My college friends and I rented the best vacation house this summer: Cobb Hill Estate on 750 acres in the Mount Monadnock region of southern New Hampshire. Located less than two miles up a forested hill from the tiny town of Harrisville, this rental property was perfect for our large group of 10 adults and 10 children. Trust me, we had a heck of a time searching HomeAway.com and VRBO.com to find a house or condominiums that would accommodate us all in a spot in southern New Hampshire or northern Massachusetts (one friend was two weeks from giving birth and needed to be within decent driving range to her hospital).
But in the Cobb Hill Estate, which we did end up finding through VRBO.com (Vacation Rentals by Owner), we had accommodations that were pretty close to ideal for our group. We were coming from as far away as Washington state to gather for a long weekend and simply “hang out.” We didn’t need a lot of bells and whistles or a ton of entertainment for the kids — who ranged in age from 2 months to 9 years. Our reunion was about being together in a comfortable spot, laughing over silly college memories (we all went to Dartmouth together) and making new ones.
Cobb Hill guest house.
With Cobb Hill’s four bedrooms, one bonus room, a pull-out couch in the TV room and a nifty freestanding, un-insulated guest cabin with sleeping loft (at right) there was a ton of room for us all to spread out. The estate sits on 750 acres, so if any of us wanted to escape, it was easy to do just that! The house came with a GPS unit, with some pre-set locations (caves, the treehouse) to find on a hike on the property — unfortunately all the setpoints were about 100 feet off, so that didn’t work out so well (we did alert the owners to the faulty GPS; hopefully it’s fixed).
The kitchen was small and dated, but fully stocked with cooking utensils and service ware (except for a teapot for our tea drinkers). We cooked every single meal over the course of our three-night stay, having assigned a meal or two to each family. That worked out incredibly well; could you imagine taking 10 children out to a restaurant for every meal, had we stayed in a hotel? Instead, we sat the kids around a large dining room table or out on the big deck.
Mount Monadnock view from the Cobb Hill deck.
Speaking of, the deck was a great place for us to hang out in the evening until the mosquitoes descended as the sun set (the renters information booklet says mosquitoes aren’t a problem, but we beg to differ). A lower deck is outfitted with this totally high-tech, invisible, bug-repelling barrier — but we hated turning it on because it made such an awful buzzing sound.
We also hung out in the big living room, and made a fire in the wood-burning fireplace each night. The ping-pong table in the sunroom provided hours of entertainment for kids and adults alike. The children only watched one DVD in the cozy living room all weekend long, which we thought was pretty impressive, given there was a library of about 100 DVDs for guests to use! A large grassy area outside was the site of a whiffle ball game, and the little ones also played on a small swing set. The preschoolers rode trikes in the driveway.
In all, Cobb Hill Estate is an idyllic setting — as described, we had panoramic mountain views as the house is perched on the edge of the woods facing south. We were totally away from it all, given the winding dirt road we had to take to get to the estate, but we were able to get down to “town” within 10 minutes. Our drive to Keene and a local mini-golf and ice cream stand was less than a half hour.
I suppose our only gripes were the Internet connection going out a couple times (one of my buddies had work to do), and we felt bad asking the nearby caretaker to keep coming by to reset the modem. It’s behind locked doors, so we couldn’t do it ourselves. And we appreciated having staples in the kitchen cabinets, such as spices and sugar and cooking oil; but someone has to go through the pantry and throw out expired food. We found peanut butter from 2005.
Our summer stay at Cobb Hill Estate was really great; we’d rent the property again (I think the owner liked us; we got our $500 security deposit back, no problem). It rents all year round, and this fall, my guess is the views of the surrounding mountains will be utterly gorgeous with the changing leaves. I’d, frankly, be nervous about renting the estate in the winter; I would not want to make the uphill, dirt-road climb in snow.
But for folks who want to get away from it all, and who don’t mind dated furniture, non-fluffy guest towels and the occasional dated box of crackers, I’d recommend Cobb Hill vacation rental, which goes for $500 a night (three night minimum). After all, for communing in New Hampshire nature, it can’t be beat. And the sunsets are divine.
Sunset at Cobb Hill Estate in southern New Hampshire.
