Glidden House
A paint-fortune mansion in Cleveland's museum district
★★★★★📍 University Circle, Cleveland$$
Book Your Stay
Check rates at Glidden House
Best rate guaranteed · free cancellation on most rooms
The mansion passed to the Gliddens' daughter Ida, who lived there until her death, and it later served Case Western Reserve University before becoming a hotel. University Circle grew up around it — the art museum, the orchestra hall and the botanical garden all arrived in the decades after the house was built — so staying here feels like being a guest in the neighborhood's original living room. Breakfast is served in the older, original part of the house, and the hotel lets students from the Cleveland Institute of Music use its spaces to warm up before auditions, which says a lot about its place in the neighborhood.
The stay craft: book one of the eight signature suites in the original mansion for character, walk to the art museum for a Wednesday or Friday evening visit, and spend a morning in the botanical garden's glasshouses. Little Italy, with its bakeries and trattorias, is a short walk up the hill, and the HealthLine bus runs downtown along Euclid Avenue. On summer Wednesday evenings, Wade Oval Wednesdays brings free outdoor concerts to the lawn a few minutes away, and the art museum's Wednesday late hours make it a natural double bill. Lake View Cemetery, with the James A. Garfield Memorial, sits just up the hill for a quieter walk.
Practicals: 1901 Ford Drive, University Circle, Cleveland, on-site parking, about twenty-five minutes from Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. Fit: art lovers, couples and anyone planning a walkable University Circle museum weekend. Compared with downtown Cleveland hotels, Glidden House trades skyline views and big-hotel facilities for a walk-everywhere location in the cultural district; for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the lakefront and the sports venues, plan on a car or the HealthLine.
Amenities
Ready to book Glidden House?
Check rates →Frequently Asked Questions
How close is Glidden House to the Cleveland Museum of Art?
Within an easy walk — the hotel sits in University Circle, steps from the museum, the botanical garden and the natural history museum.
What is special about the suites?
Eight signature suites occupy the original mansion's family bedrooms, each named for a member of the Glidden family and decorated to match. The rest of the rooms are in the newer wing, and sizes vary, so ask about layout when booking.
Is parking available?
Yes — the hotel has on-site parking, a real advantage in University Circle. Once parked, you can leave the car: the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland are also within a short walk.
More All Museum Hotels
Browse all →
The Carlyle, A Rosewood Hotel
★★★★★
Museum Mile's house hotel — the Art Deco tower off Madison where presidents and princesses slept, Bemelmans' Madeline murals glow at cocktail hour, and the Met waits a ten-minute stroll up Fifth. New York's museum weekend, done in style.
The Peninsula New York
★★★★★
A Beaux-Arts landmark on Fifth Avenue at 55th Street, two blocks from MoMA and a short ride to Museum Mile — Peninsula polish, a top-floor spa and pool, and Midtown's best base for a New York art weekend.
The Blackstone, Autograph Collection
★★★★★
The hotel of presidents on Michigan Avenue — a 1910 Beaux-Arts landmark facing Grant Park with the Art Institute a ten-minute walk north and the Field's Museum Campus a lakefront stroll south. Chicago's museum weekend, bracketed.
Riggs Washington DC
★★★★★
The bank the presidents used, reborn as Penn Quarter's handsomest hotel — Romanesque vaults, a cocktail bar in the actual basement vault, and the Smithsonian's free museum row a fifteen-minute walk down to the Mall.