Greg and the Hyde Park Homestead made a perfectly lovely home for us during our stay in Chicago. Greg made sure our odd travel schedule was accommodated and was generous with his time upon meeting us at the house, despite the late hour, and made us feel welcome and familiar on arrival. The house is perfectly comfortable in all the ways a good hotel should be - clean, with good mattresses and great pillows, comfortable linens, and all the generous flow of hot water a shower need produce. The house is indeed a homestead, fashioned by a person of intellect, good humor, and eclectic taste, and offers a personal and distinctive setting for a unique urban stay. The kitchen is small, but is set up for ambitious cooking if you're of the persuasion (Treasure Island Foods grocery is just a few blocks away and offers great quality and selection), with a powerful commercial range and professional cookware and a selection of coffee-making paraphernalia to satisfy both persnickety hipsters and utilitarian 'just-give-me-a-fast-cup-of-hot-brown' caffeine junkies. I could go on about Greg's large and eclectic record collection, to which he allows unfettered access. There is something there for every taste and mood - and much to discover for the adventurous listener - and the house contains many square feet of shelves lined with all manner of books, for kids and brainy intellects alike. The block is a sweet, family-friendly place of cultured neighbors and intriguing architecture. Access to the train to downtown and the rest of Chicago is a block away, and it's just a short walk to some of the best spots to browse or stroll about while visiting Hyde Park and U. Chicago. Prospective renters should note that the quantity of art and artifacts that adorn the walls and corners of the house might induce seizures in a seriously compulsive neatnik, and panic in parents of toddlers. It isn't an anodyne, dustless suite at the Hilton, but presumably that isn't what the adventurous AirBnB'er is looking for anyway. The space is clean and comfortable, and its accoutrements are evidence of a curatorial mind and an inspired parent, with a sly sense of humor and subversive approach to urban domesticity. The floors do indeed creak here and there, but only unobtrusively and when stepped on; the chickens roam freely out back, but are charming, good neighborly-quiet, and well-attended; and the train rushes past mere feet from the back fence, but presents only a distant, even romantic rumble heard inside. Greg's house is a little like the setting for a heroic novel about a wily post-urban homesteader of keen wit and refined sense of creature-comfort, and a lot like the open-door home of your coolest friend in Chicago, who you only wish was there to hang out with you, share a bottle of wine or three, and talk late into the night.