Station At Shepherdstown

This is a lovely little venue, perfect for hosting small parties. In the summer of 2014, we flew to West Virginia from Arizona to scope out a place for our son’s wedding rehearsal dinner. We selected the Train Station, and over the next year, we finalized all of the arrangements through phone and email. The event in May 2015 was a great success. HOWEVER, it was successful IN SPITE of the problems.
A quick review of problems:
The recommended caterer, Susan, tried to take advantage of the long distance.
We switched to a new caterer, but Susan had become a member of the board and we still had to work with her. When we asked for a refund of the kitchen fee (since we would no longer be using the kitchen) we were told there was no record of it. Fortunately, we kept a copy of the check.
We purchased our own linens, floor length table cloths, overlays, napkins, everything to match the current color pattern in the station. Susan was quite aware of this. And yet, when we arrived to set up for the event, the interior had been freshly painted in new colors. Fortunately, the linens still looked okay with the new beige and brown interior. The bathrooms were still the old color and the smell of paint was overwhelming, so it was clear that the painting project was actually in progress and we were interrupting it. We did our best to air the place out so our guests wouldn’t be breathing paint fumes. Since our event was scheduled long ago, (and no other events were scheduled for weeks before ours), it should have been painted weeks earlier OR they should have waited one more week until our event was over.
In addition, the place was not clean. The bathrooms were dirty and dusty, with overflowing paper towel disposal bins and full trash cans. The toilet paper dispenser was empty. There were new rolls, but no key to open the dispensers. In the main room, the garbage bins had not been emptied, but since it is basically a large empty room, there was no other issue in that area. When we brought out the tables to set up, some were sticky and had to be washed. So basically, we had to clean the place before our event, and then clean it again afterwards to meet the requirements for the return of our security deposit.
Now that the event is over, and we have returned to Arizona, I am still waiting for the return of my security deposit. I have left several phone messages, but I do not get return calls.
Overall, I believe that if you live in that area, this would be a beautiful, historical, and interesting place to hold an event. I would NOT recommend trying to work with it long distance, and I would recommend that you double and triple check everything, since there is a bit of an integrity issue with those you will need to deal with.