The Hawthorne

My husband and I stayed at The Hawthorne Motel for 10 years, and we’d returned with our granddaughter for the last three. The rooms were modest, but we’d been treated well. This year, with Jeff and Kari managing the property, we had the worst hospitality experience in our 62 years. When we arrived, Jeff complained that he had to manage the place because nobody else in the family would. He knew we brought our granddaughter and asked whether we needed a pack and flight, though we already had a place for her on the floor. The next day, he waved to her and said, “Hi Gramm!” We noticed the accommodations had slipped. There was no luggage cart because Jeff was tired of people hitting the AC units with it, no soda machine because he was tired of fixing it, and no small tables beside the lawn chairs. We got a quarter of a sponge that had already been used on the sink, a quarter roll of paper towels, and a quarter roll of toilet paper. It felt like they were cutting costs severely. The bathtub safety handle collapsed when our granddaughter used it. A lamp in our room was broken, and when I put it outside for housekeeping, Jeff seemed annoyed and was short with my husband. On the third morning, Jeff asked to speak with my husband, with my son there too. He said we were disruptive and that other guests had complained, though we’d been there less than 48 hours with our granddaughter. Neighbors we knew from the previous year said they hadn’t heard anything and were shocked. One said, “Wow, they really made you feel unwanted, didn’t they?” Jeff also said it was disruptive that I called my husband to bring her back from the car. He told us a guest had left “early” because of our noise, but her normal departure was 11 and she said she’d left at 8. We leave our room by 7:15 a.m. The conversations with Jeff and Kari left us feeling like a burden, unwelcome, and treated with severe disrespect, as if they had to put us in our place. They gave no clear explanation of what we’d done that deserved this treatment. We felt so uncomfortable that we left three days early. Kari and Jeff refused to refund those three nights. Kari smirked and said, “Good luck with that, your card was already charged.” We won’t return and can’t recommend the motel unless you’re willing to deal with what we experienced as unwelcoming behavior from unhappy, unstable people. The Hawthorne also badly needs updates. If the family needs to sell it so someone can make it enjoyable to stay there again, so be it.