Carl S.
Yelp
The property here is pastoral; pleasant views, appealing grounds, and a well-kept pool. There's a disused tennis court that would be perfect for R/C racing. There's also a large, working farm across the street. When I got out of the car, the manure stench hit me like the fist of an angry God and made me question every life choice I had made to eventually lead me here.
Check-in at the main house was easy and the building itself is nice to look at, with pleasingly rustic architecture and furnishings. Plenty of windows, but only one open, and then only a few inches...in August. I guess they were trying to keep the manure smell out, but as a result the place was warm and stuffy. There are other, stately-looking public rooms, but they were dark and uninviting. I had the impression that they were for the use of wedding or catering guests.
When I opened the door to the Carriage House, there was a strong smell of mold or mildew, which seemed to come from carpeted stairs leading to the second floor. Luckily our room was on the first floor. Left as you go in is a good-sized common room, not as opulent as the main house but comfortable and well-kept apart from some peeling wallpaper. Not a single open window here, so, warm and stuffy.
Down the hall there was an old (and disused) automatic air freshener on the wall, which told me two things; first, that the unpleasant odors weren't a recent development, and second, controlling them wasn't a concern anymore.
Our room had a working window air conditioner, but it was an old unit with a noisy compressor. Picture yourself napping on a lawn chair and having a UPS truck roar up right beside you, and you'll have an idea of the "shock-and-awe" factor. If you're used to window units, you'll probably be okay, but if you are coming out to the country for peace and quiet, your sleep might be disturbed.
Speaking of peace and quiet, I read reviews on other sites where folks complained of the noise from Route 44 in front of the hotel. For what it's worth, I found the traffic sounds to be muted and unobtrusive.
The room was nicely furnished. The old slat-style wood bed frames creaked with every movement and seemed on the verge of collapse. I'm a big guy and that probably didn't help, but the bottom line is that these aren't hotel-quality beds. Everything was reasonably clean except the curtains. They were so caked with dust that when I moved one aside to put something on the sill, I released a huge dust cloud, much of which settled on the pillow. There was an old TV-VCR combo but it didn't work. The bathroom was a mixture of modern and traditional, well-lit and with enough room for two people to get ready at once.
There were coffee and tea setups in the common room, but no milk, creamer, or water. Presumably, guests are meant to bring the (provided) bottled water from their rooms, but I don't know what you're supposed to do if you don't drink your coffee black. I ran into one guest several times who was carrying around a quart of milk and wandering the grounds looking for a staff member.
When we stopped by the Library at 5:00, we found "afternoon tea" exactly as it was when we checked in two hours earlier; one pitcher each of (ice-less) "iced tea" and "iced coffee", setups for hot tea and coffee (no milk or creamer), an electric kettle, and a tray of cookies. The cookies were good but not worth sitting in the stuffy library sipping room-temperature drinks.
Breakfast was great the first morning; plain and Western-style scrambled eggs, pancakes with strawberries and blueberries, fruit juices, and high-quality sausage, bacon, toast and bagels. The second day we were clearly served leftovers...the pancakes were hard and stale. Lots of windows in the breakfast room, but only one or two open a bit. There were ceiling fans but we never saw them on. It's a shame because it was a really nice space and would have been perfect with a little fresh air.
Now, I've recently read a comment by the owner, apparently in response to another unfortunate reviewer who had compared the breakfast fare to "Motel 6". If I may summarize, the comment was essentially, "How dare you compare the breakfast at my fine if fetid and malodorous Inn with Motel 6 freerange organically certified homemade raised real locally sourced organic organic organic organic!!!"
So I feel compelled to emphasize that on our second day, we were served pancakes that were clearly left over from a previous meal. They were so hard, and so stale that WE COULD NOT SAW COMPLETELY THROUGH THEM WITH THE PROVIDED FLATWARE. To clarify, it was the worst breakfast I've ever been served.
No matter how rustic the origins of your ingredients may be, you don't get to brag about your food if you serve it stale, and expect your guests to eat it with the smell of manure in their nostrils.
There isn't much to do around Norfolk, except antiquing. There's plenty to do in Torrington, about 30 minutes away.
