1908 Ayres Inn

OK, I have traveled to San Antonio many times on business, and one of my dear friends suggested that I stay at the Ayers in my next overnight stay. I have stayed at numerous B&B’s while in the Northeast… and I have to say that not only this is the best B&B I have stayed at, but maybe the best hotel too!.. I will NEVER again stay at the run-​of-​the-​mill Hilton, Sheraton, Four Seasons. The owners at Ayers have created a «mini retreat» in each of their suites. Full bath, beautiful décor, and you do NOT feel like you are traveling. You feel like you are visiting are very wealthy friend. Totally set up for businessmen too! High speed internet, easy access to D/​T San Antonio… perfect. One of the most relaxing and enjoyable business stays I have had in a long, long time. 5 stars ARE NOT enough!!! Kudos!

1908 Ayre Inn is the best Bed and Breakfast inn in Texas or shall I say the US! I have traveled throughout the US and never have I found a more relaxing retreat to stay. The attention to detail that Hector and Mike create make my stay here so relaxing and peaceful. Every thing from the beautiful room makes me feel like the DIva I am! I feel totally pampered special and and loved! Full internet access during my stay while going me back in time to 1908 in this beautiful home! Hey hundreds of free DVDs to see. Fantastic Mexican cuisine within walking distance! The fully lovely fully restored Ayres Inn B&B!are immaculately clean, lovely and cator those of us who enjoy quality and beautiful ambiance and luxury. Its my home away from home! I give 1908 Ayres Inn a 5 *. Thank you Hector and Mike for setting the true standards of what a B& B should be! Bravo!!.

My husband and I recently stayed at the B&B in the Carriage House. It was wonderful! Quiet, private and a great getaway from the hustle and bustle of downtown. I had a convention downtown, and it took just minutes to drive dowtown and park in a parking garage, or if I had chosen, I could have taken the bus, which picks up at a bust stop literally steps away from the B&B. The breakfasts were great, the ambiance was lovely and the house is beautiful. The carriage house room is a detached room with a great little space, king bed, flat screen TV, whirlpool jet tub and shower and all the amenities of the main house. There is also a nice patio area with table and chairs just outside for you to enjoy coffee, drinks, whatever. My husband is a light sleeper, so it was nice to have peace and quiet at night, and no creeky footsteps to wake us up. I highly recommend this B&B if you are staying in San Antonio for vacation or business or both. We had a wonderful, romantic time! You are also withing walking distance (like a 1 minute walk around the corner) to one of the most fabulous Mexican restaurants, La Fonda on Main and a few minutes of a drive away from The Cove, which was featured on Diners, Drive Ins and Dives! Both excellent and worth the wait!

I am so glad my stay here is over because I have been waiting 3 days to rate these guys! Usually I am skeptical of establishments that have 5 stars because I feel its the locals hyping up the ratings. Not so here, these guys are a very classy operation. Not just some retirees renting rooms in a big house. Hector is the person that we dealt with directly on this stay so I will just use him for this review.
When we arrived we were given an envelope with everything we needed for our stay. And as is the case with most bed and breakfasts we were given the local breakdown of whats around. What I like however is that he was very honest about where we should spend or NOT spend our hard earned money. Most places just point you to whats tourist popular in the area. An interesting thing about the Ayers inn is how the owners can pretty much never be seen but you know they are there for anything you need as soon as you need it.
Bed: We stayed in the Buchanan carriage house. Which unlike the name sounds is Very Very nice. I assume its the newest update to the inn but its not brand new. However when we walked in it looked like we were the first ones to ever stay here. B&B’s to me kind of feel like orphanages from the 1920’s which is why the carriage house is perfect for me. Benefits of B&B but its seperated from the main house so my snoring only wakes me. There is wifi through out the house but it seems to have trouble reaching the carriage house. There is a couple very nice quiet areas in the main house however that you can sit back with your Ipad or Tablet and look up things in the area. And when i say quiet i mean Quiet. I shooshed myself for swallowing to loud, it was crazy.
& Breakfast: the breakfast is more than just doughnuts and warm oj. Hector makes a mean omelette. I scarfed it down and i dont even like omelettes so i thought. Available all day or while they last are various cereals, oj, coffee and teas (my favorite) in the main dining room.
Its about a 5 min drive to downtown. Those that prefer to walk everywhere will be a little out of luck. But there is plenty of walking to do when you get downtown.
Parking is secure, there is a big old gate that you have to drive through to park and the area is well lit for those that have issues walking to the car at night. My suggestion however is bring a mid size or small car. Parking is really tight and with a full house an SUV just wont work. I am not sure but i assume there is space in the street to park the plus sized vehicles.
Bottom-​line the 1908 Ayers Inn met and definetly exceeded expectations. 5 stars is not enough and I would go back in a heart beat.

