St. James Hotel, Selma AL

Posted by ginger On Friday, October 14, 2005

The St. James Hotel was built in 1837.


Sitting area in lobby

Lobby: The lobby was nice, mostly because of the sitting area (pic above).


courtyard







Room: Our room was an average size with tall ceilings, which helps make the large-scale furniture not seem out of place. When we first walked in, there was a bit of a musty smell, but it went away soon after we turned the air on and left the door open for a minute or two. The bed wasn't comfortable - not really too hard or too soft, just not very comfortable. The pillows were flat, and the sheets were frayed. Not so good. There was a ceiling fan, and thanks to it along with the air unit, we slept with the room nice and cold (I like to sleep really cold!).

The bathroom had only three bath towels, but the shower water pressure was great.

Each of the rooms has a 'sponsor' - when the hotel was restored back in the '90s, Selma families would sponsor rooms and in return, the family name would be put on the room's door, and a brief history of the family framed in each room. I don't recall the name of the family whose name was on our room, but we had room 315, so we giggled that it was Bear Bryant's room.

Service: Service was okay... I just get the impression that not enough effort is put into a thorough housekeeping of the guest rooms.


Our room's bath


What was really neat was that our room faced the river, and we were able to share a balcony with a view of the Edmund Pettus bridge.





Extra: It was nice to have the balcony available, and we sat in the courtyard for a little while the night we were there. It's nice.

Our experience is this: I don't really think we will stay here again. Selma only has 1-, 2-, and 3-star hotels, the nicest of which are the St. James ($65) and a Hampton Inn ($85). Usually, I'd rather pick a historic hotel, but our mattress wasn't comfortable, and I don't like that they went ahead and put frayed sheets on a bed. When we stay in Selma again, I might do a little more research and see about staying in a B&B.

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