Design mockup. The Rossiter House is an invented business and every name, price and telephone number on this page is fictional.

Five rooms, and three prices each.

A guest house of five rooms does not have one rate. Every room here costs one thing on a quiet Tuesday, another on a Saturday, and another again on the thirty or so nights a year when the hall four blocks north sells out and every house on this street fills. Both numbers matter, so both are printed.

Nightly rate for each room on an ordinary night, a busy night and a full house night
Room	Ordinary	Busy	Full house	Range
The Gallery	$230	$260	$320	$230 to $320
The Bay	$200	$225	$285	$200 to $285
The Sisters	$185	$210	$265	$185 to $265
The Ash	$170	$190	$245	$170 to $245
The Eaves	$150	$165	$235	$150 to $235
				$150 $200 $250 $300

The bar runs from the ordinary rate to the full house rate, and the mark on it is the busy night rate. Per room, per night, two people, before tax.

The ranges overlap, and that is the part worth reading twice. The Eaves on a full house Saturday is $235. The Gallery, the largest room in the house, is $230 on a Tuesday in February. The night you pick moves the price further than the room you pick.

What makes a night one thing or the other

Ordinary nights

Sunday through Thursday all year, and most of January, February and March including weekends. Roughly half the calendar. One night minimum.

Busy nights

Friday and Saturday from April through December. One night minimum, though a Saturday on its own is the first thing to go, so ask early.

Full house nights

About thirty nights a year. Nights the performing arts center four blocks north has a full house, home game Saturdays, the first weekend in May, and the two nights either side of Thanksgiving. Two night minimum.

If you are not sure which one your date is, say the date on the telephone and you will be told, along with the rate, before anything is held. The rate you are quoted is the rate you pay. It does not move after you book.

The five rooms, dearest first

Each room says what the money above the room below it actually buys. On a five room stair that is usually a bathroom, a flight of stairs or a window, and it is never a description.

A lamplit front bedroom with a tall curtained window, a velvet chaise under it and a brass lamp beside the bed.

1 of 5

The Gallery

Thirty five dollars over The Bay buys the front of the house, a third window, and a chair that is not the desk chair.

Second floor front, over the porch roof. Three windows onto Lindenwood, which means street light at night and a streetcar bell you will hear twice before you stop noticing it. King bed. The sitting corner is a real corner, not a chair wedged beside a radiator, and it is the only one in the house.

Bed: King
Bath: Private, in the room. Shower over a cast iron tub
Stairs: Sixteen, one flight, no lift
Faces: The street

$230$260$320

A bedroom in ochre paint with an iron bedstead under a patchwork quilt, an oak chest of drawers and two gingham curtained windows.

2 of 5

The Bay

Fifteen dollars over The Sisters buys one bed you can share and a bathroom you do not cross a landing to reach.

Second floor, side of the house, windows on two walls, which is why it is the coolest room in August and the draughtiest in January. Queen bed, an oak chest that came with the house, and morning light from about seven.

Bed: Queen
Bath: Private, in the room. Shower only
Stairs: Sixteen, one flight, no lift
Faces: The side garden and the neighbour's brick wall

$200$225$285

A back bedroom with two black iron single beds side by side under patterned wallpaper, a rattan chandelier between them.

3 of 5

The Sisters

Twenty dollars over The Ash buys two beds and a window that faces something other than the drive.

Second floor back. Two singles that cannot be pushed together, because the frames are the original iron and they do not meet. The right room for two friends or a parent and a grown child, and the wrong room for a couple. Its bathroom is private but it is across the landing, four steps from the door.

Bed: Two singles, fixed apart
Bath: Private, across the landing
Stairs: Sixteen, one flight, no lift
Faces: The back garden and the elms

$185$210$265

A plain ground floor bedroom with a bed framed in bare branches, white quilt, wide pine boards and a ceiling fan.

4 of 5

The Ash

Twenty dollars over The Eaves buys no stairs at all and a bathroom on the same floor as the bed.

Ground floor, back of the house, off the rear hall. The only room in the building you can reach without climbing anything, which is the reason most people who book it book it. It faces the gravel drive, so the view is a car and a fence, and the branch bed frame was made by the owner's brother in 1998.

Bed: Queen
Bath: Private, in the room. Shower only
Stairs: None. Two steps at the back door
Faces: The gravel drive

$170$190$245

An attic bedroom under a sloping whitewashed ceiling, a brass and iron bed with a patchwork quilt, and a small window with a jug and basin on the sill.

5 of 5

The Eaves

The cheapest room in the house, and the one to read carefully before you take it.

Third floor, under the roof. Thirty four stairs from the front door and the last flight is steep and narrow. The ceiling slopes on both sides and you will catch your head on it once, on the first night. The bathroom is private to this room but it is a floor below. In exchange it is the quietest room in the building and it has the only window that sees over the rooftops.

Bed: Queen, under the slope
Bath: Private, one floor down
Stairs: Thirty four, two flights, no lift
Faces: Over the rooftops, west

$150$165$235

A cooked breakfast of poached eggs, sourdough toast and roast tomato on a round wooden table, with coffee in a green mug and a second plate being carried in.

Breakfast is at eight, and there is one sitting

Five rooms means at most ten people at one table, so there is one sitting and it is at eight. You order at the table and it is cooked then. If you have a train, a flight or a nine o'clock meeting, say so the night before and it will be at seven for you instead, at the same table on your own.

Coffee is on the sideboard from half past six. Tell us on the telephone about anything you cannot eat, because the shopping happens the day before rather than the morning of.

A white two storey clapboard house with a wraparound porch and a dark metal roof, photographed from the street in late autumn.

Arriving after the curtain comes down

Check in is from three in the afternoon until nine at night at the door. After nine, and that includes every night you are here for a performance, you are given a door code on the day and your key is on the hall table under your room name. Nobody will be sitting up waiting for you, which is the point.

Parking is four cars on the gravel drive at the back, free, first come. On full house nights the drive fills by six, and the street is metered until ten. Check out is by eleven, and bags can stay in the hall until five.

How to book

By telephone. There is no booking form on this page and there is not going to be one, because with five rooms the person who answers is the person who knows whether the room you want is free.

Call (816) 555-0173

Have ready: Your dates, the room you want, and a second choice. Five rooms fill in an order and the one you read first is often the one already gone.
Deposit: One night, on a card, taken on the call. The rest on arrival.
Changing your mind: Seven days ahead and the deposit comes back in full. Fourteen days on a full house night, because a room lost on one of those thirty nights does not resell.
Telephone hours: Eight in the morning until nine at night, seven days. Outside that, leave the dates and a number and you will be rung back before nine the next morning.

The Rossiter House, 214 Lindenwood Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64108