Mindy S.
Yelp
This review is hard for me to write. I have wanted to visit this farm for about 4 years now since learning of its existence. So I booked the 2 bedroom, Pond House expecting my parents to come but they had to cancel last minute.
Unfortunately, we missed the farm tour by an hour (they have a tour at 11 am on Saturday) and were unable to buy the horse rides (starting at 1.5 hrs and longer packages) not sure why, but we were told we could rent a golf cart so that would work out for us. Employee, Daniel, in the General Store was most helpful and gracious. He informed us we could enjoy some lunch in the dining room before he escorted us to our cabin and we did so.
I ordered 2 hot dogs w/ sweet potato fries. Dogs were tasty but casing was so tough it made them chewy and fries soaked in oil. My husband had a burger on a salad & the pressed too-well cooked burger was rather tough.
We were escorted to the Pond House. On the front porch there was lots of fishing tackle sitting on the high-top table and a plastic container with worms in them. A pile of life preserver jackets sat on the ground. There was no Wi-Fi but there was tv (which we found out doesn't get good reception!).
We were horrified by the general appearance of the house. The stove top was smeared and cloudy; microwave oven was dirty, there was about 1/2 c. worth of dead mosquitoes in the standing lamp. The dust on the wooden blinds in every room, ceiling rafters/air register vents in the queen bedroom was really bad. I'm positive the windows had not been cleaned in months! Mosquitoes caked the screens on the windows. Honestly, how can one enjoy the view through the windows that are so dirty? Under the boathouse was two rocking chairs and swings were covered in cobwebs and dead bug specks. No cushions for the chairs. The row boat had 2 gallons of mucky water in it as well as the kayaks. Cigarette butts in the grill and trash in the fire pit.
We put our bags in the car and go to see if they happened to have another unit available. We kindly engaged Daniel and another staffer and were told no other units available. I NICELY shared that we felt the accommodations were really not very clean and showed pictures I took. They offered to send a cleaning person back out to do another cleaning. We were fine with that solution and she offered us the use of a golf cart while we waited. We gratefully accepted.
The real trouble started that night. After our golf cart ride around the town, I spent some time shopping in the store. I bought a leather computer case; long sleeve t-shirt, candle and a few food items.
We next went into the dining room and sat down for dinner. In walks Will Harris w/ a bottle of wine in his hand and sees us, sits down at the next table over and says "You must be the Pond House people." I responded, "Yes." He then says "I heard you're not happy with your accommodations. You do realize this is a farm and not Disney World." Taken aback, I said "Yes, we know where we are and we don't expect a Disney experience. My husband responded "For $300.00 a night, we just expected a nicer situation." To which Will said "You can't get a room in the next town for under $300 a night." (which was total BS as we found out later looking online in the town of Blakley- $75 at the Days Inn). Then Will told us he's not used to people being disrespectful to the staff. What??? Neither my husband nor myself were ever rude, demanding or condemning of staff and in fact we were very agreeable to their offer to make things right.
Apparently to Will, making any criticism is akin to being disrespectful. Will then said "You know I think I need to get out of the hospitality business. I don't make any money on that side of the business as the selling of products is where the money is at." They aren't making money on $200 and $300 a night accommodations, the food sales/alcohol sales that come along w/ staying there? Give me a break!
We just sat at our table and ordered our food and drinks and every few minutes Will would engage us in conversation. I tried to smooth over Will's seething annoyance with us by mentioning my bucket list wish to visit his farm, the fact that we supported many small regenerative farmers near us in OR but there was always a jab at us every so often. Will summoned the chef over (he was interning from UC Berkeley) and introduced him to us and said to the young man, "Hopefully this couple won't have any issues with your cooking like they had with the accommodations." What kind of crap statement is that?
As for our dinner it was ok. My tenderloin was good, my husband's Ribeye was tough.
Before we left, Will got up and handed me a business card and said "Here is my card with my personal phone number on it. If you have any more problems, don't call the store and speak to the staff, call me." Yeah, I am going to call the owner who has spent the last 45 minutes berating us and treating us like ingrates!