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Phone: 215-387-6065

Email: cstonebb@aol.com

Street Address: 3300 Baring Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104

Rates: $99 to $225 (as of December 2004)

Location Rating: Very good if you need to be near the University Of Pennsylvania. The Philadelphia Art Museum is maybe a 15 minute walk.

Lobby Appearance: Victorian. Interesting. Right away you can sense that this B & B has a certain charm.

Room Appearance: Comfortable.

Would I Stay Here? Yes.

Comments: This is one of Philadelphia's Bed & Breakfast gems. I was not familiar with this part of the city when I came here. I felt a little uneasy in surrounding neighborhoods, but the immediate neighborhood of the Cornerstone Bed & Breakfast is different. How strange - it seemed like I was suddenly in an old suburban town. The streets were lined with nice, old, big houses. It seemed like a calm area.

This Bed & Breakfast is worth your careful consideration for its interesting, quality atmosphere and for the like-ability factor of its owners: Nadine and Dave.

Nadine and Dave spent a year visiting 300 bed & breakfast inns across the country, and this is the one they chose to buy. After 14 months of being in business, it seems they are quite happy serving people this way. It didn't take long for me to realize that these two are sharp operators. They seem to be driven to make their facility better and better. Quality, cleanliness and the slightest details are important to them. I think they have a lot of pride in this home.

Nadine and Dave both had a way of making me feel immediately comfortable. And I found my visit here to be very enjoyable and a pleasure.

After I walked in the front door, I was dazzled by the interior. The house was built in 1870 and it still has its 7 original stained glass windows. The original wood floor definitely caught my attention. The craftsmen who made this floor many years ago inserted darker wood and made special cuts to create elegant patterns in the woodwork. It's quite rare to find something like this. It reminded me a little bit of some of the incredible, extravagant palaces in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

In the main room on the first floor, a full-size fireplace was ablaze. It looked real and generated heat, but it is one of those new fake fireplaces. It gave the room a nice feel. The ceiling has been recently wall-papered with an attractive, ornate Victorian design. In the breakfast room a world map hangs on the wall, and it is filled with many pins. Each pin represents where a previous guest came from (their home city). And people from all over Europe, the Far East and other areas have stayed here.

With the interior design, this home is not 100% Victorian. It's a mixture of old architecture with new comforts. And it works very well.

The facility has 6 guest rooms. They can accommodate 14 comfortably. One of these, a suite, is on the main level. This suite is one of the favorite places to stay for one of the University Of Pennsylvania's professors. The entrance of the suite immediately leads into the bathroom. It exits into the bedroom. And through one doorway past the bedroom is the cozy living room (with a sofa bed). I loved it. It's like a nice little apartment. It even had a little remote control fake fireplace which gave it a nice ambiance. It felt very private and comfortable there. Price as of December 2004: $155.

The other suite I saw, which was on the top floor, I also really liked. It encompasses the entire third floor. The first room in the suite is a tiny and very cozy TV room. The bedroom is probably a little bit masculine in its decor. The bathroom is a good size and it is very private, with only a skylight for a window. It also includes a jacuzzi. And a smaller, second bedroom is a part of this suite.

(Only the suites have televisions. People in regular rooms can watch the TV in the breakfast room.)

Guests can use wifi internet access here. There is a tea box with a wide variety of tea bags available. Elegant tea cups and saucers are waiting to be used. They serve a full breakfast each morning. On Saturdays from 5 to 6pm they have a little wine and cheese party for the guests. Parking seems to be fairly easy, and there are no meters to feed.

This inn is located in the University City District. It is a special zone that is patrolled by the University Of Pennsylvania police, the Drexel University police, and the Philadelphia police. The University Of Pennsylvania has had a program in effect which subsidizes the cost of housing for their faculty in this district. And this university also has set up a separate, much higher quality school system for the children of residents of this district. So, this area has become popular and a lot of people want to live here. And the extra police presence makes it safer.

Since the bed & breakfast is so close to these universities and the University Of Pennsylvania's hospitals, they get a lot of academic-related guests, plus people who have dealings with the hospitals and who are in the medical field.

Nadine and Dave say they are getting a lot of repeat customers, which to them means they are doing things right. I took a quick look at their guest comment book. It appears that everybody leaves happy (which does not surprise me at all).

With the location, you can't walk to the South Street action, the theaters on Broad Street, or the Penn's Landing waterfront. This is a different part of the city. But all those things are close by with a car or public transportation.

Interestingly, you can't see the big city from this location. But if you drive two blocks towards the river, you will suddenly have a close-up view of the city skyline.

I was delighted with my visit here. The quality of this facility is excellent. It has a unique charm, and the innkeepers are very pleasant to become acquainted with. It would be a treat to stay at the Cornerstone Bed & Breakfast.