A lovely B&B if you are staying in San Antonio for business or pleasure and have a car to get around town. A co-​worker and I stayed here in June & both of us loved our accommodations & breakfasts. I stayed in the Bonham Suite upstairs, she stayed in a smaller room closer to the downstairs kitchen. The website photos & reviews looked great and our visit lived up to the hype.
For the money, this was a superior option to staying at a Sheraton or Marriott for me. The house was beautifully renovated by the owners of the B&B. They are both friendly and helpful but not overly talkative unless you want to have a conversation. (I find some B&B hosts can be a little too friendly when I am traveling on business & really just would like to eat a nice breakfast & be on my way to work.) There is free WiFi which was nice for taking care of emails at night.
I arrived extremely late & left extremely early, so I was also excited that the breakfast «continental» bar is ²⁴⁄₇. There was gourmet tea, fruit, yogurt. bottled water, and pastry in the front room if you are an early riser or like some chamomile before falling asleep in a VERY comfy bed.
I greatly appreciated that they had some organic items and also Fage brand Greek plain yogurt with fruit (vs. some sugary highly processed yogurt that you get in most hotels/b&b’s/airports, etc). Their scrambled eggs were the best I have ever had & I hope I can come up with something similar at home. The banana pancakes were yummy too. Since I was departing so early, I asked if they would leave me a few boiled eggs for my flight. They were waiting in the breakfast area fridge for my 5:45am taxi ride.
Added bonus: there is also a great upscale gourmet Mexican restaurant around the block, La Fonda on Main.
I don’t get to San Antonio too often for business, but next time I do, this will definitely be a return stop.

When making a reservation and entering credit card info, this B&B’s website is NOT secure. In order to be secure, the website address must begin with HTTPS: (instead of HTTP:) to indicate that it is using the SSL/​TSL protocol.
I called to make a reservation and tried to tell them that their website was not secure, but they argued with me and hung up! I have been in the computer industry for 25+ years and consult with businesses on security, so I know what I was trying to tell them. I even examined the source code for their «checkout“page and verified that information you supply will be sent unencrypted.
BEWARE: If you call them to give your credit card number over the phone, they use the same website to enter your personal information. Doing so may allow a hacker access to it. Do not believe them when they say that they have been using this process for 6 years without a problem as something might have changed on their website recently which caused this oversight.
This B&B should contact their web developers (
) if they do not believe me or look at the Wikipedia article on HTTPS @
, where you will find the following:
«HTTP is insecure and is subject to man-​in-​the-​middle and eavesdropping attacks, which can let attackers gain access to website accounts and sensitive information. HTTPS is designed to withstand such attacks and is considered secure against such attacks (with the exception of older deprecated versions of SSL).»
UPDATE: Just verified that their website was created in March, 2012, by the web developers noted above, so they could not have been using it to enter reservation information for 6 years!
RESPONSE to Mike E.‘s comments:
I did not *accuse* the B&B of having an insecure website — I stated the FACTS as an expert in computer security. And when I said that my wife wanted to provide them with her credit card # over the phone, I was told that the B&B used the same website and I was RUDELY hung up on!
Then my wife called back to book a room and tried to reason with another person, but she was told the same thing: «We use the same website that you use for entering your credit card info so that won’t make a difference.»
She then decided that it was better to book ourselves at a more expensive B&B than to potentially have her credit card # hacked.
Mike E — if you took my wife’s «e-​mail to heart», why didn’t you take what I was telling you to heart? I even told you that I was trying to help your business since it would not be in your best interest to have your customers’ personal info hacked because of an insecure website.
And in my review, I made absolutely NO false accusations and was simply echoing what we were told over the phone by two different people at your B&B — that you use the SAME website for entering credit card information that customers use.
In addition, in case you didn’t notice, my wife provided you with her work e-​mail address (in which the address’s domain is a Federal agency that deals with US security), and she does not have access to it on the weekends; therefore, she didn’t see your «apology» until she arrived into work this morning.
Unfortunately, there was no apology for being rude to us and hanging up on me. In fact, you only apologized for being ignorant! Your exact words were «We definitely apologize for not fully understanding what was going on.»
Next time — try listening to a potential customer who says he is trying to help you — and don’t hang up on him!
P. S. Your provider fixed your website as of this morning, and it is now secure. I wonder if the e-​mail I sent them last night had anything to do with it?

