Cottage Garden Guesthouse
Want exclusive deal alerts, booking reminders, and quicker checkout?
Log in now
→
Overview
1 bedroom
2 bathrooms
4 guests
1 night minimum
Cottage
The "Cottage Garden Guest House" is nestled among perennial gardens and towering white pines on Lakeview Lake, just outside the village of Lake Ann, 15 miles west of Traverse City. Enjoy the many perennial gardens while watching whitetail deer stop by for a drink at the shore or one of the many species of birds who have made their homes in the birdhouses throughout the gardens.
The "Cottage Garden Guest House" is owned and operated by an Interior Designer. Special attention to details include luxurious bedding, hand made soap, fresh cut flowers. Seasonal changes bring pumpkins, gourds, festive lights and a Christmas tree. For more of Dorina's design work, please see www.designstrategiesllc.com.
Lakeview Lake is not only beautiful, it offers great fishing including pike, bluegill and...
House Rules
Pets not allowedKid friendlyNo smoking
Bathrooms
2 Full baths
Contribute
Reviews (1)
We perform checks on reviews.
Tripadvisor’s approach to reviews
Before posting, each Tripadvisor review goes through an automated tracking system, which collects information, answering the following questions: how, what, where and when. If the system detects something that potentially contradicts our community guidelines, the review is not published.
When the system detects a problem, a review may be automatically rejected, sent to the reviewer for validation, or manually reviewed by our team of content specialists, who work 24/7 to maintain the quality of the reviews on our site.
Our team checks each review posted on the site disputed by our community as not meeting our community guidelines.
If you have submitted a review for a holiday rental property, we may also ask that you provide us with proof of your stay to ensure that your review is attached to the correct rental property.
Holiday rental reviews collected via the VRBO website (formerly Homeaway) and syndicated to the Tripadvisor website are not currently subject to Tripadvisor’s standard moderation processes.
Learn more about our review moderation.
IndyAngie
Zionsville, IN59 contributions
5 Stars for Charm, 2 for Comfort
We *SO* wanted to love the Garden Cottage – it had everything and MORE we hoped to find in a vacation rental for quiet semi-seclusion in a lakefront setting. While it most definitely delivered on the promise of quaint charm, our experience was it sadly lacked in comfort.
The furnishings, certainly keeping in the “retro-cottage” feel, were lumpy, bumpy, and sagging – in some cases, the upholstery wearing quite thin. Furniture placement, particularly in the downstairs TV room, seemed illogical – the sofa facing AWAY from the TV (an easy if not lame distraction during rainy or evening hours). We tried re-arranging, but ultimately opted to bring our own camp chairs in from the car. The beautiful, expansive view across the lake from the upstairs sitting room, which should have offered hours of lingering pleasure, was distinctly marred by the lack of any comfortable seating. We were sad.
Good lighting also seemed to be lacking, particularly in the kitchen where meal preparation and clean-up sometimes proved amusing, if not frustrating. In the sitting room, one had the choice between turning on the heat and turning on the lamp…which promptly extinguished itself whenever the thermostat turned too far to the right. We relocated the lamp.
Dim lighting in the bathroom also invoked feelings of claustrophobia…but was perhaps good to distract from the hole in the ceiling where the exhaust fan was “supposed” to go. I do hope the owner will consider a contractor to remedy the situation before colder weather sets in, as even with the window full open and the door ajar, the after-shower atmosphere was decidedly moist, with everything coated in a fine mist which took some time to dry.
What's truly ironic is that the owner happens to be an apparently well-decorated (no pun intended) interior designer – a fact repeatedly emphasized in the cottage PR. A reading of the copious guestbook comments over the course of 15 years indicates that either: a) we have ridiculously high standards; or: b) the owner is resting on her design laurels. Perhaps it’s a bit of both. We were left to scratch our heads in utter confusion as to how it's possible we are the only guests who might feel this way.
Charm here is OFF the charts – loved it! But charm without at least an equal amount of comfort is meaningless – our opinion only – when we’ve waiting so long for a prized vacation.
On the plus: the owner's agent, Janine, couldn't have been nicer or more helpful - appreciated!
Visited October 2014 Travelled as a couple
Written 22 October 2014. This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews.
Showing results 1-1 of 1
What this rental offers
Location info
- Kid friendly
Map
Getting there
Traverse City Airport
13.3 mi
Blacker Airport
37.1 mi
Restaurants
The Stone Oven
16 min
The Red Door Coffee House
16 min
Lake Ann Corner Cone
16 min
Papa J's Lake Ann
11 min
Attractions
Lake Ann Brewing Company
16 min • Bars & Clubs
Light of Day Organic Teas
4.8 mi • Farms
Lake Ann Pathway
15 min • Historic Walking Areas
Almira Historical Society
13 min • History Museums
About this property
- First, check the Availability tab on this page to see if your dates are available. If they are, contact the owner via the Tripadvisor Rental Inbox to confirm availability.
- If the owner has provided contact information, you may contact him or her directly. If not, you can contact the owner via the Tripadvisor Rental Inbox. This inbox is created after you send your first message or booking request to the owner
- You can send another message via the Tripadvisor Rental Inbox to check if the property is still available. If the owner has listed a phone number, you can also call to follow up. send enquiries to other properties. If you still don't hear from the owner, Tripadvisor recommends that you send enquiries to other properties.
- If the owner approves your stay, he or she will let you know which forms of payment are accepted. This owner does not currently accept payments via the Tripadvisor inbox. You can ask him or her to sign up; payments made via the Tripadvisor Rental Inbox are covered by our Peace of Mind Protection.
- If you would like payment protection, ask the owner to sign up to accept online payments on Tripadvisor. Payments made via the Tripadvisor Rental Inbox are covered by our Peace of Mind Protection.
This property is affiliated with 
All bookings are direct with the owner
All bookings are direct with the owner Property #FKN2222300793