Most hotels ask you to pick a bed size and a floor. A historic mansion asks you something harder: which room do you want to wake up in? At 300 Clifton, the Eugene J. Carpenter Mansion in Loring Park, no two guest rooms are alike. One has a bed built on the frame of a real buckboard wagon. One looks out over the steeples of Mansion Row from seventy feet up. One is a blacksmith’s forge you enter through a secret door.
That variety is the whole appeal, and it is also why people stall at the booking page. Here is an honest, room-by-room guide to what you are actually choosing between.
First, the big decision: Main Mansion or Carriage House?
Every room at 300 Clifton sits in one of two buildings, and this is the choice that shapes your stay more than anything else.
The Main Mansion rooms are the grand ones inside the National Register house itself — higher ceilings, carved fireplaces, hand-painted detail, and the sense of living inside a piece of Minneapolis history. The Carriage House rooms sit behind the mansion in the original outbuilding, where the horses and the coachman lived. They are smaller, more characterful, and frankly more fun. Every room in both buildings has a private en-suite bathroom, with one deliberate exception we will get to.
The Premier rooms: if you want the grandest thing in the house
The Georgian Room is the most luxurious room the mansion offers and the only one that regularly gets described as better than the finest hotel in town. It is on the second floor of the Main Mansion with a king bed and three enormous windows over the secret garden and the mansions of Clifton Avenue beyond. Rates start from $239. Book this one if the room is the occasion.
Crystal Mansion is its close rival: a king bed, three huge sunlit windows, and the room where a little girl named Olivia was raised like a princess. Rates start from $219. Choose it over the Georgian if you want light and a corner-of-the-house feeling rather than sheer scale.
These two are the only king beds in the house. If a king matters to you, your decision is already made — it is one of these two.
The Penthouse rooms: the third floor, and the best views
Something Special is the room with the dormer windows seventy feet over Minneapolis, putting you at eye level with the church steeples below Mansion Row. It has a queen bed, an en-suite with a glass shower, and an unfoldable “mafia desk” complete with a bullet hole. From $169.
The Gilded Age room draws on the aesthetic of John Bradstreet, the preeminent designer for Minneapolis’ grandest houses — including this one. Tiffany glass, an earth-toned palette, a feather-stuffed couch and a Shou Sugi Ban bench. It is spacious but reads as the coziest room in the mansion. From $159.
The Carriage House: the rooms people talk about afterwards
The Forge is the Blacksmith’s Forge, entered through a secret door. There is an anvil beside the chair and a faucet spouting from the old forge in the bathroom. En-suite, queen bed, from $189 — the highest-priced carriage house room, and the one that most reliably surprises people.
The Hayloft puts a plush queen bed on the frame of an actual historic buckboard wagon, surrounded by century-old tin wainscoting. En-suite, from $159. It is rare to ride in a carriage; it is rarer to sleep in one.
Ivy Cottage is the old coachman’s quarters on the second floor of the carriage house — the coachman being a well-paid and important member of the household staff, which the room still shows. A pedestal sink sits out in the room, as was typical of the period. En-suite, queen bed, from $129, and the most affordable private bathroom on the property.
The Estate Rooms: the honest budget option, with a real trade-off
Estate Rooms start from $89, which is the lowest rate on the property, and they come with two conditions the booking page asks you to confirm before you reserve. First, the bathroom is down the hall rather than en-suite. Second, you may be placed in any room in the mansion or the carriage house.
That second condition is the interesting part. Estate Room guests are in the same beautiful, well-appointed queen rooms as everyone else, with the same views and the same period detail — the shared bathroom is what you are trading. If you are here for one night before a flight, or you would rather spend the difference on dinner, it is the best value in the building. If you want to close a bathroom door that belongs only to you, book anything else.
What you can add to any room
Whichever room you choose, the same three experiences can be added to the reservation and will be waiting when you arrive: a private soak in the hidden garden hot tub, open all four seasons; the Soak & Sparkle version with a chilled bottle of sparkling wine; and a private film night in Gertrude’s Cistern, the speakeasy lounge under the house with heated reclining seats. Details are on the specials and packages page.
Practical things worth knowing before you pick
Check-in is from 3:00 PM and check-out is by 10:00 AM, with early check-in or a late check-out available for $25 each, subject to availability. Breakfast is not served on site, but complimentary coffee is in the common area. Children are welcome; pets are not. Guest parking is available and the details come with your pre-arrival information. Rates quoted here are starting rates and move with the date, so check the live calendar for your nights. If you are booking direct, look at the vouchers page before you finish — there are dining and trolley vouchers attached to direct stays.
And if none of the eight rooms is the answer because you want all of them, the whole mansion is available for weddings, retreats and reunions — that request goes through the weddings and whole-house page.
Where the mansion sits
300 Clifton Avenue is in Loring Park, minutes from downtown. Loring Park itself is a short walk, the Walker Art Center and the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden are just up the hill, and Eat Street is the other direction. The house is on the National Register of Historic Places, and getting around without a car is straightforward — the Metro Transit trip planner will tell you how from wherever you are starting.
Guests also often pair a stay with a ride on Minneapolis Trolley Tours or dinner at the Pillsbury Club, both a short hop away.
Still not sure?
The short version: king bed means Georgian or Crystal Mansion. Best view means Something Special. Most memorable means the Forge or the Hayloft. Best value means Ivy Cottage with a private bath, or an Estate Room without one. If you are weighing the mansion against a downtown hotel more generally, we wrote about what actually differs between a bed and breakfast and a hotel, and if you are here for someone else’s big day, where wedding guests should stay.
Ready to choose? Have a look at the rooms, pick the one that sounds like your kind of night, and book direct at 300clifton.com. We will have the hot tub warm.
Keep reading: Where Do You Park at 300 Clifton? Guest Parking at a Downtown Minneapolis Bed and Breakfast