Our family of four enjoyed this beautiful property the week of New Year's. Claudia and Bartle were wonderful hosts who made planning seamless. Their home was very comfortable for our young children, cooking large holiday meals and snuggling up with a good book by the fire. And the location is just a quick drive from downtown Millbrook.
We highly recommend this rental!
We loved our stay here. The house is much, much better than the pictures. It was perfect for our family get away. It was extremely clean, well stocked with everything we needed, and the pool was wonderful. I also used the gym which is well equipped. The patio, porch and property were all excellent. I highly recommend this house for family vacations.
This is a truly unique property, carefully restored original details of a 1700 farmhouse. The listing is absolutely right, it felt like staying in a landmark. Plus this layout of this house is really well done. It is traditional with separate rooms but has an open flow to it. I wish I could come here every weekend. The owners were fantastic hosts. It's a permanent residence so it is fully appointed and has the love and care of someone's full time home rather than feeling like an empty rental property. I highly highly recommend this property. Wouldn't change a thing.
Owners Bartle and Claudia Bull are a writer/filmmaker and artist, respectively. After living in Manhattan for a decade, we moved to Millbrook to give our children a country upbringing in this well-loved area of dairy and beef farms, equestrian estates, orchards, woods, and trout streams.
This historic house is a true American classic. Among the oldest of the larger houses in Millbrook, it was built in 1780--the high Georgian period, at the very apogee of Anglo-Saxon taste and design.
It was the year that the Marquis de Lafayette--a Revolutionary comrade-in-arms of one of my ancestors whose family first acquired this land in a 160,000-acre 17th century land-grant from the Crown--sailed to these shores from France, in his frigate the Hermione.
1) Built in 1780, this house was entirely renovated only five years ago. It is unusual to find a house--in Millbrook, anyway--of this pedigree that feels "modern" inside, with large, open rooms and a freshly built, light-filled feeling.
2) The "footprint" of the greater Millbrook area is perhaps 40 miles across.... and much of the area is well over two hours from NYC even in favorable traffic. Set in the most beautiful and prestigious section of South Millbrook, Tatankaska Farm is only 82 miles from Manhattan's Upper East Side--a 1 hour and 45 mins. drive in moderately good conditions, less than that on weekends or at night, and under two hours with all but very bad City traffic.
3) We are less than 5 miles from the Metro North train station at Dover Plains--a convenient and inexpensive trip from Grand Central or Harlem/125th St. stations on the East Side of Manhattan.