We discovered The Glidden House a few years ago when we checked the Cleveland Museum of Art's website to see if we could find lodging nearby. This boutique hotel, located in a historic building, is right in the midst of University Circle, the city's art and cultural area. We could see the botanic garden from our window as we ate breakfast and the art and natural history museums were within easy walking distance.

The building was once the home of the Glidden family whose name was synonymous with paint. There are well-throught-out new additions to the original structure giving them room for conferences and weddings without detracting from the beautiful old house.

Though the building feels spacious inside, it also manages to maintain a comfortable, almost homey feel. Well, a rather fancy home! There were a lot of cars around the entrance when I took this photo as there was some kind of business meeting in progress. But we have been able to park adjacent to the hotel on our visits and we've just left our car and walked everywhere. They even let us keep our car there after we'd checked out but wanted to go back to the museum for a while.

We snapped this photo for the beautiful construction materials and for the rocky solution to a problem area. We have a similar narrow, sloped space and are thinking about using the same solution.

Opposite this painting is the check-in desk. On the coffee and side tables are the latest books about the exhibits at the art museum. This is the only hotel I've ever been in where I was so taken with the art and art books that I could hardly pay attention to registering!

We ate breakfast in the garden room adjacent to the original dining room on the other side of the brick wall. The Glidden House offers an absolutely fabulous breakfast buffet.

You can also sit in the dining room with a fireplace and lighted built-in china cabinets around the room. The cabinets are full of china!

Isn't this a great spot to begin your morning!

I had to take a closer look at the beautiful woodcarving around the screen doors out to the patio.

The dark wood just at the edge of the photo on the left below is the screen door whose carving I photographed above.

This outdoor seating area is between the old garden room and one of the new event spaces.

The glassed-in area (above) with the long white curtains is a small cocktail lounge (below). There is a small curved bar area with seating by the big windows.

While Mark played on his laptop, I had to check out the artwork. There's nothing I like better than abstract mark-making.

The view out the windows in the lounge.

And the view towards the street.

When I think of Wisconsin I picture huge old Oak trees and acres of evergreens. But there is something mesmerizing about the trees that I see every time we drive out East.

On our walk over to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, we unexpectedly came across this Frank Gehry building.

It's the Peter B. Lewis Building of Case Western Reserve University whose buildings are spread throughout the area. As Mark was standing on the sidewalk across the street taking these pictures, someone called his name. We looked up and it was one of his Madison photo friends who was in Cleveland for a music conference on the lute! Small world.

You are allowed to go inside and tour part of the main floor. It was well worth taking a look to see how all those swoops and curves played out in the interior. And we also got to see a ceramic sculpture by one of our favorite artists, Jun Kaneko. You can tell I'm going to the natural history museum and not the art museum by my casual clothes.

I haven't a clue what this building was originally or how it is used today. But it was too lovely not to capture it with the camera.

I've written many posts about restaurants and museums and art galleries, but I am not sure if I've ever shared my opinion on a hotel. But should you be in Cleveland, The Glidden House Hotel is a lovely place to stay. And to our surprise, we discovered it cost about the same as one of the big chain hotels we'd stopped at in Toledo on previous trips.

The drive from Madison to Cleveland is a bit longer than we'd prefer to do in one day, but knowing The Glidden House Hotel was at the end of our drive kept us focused. That, and the fact that I'd made reservations a while before we left Madison for dinner at L'Albatros Brasserie (photo from their website above), a wonderful restaurant just down the alley from the hotel. We ate outdoors on the patio our first night and went back the next night and enjoyed a cosy dinner inside by those big windows where we watched a rainstorm.
Author's note: I am not receiving any remuneration for this post. We've had great service and experiences at all the places mentioned and wanted to share them.