Glen Cove Mansion Review

A few weeks ago, we spent a night at the Glen Cove Mansion hotel on Long Island.  It's one of the Gatsby'esque old fashioned mansions you see in movies.  Actually, some movies have been filmed there.


I must say, it was cool to drive up to a place like that and walk in.  It's different than going into a banquet hall or museum.  You actually feel, for a second, like you live there.


Since the place is so old, the rooms and hallways of the mansion itself are quite small.  Guests rooms are not part of the mansion at all.  They have made it into a conference center, so most of the rooms of the mansion are meeting rooms.  Guest rooms are spread out among adjoining buildings constructed sometime (I'm guessing) in the 60's.  The rooms themselves are just OK.  They cannot compare to modern day hotel rooms.


The service was pretty poor.  The outside pool "bar" (because they had some beer in ice in a washtub) had 4 or 5 kids working it, most of whom just sat there and stared at you.  I asked if I can get a drink inside and bring it out to the pool.  Really stumped them there.  Settled for a Coors Lite.  Most of the staff just didn't seem with it.  The front desk was OK, but the rest were like zombies.  The breakfast buffet was pretty good.


They have an exercise facility / game room consisting of an indoor pool, racquetball courts, a ping pong table, and a gym.  They also rent bikes.  They claim to have trail maps, but they're just street maps, and the streets around there are busy roads without shoulders.  We manged to bike ride along the sound, and discovered a cool, half abandoned house right on the water.  Investigating that was pretty fun.  We gathered it was being renovated rather than abandoned.  Must be prime real estate based on the surrounding houses.


All in all, the overall experience was not bad.  I likely would not go back but it was fun for one night.