New waterfront. Eco home

This is a nice, comfortable home that is good for quality time with family and friends. The main floor kitchen, dining and living areas are open, spacious and well furnished, with great views of the inlet waterfront. There is plenty of kitchen equipment and supplies to make cooking possible. The upstairs bedroom is spacious and comfortable, and has even better views with a nice deck through french doors. The house is close to the highway so there is road noise around the clock. When we stayed, there was a major highway construction project in progress that snarled traffic. Also note that the owner & family live on the same property.

We had an amazing week’s stay in this spectacular home. The views across the water are breathtaking. The house is spacious and very well equipped. There is some building work being undertaken close to the property at this time but it in no way detracted from a wonderful stay. Caroline was the perfect host.

This home is gorgeous. The views spectacular. No doubt about it. However, there are a few details that need mentioning.

Construction:

According to the local people for the next few years construction will be widespread on Victoria Island. This includes expansion of highways, new homes/condos, and remodeling of older homes. All of which affect this particular rental.

Privacy:

Albeit inside the house is little interruption, you are definitely impacted if you go outside. The small back yard garden overlooking the inlet, while lovely, you literally share with the owner whose main patio entrance is directly off the garden. The lovely deck upstairs you share with the noise and visibility of the neighbors as this is a zero lot-line property. From the jacuzzi off the other side of the backyard, you could literally share in conversation with the next door neighbors enjoying a smoke on their patio or endure the foul language of the construction workers. Or, after the work day, both. Previously imagined romantic interludes with my husband on this special anniversary getaway at anyone of these three areas when viewing this rental online, promptly vanished.

Warm and Very Sunny Upstairs:

Inside this house, the windows are expertly built to enjoy the inlet. Gorgeous. It is necessary to note, however, that in the summer these windows allow it to get terribly hot upstairs, 82 degrees F when we arrived at 5pm. In this case, “eco friendly” meant no Air Conditioning or ceiling fans. While there are room darkening curtains, if drawn, they would block the door and 2 window vents for air. The upper windows are not covered. Perhaps, top/down bottom/up window shades on this west side could help. The sun sets at 9pm and rises at 5am! If you are up for that, great, as nothing can compare to waking up to the view afforded here. But there is no “sleeping in” or napping in this room. If you have older family members or babies, they could nap downstairs, but we enjoyed the sound system as we watched the Word Cup and Wimbledon.

Unleashed Dog:

Please note, someone’s unleashed dog and I had more than one encounter while on a walk! I panicked and hollered while shaking a stick I grabbed from the construction pile. He continued to bark loudly and advance toward me. This was met with total nonchalance and no apology from the owner or neighbor, not sure which, who eventually called his dog to come and eat. Most likely this dog is harmless, but who would know?

4 stars

We had a great time at this beautiful home and our host was very welcoming and helpful.

This is a beautiful spacious home with a well stocked kitchen for those that like to cook in or barbecue. Both levels have great windows that provide an awesome view of the area.

Something recently added but not displayed in the photos provided is a spacious deck with seating right off the upper bedroom. I understand from the owner that more features are going to be added to the deck. I hope that they add photos soon because it is a really nice addition to the property.

The only reason that I'm not rating this property a 5 is that the backyard, grill and hot tube are an area shared with the owner, a very nice lady, that lives in the basement underneath the upper two levels. We would have enjoyed a little more privacy ourselves. The other drawback right now is parking. It is a gravel lot with quite a few vehicles, though you'll have a reserved spot. That may be remedied in the future because there was quite a bit of construction going on while we were there. Once the construction is finished, parking should improve.