FAQ

Our base rate is $400 on (Sunday-Thursday) and $450 (Friday-Saturday) per night. Rates may be higher than this during some holidays, during major Twilight events and the entire month of October (due to Halloweentown festivities). There is an extra guest fee of $15 per night for each guest in excess of 5. This is intended to offset costs associated with additional power usage, water usage, consumables (toiletries, etc.) and laundering costs associated with the additional guests.

  • St Helens Transient Occupancy Taxes: 10%
  • State Taxes: 1.5%

If you book with us you get the whole house! We do not rent by the room. However, since there is accommodation for up to 8 people we encourage guests to bring friends and family to split the cost.

We have a 2-night booking minimum. Under some circumstances we will remove the 2-night minimum requirement…see the next question.

At this time we are not accepting one day stays. Our cleaning fee remains the same regardless of the length of stay. It is a better value when the cleaning fee is spread over multiple nights. For this reason we have a two night minimum.
During slower seasons we may open one day vacancies at our discretion and will announce these dates on our blog and in our social media stories. When this happens it will be made available to book on the calendar. If you encounter a one day vacancy that is not allowing you to book, that means it is unavailable and is being used for potential maintenance, marketing, or content generation.
Please do not email regarding dates that are not bookable.

The answer is unfortunately a “no”.  Providing a service like a tour would require a business license from the city of Saint Helens.  Operating a business involving on-site customers in an area zoned residential requires a “type-II home occupation” permit.  The requirements for this permit are 1) it must be your home, i.e. you actually live there, and 2) no more than 25% of the structure can be used for the business.  Also, a type-II permit limits you to no more than 6 on-site customers per day.  For all of these reasons, a type-II permit simply won’t work for us.  We have spoken to the city, and there just is no permit mechanism which exists for such a unique circumstance as ours.  However, the moment a customer spends a night it is no longer an on-site business activity, it becomes “lodging” which is an entirely different animal in the legal sense.  Lodging is a totally acceptable use for 100% of a structure in a residential zone.  This is why a vacation rental was really the only path we had to legally make the property available to you.  We would love to be able to give tours but we simply can’t do it legally.  You can read more about this here.

While large events are not allowed, there are some workarounds for smaller more intimate events. Contact us for more details.

The Saint Helens transient rental tax.  The amount is high, but the money actually goes to a good place.  Of the tax revenue collected, the vast majority goes directly to the city of Saint Helens’ tourism bureau.  All other portions are simply intended to defray administrative costs associated with collecting it.  I think of this as a way to help support the town.  The tourism bureau will use the funds to try and bring tourists in, which in turn helps out the entire city, including the Swan House.  You can read more about this here.

No.  We still pay our cleaners the same rate, regardless of the number of guests or length of stay.

We only book up to 1 year in advance.

Yes, motion-activated exterior security cameras are in use and are located at all the entry points of the house. There are additional cameras in the off-limits areas such as the basement, but there are absolutely no cameras anywhere inside the house.  Once you walk through the door, we cannot see you.  The exterior cameras are not intended for monitoring guest activity, but more for ensuring visitors behave and respect our property as well as ensuring that they do not violate the privacy of our guests.  Generally we only regularly monitor guests at check-in time to make sure you get inside without issue and that you didn’t bring any unauthorized visitors or additional guests not specified in the reservation.

The insurance policies that we use will only cover individuals who are a part of the booking. For liability purposes, all guests who enter the property must be accounted for on the reservation guest list. No guests outside of the booking guest list are permitted on the property.

Late check ins are not a problem. If you run into travel issues and think you may be checking in after 9PM, please send us a message to let us know, this way we aren’t worried about you.

Early check ins, by a couple hours, are sometimes possible. Shoot us a message a few days before your check in to confirm that an early check in is possible, and if so we will make sure your code is activated at an appropriate time.  There are no extra charges for this.

Late checkouts however we will not do.  All of our orchestration with our cleaners is set up to allow them entry at 11 AM, and we will not manually override the system.

Pretty simple stuff…  Leave the beds that were slept in unmade so that the cleaners know to launder them.  Place all used towels in the hamper in the upstairs bathroom.  Wash and put away all dishes.  Cleaning out the coffee maker is a nice courtesy too.  Please close and latch all windows, close all blinds, and lock the back door.  Do not worry about taking out the trash.  Our cleaners will add to it during the cleaning anyway.  Please turn off any space heaters.  If it is a warm day then please leave the AC on for our cleaners.  Apart from that just lock the front door on the way out by pressing the Schlage button.

Of course! We would love for you to stop by and take photos! Please take your photos from the gravel out front. Do not go on the grass, up on the porch or peek through any windows, or go around the side of the house. Do not knock on the door or ring the doorbell and ask if you can see inside (yes, this actually happens).  Basically, please respect our guests privacy and their rights to all of the available parking on the property.

Visitors are not allowed to park on the property.  South 6th street is a narrow, 1-lane, dead-end road which does not have sufficient width for vehicles to be coming and going simultaneously.  Visitors driving up and down this road create a particularly annoying traffic nuisance for us and our neighbors who might just happen to be trying to drive the opposite direction at the same time. Please park at the bottom of the hill off of Columbia Blvd and walk up to the house to take photographs.

Full refund (less credit card processing fees of 3%) if cancelled more that 60 days prior to check in. Otherwise, 50% refund if cancelled more than 14 days prior to check in.