Lake Ogemaw Lakefront House

Perfect set up inside and out for our three families with 6 children ranging in age from 2 to 8! Our week at this lovely home included fishing, swimming, watersports, and campfires. Kids and adults took advantage of all the amenities available. Although the weather was perfect, had we needed to, we would have had plenty to do indoors as well. We have been renting cottages for several summers. This one exceeded our expectations in every area -- super clean sandy beach and swimming, high-quality deck with a ton of seating for dinner and lounging, great set up for sleeping, and a tiki for the adults and pirate ship for the kids. Too fun! The owner was so very welcoming and attentive -- even firewood was provided for us. This has been our best rental experience yet!

This was our second time staying at the Smartsy house, and again, it did not disappoint! We had 5 kids, 1 infant, and 8 adults and we all were very comfortable. The rooms are clean and well spaced apart so the kids could sleep well without hearing each other. :) The lake and outdoor amenities are amazing. The kids caught fish right off the dock, enjoyed the pirate ship, played with all of the beach toys, and especially loved the tire swing. We did some shopping at the outlet malls, ate at G's Pizzeria, and made daily visits to Ka-Jacs the little party store at the marina.

Overall, it was another perfect up north vacation. The right mix of quiet and peaceful and fun and games. We will FOR SURE be back again next year!

I am disappointed to have to write a poor review of this beautiful rental property because our actual stay could have easily earned a good review. Our family has rented properties with both Homeaway and VRBO for over 5 years, and have NEVER had a security deposit held. We thought that our stay at the lake house resulted in a wonderful vacation for our family, and I’m so sorry that it will be remembered this way. We are responsible people who treat others fairly but I feel that we have been taken advantage of here.

After waiting a full month to receive our security deposit, we contacted “Homeaway” to inquire about it. Within a couple hours of contacting “Homeaway”, we got our first email from the owners simply stating that we would not be getting a security deposit for the following reasons:

1) a cable was broken on the water trampoline;

2) extra time was needed to clean up after us;

3) we somehow neglected to pay our cleaning fee, at which time the owner added that apparently several previous renters neglected to pay a cleaning fee also, and now they are out $600.00.

We were shocked to get this feedback email from the owners, and we called them immediate thinking surely they have us mixed up with the renters who stayed after us.

I’d like to address each issue separately:

1) The broken trampoline cable: We are finding it very hard to believe the breakage of the trampoline cable could have happened without us even being aware of it and the only two children who used it were ages 9 and 11. They aren’t strong enough to break the cable, even if they wanted to. We suspect that if the children did break the cable, it was ready to break and now we are being charged to repair it. If it truly was broken during our week’s stay, we would have no problem paying for it if it was broken because of our negligence. All the children did was to play on this toy, and you are making it sound like they did something malicious with it. Again, we are not convinced that it broke during our stay;

2) Extra Cleaning time was needed: I’d like to state up front that we found the house in beautiful condition, and we proceeded to take gentle care of the home as if it were our own. Extra time was taken to put the dishes away in their proper cupboards, etc., we swept floors, vacuumed carpets, cleaned the grill, and even raked the beach so it would look like it did when we arrived. On the final day,

The week we spent in this home was amazing. The house is gorgeous, with all of the extra touches to make your stay perfect. The bedrooms are all extremely clean with nice sheets and blankets. The bathrooms all had plenty of towels and were also very clean.

The house is perfect for large families with kids. The beach is sandy and the lake is sandy all the way out, no need for water shoes. We caught many fish right off of the dock!

We had one cold windy day so we headed to west branch for shopping and then ate dinner at the local pizzeria.

Overall, we were very pleased! We will certainly be coming back!

One of the best lake houses I've ever rented. Well organized, beautifully decorated, very comfortable. The lake and the people on it are very nice. Pier, sandy beach, water trampoline, and your own pirate ship - my 4yr old was in heaven. Gas available at the marina. The lake is no wake till 11:00am. It is wide open during the week and fairly crowded on the weekend. Nice owners. Will definitely consider coming back.