Notes from the host
Walk to Old Rag & Shenandoah Trails
Come spend winter at the mountains! This family friendly farmhouse with modern amenities is a short walk to the Old Rag trailhead, minutes to Hughes River fishing, and a short drive to Sperryville, Madison, wineries, breweries, and more Shenandoah National Park hikes. The house features a living room with old timber beams and a light, modern kitchen. It is surrounded by acres of open space, with a front porch, screened porch, deck, Weber gas grill, fire pit, and mountain views. Make s'mores in the fire pit or enjoy the indoor stove and oversized old fireplace. Dogs will enjoy the fenced outdoor space.
If you would like to visit the area with family or friends and have a larger group than we can house, please know that we own the house next door, it can house up to 10 guests, and it is available for rent as well. Please contact us for any questions.
Kindly let us know if you are bringing any furry dog friends when you make your reservation. We will charge a $100 pet fee for one dog per stay. If you wish to bring up to 3 dogs, please contact us. We will charge $50 per each additional dog after the first one, per stay, with a maximum of 3 dogs.
The house is about 2500 sq ft., with central heat and air conditioning, a hot tub, dishwasher, washer, and dryer. You can see surrounding mountains from almost all its rooms. The first section of the ground floor is an open concept. There is a family room as you enter, with a 55 inch flat screen TV to stream your favorite shows. From there you have a cozy space to relax in two chairs in front of the wood burning stove, while you chat with whoever is in the bright and airy kitchen that follows. On the shelves you will find board games and children and adult books.
We love to cook, and we like to keep a well-stocked kitchen for our guests. You will find everything from cast iron cookware, to pots and steamers and non stick pans, to baking utensils such as hand mixers, baking sheets, rolling pins, muffin pans, to silicone pads, to other utensils such as knives, microplane graters and glass containers, to serving and salad bowls. There are also mugs, plates, bowls, and flatware.
We also provide some kitchen essentials, including salt, pepper, a variety of spices and rubs, Spanish extra virgin olive oil, Italian Modena vinegar, baking soda, ground Colombian coffee, organic sugar, and an assortment of black and herbal teas. We also provide an electric kettle, a moka pot coffee maker, an electric coffee maker that does not need paper filters, table mats, paper towels, sponge, dishwasher and dish detergent, baking paper and aluminum foil. We do not provide ziplock bags as we are trying to minimize plastic.
Off the stove room you find a full bathroom, just renovated, the laundry room, and access to the side deck. We provide laundry supplies should you need to wash your clothes. You will also find there lawn games, including bocce, croquet, badminton, bean toss and lawn golf.
Off the other side of the stove room you have access to the old log cabin section of the house. There is a very large fireplace with two large couches. Please note that at this point, we do not allow use of the fireplace, but you can still use the wood burning stove! It also has the dining area, with a large art deco table that can sit up to 12 people.
Firewood: On request, we can provide a rack or half rack of firewood for a fee. You can use it for the woodstove, or for the fire pit outside (weather permitting).
Upstairs you will find four bedrooms and two bathrooms. All the bedrooms have mirrors in them, and all have mountain or pasture views from at least one of the windows.
At the top of the stairs is El Sueño (the dream), a king bedroom with two antique sets of drawers, and a chair and a small desk that you can open and use as a table for your laptop. El Sueño has three windows facing the front and the east of the house, and shares a Jack and Jill, freshly retiled bathroom with tub. Along the hallway, also on your left, is the second bathroom. This one features Spanish tile, an extra large shower with two shower heads and a hand shower, an antique vanity, a talavera sink and a skylight. At the end of the hall is the La Vista (the view) queen bedroom, with my favorite view of the mountains from the back of the house. La Vista has a reading nook with a bench and pillows, and shares the Jack and Jill bathroom with El Sueño bedroom.
To the right of the stairs you find two more cozy queen bedrooms. The first one is named after our neighbor’s pony, Five, whose paddock you can see out of the window. Five has a queen bedroom and a sofa bed, full size, that we can have ready for you as a bed if you let us know in advance. Five has a closet with shelves where you can put away your things. The other bedroom, el Nido (the nest), just across the hallway from Five, faces the back of the house. It also has a queen bed, and an L-shaped antique cushioned bench. El Nido has a closet with shelves and space for your belongings.
Outside the kitchen, to the left, there is a screened sun porch with a sofa, chairs and views. Off the porch, on the large raised deck, is a large dining table with eight chairs, and a Weber grill (we provide tongs for the grill and utensils to scrape it). The deck wraps around two sides of the house, and you can access the main floor bathroom from the deck through a side door to the laundry/bathroom area. On the deck you can sit in the hot tub and see the mountains, usually the neighbors’ cows and sheep, and sometimes a llama. For stargazing, it gets pretty dark in the area, with almost no lights on the hills and very few street lights around.
There is plenty of space for outdoor family activities, and a smaller fenced area in the back of the house, suitable for a dog to run around in. Come visit!
Other things to note:
*We have Starlink satellite Internet, which is fast enough stream HD movies and allow for teleconferences. The connection, however, does occasionally cut out, especially in bad weather. If the Internet does cut out for more than a few minutes please contact us. Please do not reset it, as the system will then need to be reconfigured, and we will need to send a technician who may not be available right away.
*There is very limited cell phone reception in the area. Please plan accordingly.
There are occasional power outages in the area, which can happen in bad weather, from trees downing lines, and from equipment failures. The local power cooperative works to minimize and manage outages, and most such outages last only a few hours.
