Staying in Dragonwood is like living inside a piece of folk art. It's fanciful, weird, and a genuine delight. But if you are seeking a pristine home, sanitized, climate-controlled, and empty of evidence of human habitation, this is not the place for you.
The overall feel of the place is like visiting an artistic, eccentric, but elderly aunt whose house is chock full of a lifetime's oddities and acquisitions. When she serves you tea and cake, you know the plate is likely to be a bit smudged, the cake dried at the edges, maybe nibbled by mice. But her company is so fascinating you'll overlook all this, and keep from turning your head at the furtive scurryings at the baseboard you see out of the corner of your eye.
Dragonwood is just such a trade. Sitting in the lower living room with three-story tall windows, you may see three species of butterfly at once on a thistle plant in the foreground, and the surf and ledges of the Atlantic in the background, but you will also smell the dank notes of a typical New England stone basement, a space that, inexplicably, communicates with the living room though a bank of screens in walls.
The ground-floor shower is built of huge, rough hewn stone blocks and you will have the feeling, while bathing, of living inside a medieval story. The water, fully drinkable, is nevertheless so laden with iron that it has a tang of blood to it, and will stain your clothes, particularly the whites. Best to take your laundry home with you.
There are elaborate dioramas built into the windows, and hand-carved hinges on the cabinets, and a turret master bedroom where you can hear the bell buoy and the waves all night. There is also, on damp days, a dim smell of dog in the entryway.
The back porch is built around a maple dripping in lichen; you will feel like you're in a tree house when you sit at the picnic table out there. The property includes a segment of spectacular rocky coastline, accessible by a short grassy path.
The house has its quirks and peculiarities, maybe more than others of its age, even given the fact that it's a castle. But, like any person or place or house worth knowing, there is much one will tolerate or overlook for a richness of experience unparalleled by any other house we've ever rented.
We would be remiss not to mention our immense gratitude for the responsive owner Amélie, who gave excellent suggestions and made a special effort (despite being far away at the time) to rectify a thorny issue.
