Landers House Country Lodging and the Cottages

We stayed here for two nights during a week-​end get-​away to Starved Rock State Park. Utica is the closest town to the park, and Landers House is a much more intimate accommodation than the lodge at the park or some of the bigger hotels.
We stayed in The Safari Suite, which included a living/​sitting room with a Jacuzzi, mini-​fridge, and wood-​burning fireplace; a bedroom; and the world’s tiniest bathroom (but clean and perfectly functional). As the name suggests, everything was decorated in a jungle motif, including animal sculptures, animal wall stencils, lots of animal print fabrics, and even mosquito netting on the bed.
The owners and staff were very accommodating and friendly, and the three-​course breakfasts were great (egg-​cheese-​and-​hash brown soufflé one morning; French toast and bacon the next). The breakfasts also include fresh fruit and some kind of appetizer such as yogurt or fresh baked fruit pastries, and are served in the dining room at whatever time of morning you specify.
Landers House also offers special packages for additional fees, such as floral arrangements in your room or in-​room massages from a local masseuse. We celebrated our anniversary by ordering the Fireside Dessert for Two, which turned out to be two home-​made chocolate-​caramel bundt cakes waiting for us in our fridge along with a bottle of wine.
The only downside, if you can call it that, to our stay was the small size of the rooms. Small rooms are to be expected in renovated Victorian houses, of course, but because of all of the furniture in these rooms you have to navigate your way around very carefully. We were constantly banging our elbows on the walls of the toilet cubicle, stubbing our toes on the ottoman, and getting swatted in the face by the potted palm fronds.
If you like cozy rooms you’ll love this suite, but if you’re claustrophobic or clumsy, you might want to opt for something larger, like the cabins out back that Landers House also operates.

I think, this was the best place we could have stayed near starved rock state park. We had booked serengeti cottage, which was so well decorated and neat. The staff is so welcoming and polite. The breakfast was really good and was served at our cottage. We enjoyed our stay at this place and would recommend it to our friends.

This place is under new management, so they still don’t have a website, which is inconvenient. The place was clean had no issues with the room. If you stay in the Serengeti room, there are 2 thermostats, so we woke up at 1am sweating to death.lol. Once we found the other one. it was fine. My biggest suggestion would be change the mattress. very hard and uncomfortable.
The breakfast was good and people were nice. I would stay again if they gave some things a facelift. Price was a bit high for off season as well.

As we pulled up to the Landers House, I’m thinking what the hell did I get myself into. I’m not the B & B type of guy. But good luck trying to find a cabin around Starved Rock with Wi-​Fi & cable TV. But out of all the cabins I called around the area, Mary the owner operator was the friendliest and most down to earth person I had talked to so I went with it.
The house itself is an old 1800’s Victorian and the cabins are in the back. If you look up the cabins on line the pictures on the website don’t do it justice. Not one bit. My wife and I we’re floored at how beautiful the place was. Clean, spotless & fully equipped. Sink, coffee maker, fridge, hot tub, 2 plush bathrobes, screen in porch, glasses, plates, salt & pepper, they have the whole Magilla. You get your own fire pit with wood sitting there for the taking. In the morning Mary brought breakfast to our cabin at the time we designated & then gave my wife a tour of every available room she had.
I guess that fact that I came home later the next week and found our living room decorated suspiciously like the cabin says leaps & bounds. I drew the line at leopard printed pillows however.
Bottom line is this place was fantastic & we can’t wait to go back and in closing, yes Mary Rocks

MARY IS THE BEST. We just got back from the cottage this afternoon. The place was SUPER clean, not a speck of dust, clean comfy bed. This place is under new management. I could not be more happy with the get away. We are going back for New Years Eve and getting away from the city.

Where to start oh where to start. I’m a firm believer that when you check into a b&b, hotel, etc someone should always be there to greet you and show you around! We waited about 8 minutes to even hear someone coming down the stairs and they were like «hello, you are in the safari suite right? I’m here till 6 but then I’m gone till tomorrow at 8am so you might want to lock your door if you leave!» Not starting out the best.
We went up to the Safari suite and it was not bad… it was not good either. A few things, the bathroom was small than a camper bathroom. I do not know how you would function or «wipe anything» in there… The main floor was cover in about 15 different rugs to hide the old wood floor that they tried to paint but did not turn out good. All window ledges had lots of crunchy bugs. Oh and the best part was the rose petals were fabric ones… classy.
So we said hey is there any cottages open? We would like to upgrade! Every suite was open so we went through them all ended up staying in the La Noche cottage. When you shut off the lights there are little pins holes in the ceiling that look like stars and it is somewhat Spanish inspired. The biggest thing this place is lacking is a «good handyman». You can see soooo many seams in the drywall, plywood. Honestly it looks like the room was slopping together. And for $ 249 A NIGHT we expected a lot more. We compare these prices to GOLDMOOR INN in Galena and alway receive such exceptional service there.
Anyway back to Landers in the La Noche room. The best part, the jacuzzi, it was awesome and looked brand new. One of the worst parts was the bed! OMG it was the hardest crappiest bed we have ever slept on! Our breakfast was worse than a Denny’s restaurant and they never would take it once we set it outside, the flies were loving it though. Oh and come on clean those fake you plants you have everywhere. I could not stop sneezing. There is so many cobwebs and dust throughout this whole cottage. The plants need cleaned or thrown away and clean the dusty ceiling.
Ok that is all.

This place is under new management so ignore the other post. The rooms are adorable and super clean… and the owner makes a wonderful
huge breakfast with plenty of coffee in the am. There is a firepit outside –though it was too cold for us to use I think it would be a perfect way to spend a warm summer night in the country!

There should be a zero star option. We made a reservation, but when we showed up, no one was there. We called and left a voice mail, and received no answer. A few hours later, while having dinner in Utica, our host told us that she has heard of other instances where they have done the same thing and left other guests in the lurch.