Most groups looking for somewhere to stay together in Minneapolis end up doing the same thing: booking eight rooms at a downtown hotel, then trying to find somewhere in that hotel where eight people can actually sit down together. There is another option. You can rent the whole of 300 Clifton — every guest room, the gardens and the grand interior spaces — and have the house to yourselves.
Here is what that actually involves, who books it, and how to ask about a date.
What a whole-house buyout at 300 Clifton includes
300 Clifton is the 1906 Eugene J. Carpenter Mansion in Loring Park, on the National Register of Historic Places and generally considered the finest example of Georgian architecture in Minnesota. On an ordinary night it runs as a bed and breakfast. On a buyout night, it runs as your house.
A whole-house rental takes in all eight guest room types across the Main Mansion and the Carriage House, the five distinct gardens, and the shared interior rooms that make the house work as a gathering place rather than a corridor of bedrooms. The private garden hot tub and Gertrude’s Cistern, the speakeasy-style movie lounge tucked underneath the mansion, are bookable alongside it.
If you want the room-by-room detail before you decide who sleeps where, our guide to which room to book at 300 Clifton walks through every one of them, including which have king beds and which of the Estate Rooms share a bath.
Who actually books the whole house
Family reunions and milestone weekends
This is the most common one. Relatives fly in from four states, nobody wants to be the person hosting fourteen people in a three-bedroom house, and a hotel means everyone scatters to their own floor by nine o’clock. A buyout puts everybody under one roof with their own bathroom door to close — which is, in practice, the thing that makes multi-generational travel survivable. Milestone birthdays, anniversaries and holiday gatherings fall into the same shape.
Company retreats and offsites
The mansion’s own phrasing for this is trade the conference room for a mansion, and it is a fair description. Full-house buyouts work for board retreats, leadership offsites and small team gatherings: somewhere to actually talk during the day, and gardens, a hot tub and a movie lounge for the part of the evening where the real conversation happens. Everyone stays on site, so nobody is coordinating rideshares at eleven at night.
Weddings and celebrations
300 Clifton hosts a deliberately limited number of weddings a year so that each one gets the whole house and the gardens. That is its own subject, and we have written it up separately — see where to have a small wedding in Minneapolis. The mansion is also available for film and photo productions.
The practical things worth knowing first
- Check-in is from 3:00 PM and check-out is by 10:00 AM. Early check-in or late check-out can be added for $25 each, subject to availability — worth asking about for a group that is setting up.
- Every guest room has air conditioning, and complimentary WiFi runs throughout the mansion.
- There is no 24-hour front desk. 300 Clifton is a privately operated historic house; staff are on site during the day and you get a phone number for after hours.
- Guest parking is available on site, with directions in your pre-arrival information. We have written more about parking at 300 Clifton if a caravan of cars is arriving.
- Children are welcome. Pets cannot be accommodated.
- Breakfast is not served on site, though complimentary coffee is in the common area — so plan group meals rather than assuming a dining room service.
What a group can do while it is here
Loring Park is a genuinely good base for a group because almost nothing requires a car. The Walker Art Center is a short walk away and runs guided and self-led group tours in both the galleries and the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, which is free and open daily. Mia is free every day it is open, which makes it an easy plan for a large group with mixed budgets, and Mill City Museum puts the flour-milling history of the riverfront into an afternoon.
For something the whole group does together rather than wanders through, Minneapolis Trolley Tours runs vintage trolley tours — scenic, ghost and true-crime — and takes private bookings, which is a neat way to move fourteen people around a city they do not know. The Pillsbury Club, in another historic Minneapolis mansion, has private club rooms and a dining room for a group dinner, and is where the trolley departs from.
If your group is bigger than the house or some of them are staying for weeks rather than nights, Oakland’s on 9th has furnished month-to-month studios a few minutes away downtown — useful overflow for the cousin who is coming early or the colleague who is staying on.
How to ask about a date
There is no online buyout booking button, and that is deliberate: pricing depends on the date, the shape of the event and your headcount. The Weddings & Whole-House Rental page has an enquiry form — tell them your date, the kind of gathering and how many people, and you will get availability back. Popular weekends go early, so if you are looking at a holiday or a graduation weekend, ask sooner rather than later.
And if the whole house is more than you need, individual rooms book normally. Booking direct gets the best available rate and lets you add experiences to the stay.
Request available dates for a whole-house stay at 300 Clifton →
Keep reading: Can You Bring Kids to a Bed and Breakfast in Minneapolis?