One of the best B&Bs we’ve ever stayed in! Photos on the website are very accurate. The owners are so nice and the breakfast they serve is out of this world. We stayed in the Carriage house with a whirlpool tub for two & memory foam mattress that rivals ANY hotel you can find. Trust the fantastic reviews & stay here! You’ll be glad you did.

Having stayed here twice now, I feel comfortable giving this place an excellent rating. As other reviewers mention, the inn is full of luxurious amenities and (better than) home comforts that really make for a memorable stay. The innkeepers are available without being in your face, and I love that they keep a few snacks out so that a mid-​day coffee or tea break can also include some fruit and biscotti, if you wish.
It’s true that the location isn’t super close to downtown, but there are a couple of restaurants and several fun activities pretty close by. (Including La Fonda – about a block away, with lovely atmosphere and great food. Check it out when you stay!) My partner and I will definitely be returning to the Ayres Inn any time we’re in San Antonio.

I am at work still reminiscing about my time at 1908 Ayres Inn (the correct spelling of this B and B). Just checked out yesterday and spent an enchanting weekend there. It is simply an amazing property! The rooms are large and renovated with respect to the antiquities still maintained from the original house (like the gorgeous wood floor in the Bowie suite). The common areas are warm and comfortable even though they look like a still frame from Architectural Digest.
1908 Ayres Inn gets 10 stars for cleanliness. Not a speck of dust or random hair in the entirety of our suite. Also more than 5 stars for the romantic atmosphere. The property has everything you need to turn your mini-​break into a romantic get away. The owners are accessible without being pushy or ever-​present (I thought the cell phones they hand out at check-​in are a nice touch). The DVD/​Blue ray collection is astounding. The L’Occitane bath products made me feel like I was in my own high-​maintenance bathroom (yes ladies and gents, they had my exact shampoo and conditioner). And the continental plus breakfast… yum! Just the simple touch of baking their own breads and muffins and making a hot breakfast each morning made me scream 5 stars, 5 stars all the way home during my drive to Houston. The owners pay close attention to the details. They should be heavily rewarded for that trait. As I was heavily rewarded for choosing 1908 Ayres Inn. Hands down the best B&B I’ve been to in America.

I am currently staying at Ayers Inn, writing this from their WiFi connection. For the same price as a quality downtown hotel, I am able to enjoy far more ‘en suite’ perks, such as 1000 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets, a beautiful large bathroom, and a delicious continental breakfast that is prepared by the owners each day. The house is amazing and has been restored with wonderful attention to detail and is located in a charming neighborhood. The owners are kind and understanding, and are willing to assist you without being overbearing. Each of the four suites features different amenities, so check the website for more specific descriptions.
The only downside so far is the proximity to the trains, which can be heard at all hours and might disturb light sleepers. Bring some earplugs to enjoy a good nights rest on the Tempurpedic bed.
This will be my place to stay for future visits to San Antonio.