Back-to-the-Land Homestead

Superhost

Private room in cabin hosted by Margaret

2 guests
1 bedroom
1 bed
1 shared bath

Margaret is a Superhost

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100% of recent guests gave the location a 5-star rating.

Great check-in experience

100% of recent guests gave the check-in process a 5-star rating.

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Escape the city on a road trip within driving distance of DC 4.5hrs, Baltimore 4hrs, Pittsburgh 2hrs, NYC 6hrs, and Ohio. We are a 40-acre working homestead with animals, gardens, woodlands, and wildlife. To stay on this property is a treat for those who appreciate nature, Americana, and quietude.

Fully vaccinated guests don't need a facemask. Nature is all around and is readily available to you mask free!

The space
Our homestead is not a high traffic place. We live here full time with our farm animals, wildlife and woods, all are under the sun and stars. Good news, we have a generous cancellation policy that gets you a full refund a day before your trip, if you need to cancel.

Your linens and bed coverings are fresh. You get your own hand drying towel, soap, and hand sanitizer. We have plenty of sanitizer for your use if you’d like to spray surfaces before and after your contact.

If a guest becomes ill during their stay, there is a local hospital minutes away, as well as several urgent care clinics where virus testing is available. The fire department/EMT services our road. We are 10 minutes from Davis Medical Center hospital.

We have outdoor furniture and two fire pits for dining and maximum fresh air away from the city.

Prospective guests should look at our photos and read our description carefully. This is a long and detailed profile because we have a unique place, but it’s not for everyone. We want you to enjoy your stay, which means you are responsible for deciding if it’s a good fit for you. You will see, hear and smell our small and friendly flock of sheep if they are pastured up the hill behind the house during your stay. Ask us where they are before you book your stay, if that's important to you. Please ask any questions before booking, we are happy to answer.

Overview of things that some people have commented on:
1) It’s a steep gravel driveway and some people are not comfortable driving up it. Parking is 200’ from the house or at the bottom of the driveway. It is safe, despite the connotations of the very big no trespassing signs and fence along the road when you turn onto our driveway
2) No air conditioning
3) No heat in the lavatory
4) Working homestead means farm animals and sounds, projects and activities, occasional volunteers and tours. We have a happy medium sized dog named Jozie and two friendly indoor/outdoor cats, Blue and Berry. Jozie only goes on the first floor. The cats are not allowed in the guest room.
5) Hot water is heated on the stove
6) Bathtub for an old fashioned pour over bath is next to the kitchen. You get privacy to bathe
7) Nighttime woodland driving can be spooky if you’re not used to it
8) The bigger your suitcase/backpack, the harder it may be to get it up the ladder to your room
9) The moon and stars through the big picture window can shine real bright on you as you sleep, making it seem like a light is on
10) Our guests enjoy complementary coffee/tea and homemade baked goods or fresh bread with our jam

If this sounds good so far, please continue reading for more details...

Guests have the opportunity to explore and experience a partially off-the-grid homestead and property under renovation. Located at the top of a hollow on a 2,600 foot elevation hillside, the house is situated within a dramatic rolling landscape with dense biodynamic forests. This homestead was built during the American movement called back-to-the-land, in which young people left the cities in favor of a simpler lifestyle in a rural environment where they could grow their own food and raise their children.

We are Margaret and David, this has been our home since 2017, after leaving Los Angeles and a year of traveling the nation. We consider ourselves stewards of this historically significant home and way of life.

Guests are guaranteed a unique homestead experience that looks and functions different from typical homes. Depending on the time of year, we are baking bread, digging ramps (wild leeks), pressing apple cider, picking berries, cooking maple syrup, gardening, raising and occasionally butchering animals, canning food, tending bee hives, hunting for mushrooms, hosting nature programs, campfire cookouts and stargazing. Our small batch foods feed ourselves, friends and customers.

We’ve been told that to sleep under the stars in our guest room creates a sensation of being in a planetarium. Indeed, there are no curtains up there, but there's no one around to peek in. You have woods on one side and open space on the other. On a nice clear night, the moon will bathe you in its glow. We have a tin roof, which you can hear when it rains. You may hear nuts falling from trees or owls hooting and maybe our ducks and sheep up the hill. It all merges into a sublime nature soundtrack.

Your room is the top floor of the house, an easy climb up a wooden ladder. It is all green and blue through the windows. The vaulted ceiling is lined with wood. Through a door is a small private deck, from which you can look out over our land and the mature tree canopy of the hollow (pronounced “holler” in Appalachia “Appa-LATCH-uh”).

