all meet up in Chicago.
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