For the first time in my traveling life I stayed in both the best room and the worst room in a hotel in a single weekend!  While allowing me to make a broad critical appraisal of the place, it wasn't exactly what I had in mind in my choice to stay there.\nThe location in Shadyside is great situated as it is within walking distance of the best part of Pittsburgh.  Carnegie Mellon, U Pitt, museums and Shenley Park and some great bars and restaurants.  For that the Mansions gets high marks.  It is a beautiful old place that is targeting the premium market with intimacy and service but it has a lot of bugs to work out before they can justify the price.  Perhaps they'll get there some day but they are not there yet.\nWe arrived with high expectations and suddenly found ourselves being marched out the front door and through the loose gravel parking lot to the \"daughter mansion\" next door.  We then were taken up 3 flights of increasingly narrow stairs to the recently renovated attic.  So recently renovated that the paint smell was still obvious and trim wasn't finished.  The exit door to the fire escape (back staircase) didn't have a knob.  Our room, while quaint, was noticeably warm and we soon discovered it wouldn't be cool-able until the next day.  We demanded another room and were given the presidential suite.  Excellent!  That room is worth every penny of what you pay.  Really outstanding.  Giant suite and very quiet and comfortable.\nThe next night we were packed up and moved to the attic again.  This time they fixed the cooling problem but forgot to put pillows on the bed.  We then discovered that the TV was not connected to the cable system. That night we discovered there was no soundproofing for the single paned window that faced the busy 5th Avenue outside.  No sleep no quiet and certainly no comfort.  \nDon't let them put you in the \"daughter mansion\"!  Real bait and switch.