The guest room is up a ladder outside our room. Sound carries between the two. The guest room is approximately 8 feet by 10 feet with a vaulted ceiling and large picture window. It is simply appointed with two chairs, extra blankets, a lamp and a small cabinet to put your things in. The soft area rug feels good under foot. The floor is a nice finished hardwood. Your bedding is exceptional because we want you to have a great night’s sleep. Your queen size mattress is by Tuft & Needle. Sheets, pillow cases, duvet cover, and all season down alternative comforter are by the award winning, eco-friendly and socially compliant California Design Den. There are 2 kinds of pillows to choose from. We strongly recommend that guests bring shoes or firm soled slippers to wear in the house. All the floors except the guest room may feel cold and/or dirty, and bare feet can be sensitive to the rungs of the homemade ladder.

We have a modern appliances: propane fueled cookstove, refrigerator, dishwasher, and on demand hot water heater. However, the only running hot and cold water in the house is at the kitchen sink. Here everyone washes their hands and face, and brushes their teeth.

The ambitious three-story home is architecturally unique in its details and craftsmanship. Built piece by piece by friends and family of the previous owners, this home is framed and sided from local red oak. It features exposed beams, a second floor overlook into the kitchen below, hand carved switch plates, stained glass windows, two covered decks, a solarium and large picture windows for passive solar heating. The open floor plan on each floor is anchored by a central 4-foot-square chimney that runs the vertical height of the house. One entire floor is surfaced with flagstone collected from the property.

The home has two wood stoves. One, a vintage cast iron Fisher stove that heats home and water. The other, a vintage Tirolia wood burning cook stove, great for cooking meals on. During cold months we also cook on the Fisher stove.

After being largely vacant for more than a decade, forty years of work on the house and land resumed when Margaret and David moved in. This is not an active construction site. Rather, projects unfold as they do. The third floor, like the rest of the house, needs trim on the windows, repairs on walls with staining or a bit of damage, and new wiring on some of the lights. But it's the most finished room in the house! The pictures we’ve provided show the details. We’re slowly doing some work on the house, mostly on the outside. So the front deck right now is off limits. There are other great places to sit though.

We take pride in our home, our buildings and animals, our gardens and our land. Wildlife thrives here and abundance is everywhere. Having said all that, welcome to West Virginia! Our neighbor at the bottom of the mountain does have a salvage yard. However, we like to think that we have heaven at the top.

Contact us to book a longer stay than our published maximum.

Where you'll sleep

What this place offers

Kitchen

Wifi

Free parking on premises

Private patio or balcony

Private backyard – Not fully fenced

Luggage dropoff allowed

Hair dryer

Fire pit

Refrigerator

Security cameras on property

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Guests

1 guest

4.98 out of 5 stars from 99 reviews

Cleanliness

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Location

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Where you’ll be

Leadsville, West Virginia, United States

We live on a typical West Virginia rural road. It is single lane in many places and you will encounter deer in the road. Drive slow in case you come upon them. It's a narrow road, homes are modest, and the tree canopy is lush. Snow is plowed in a timely manner by the County in the winter.

Cell service is unpredictable in West Virginia and at our place. In fact, it is intermittently available as you travel all around the state. Depending on your carrier, you may lose service shortly after turning onto Poe Run Road. We do have WiFi at the house. Please don’t stream videos or download files, we have limited data.

Elkins is located on the edge of the Monongahela National Forest in the Allegheny Mountains of the multi-state region called Appalachia. We are 2.5 hrs driving distance from Pittsburgh and 4 hrs from Washington, DC.

We are within easy driving distance to many scenic outdoor recreation hot spots including Seneca Rocks National Recreation Area, Blackwater Falls, and Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge for fishing, mountain biking, hiking and camping.

We are just six miles from downtown Elkins, the home of Augusta Heritage Center and Davis & Elkins College. Augusta offers year round concerts, dances, a festival and other heritage arts events. One of the biggest annual events in the state, the famed Mountain State Forest Festival, takes place in Elkins, too.

If you forget something, the town of Elkins is about 8 minutes away and you can easily get it there. You'll find Walmart, Kroger grocery, liquor stores, a few restaurants, a health food store, Tractor Supply, Ace Hardware and more. Urgent care and a hospital are just minutes away if needed. The fire department services our road in the even more unlikely event they are needed.

Hosted by Margaret

Joined in April 2014

109 Reviews
Identity verified
Superhost

Former art director from Los Angeles, Phoenix and New York. In 2016, David and I traveled North America for a year in our teardrop trailer, living in primitive areas and also working on a few organic farms. We moved to Elkins, West Virginia in 2017, where we are restoring a 40-acre back-to-the-land homestead built in the early 1980s.

Former art director from Los Angeles, Phoenix and New York. In 2016, David and I traveled North America for a year in our teardrop trailer, living in primitive areas and also worki…

During your stay

Our ideal guests come to see how a modern homestead works, experience starry nights, enjoy birdsong filled mornings, and a simpler way of being. Our guests will use and waste less water. They breath fresh air. They find themselves immersed in a dynamic visual landscape with dramatic skies. Some walk a few stairs each day, others walk miles to and from the garden and the ducks and around the walking paths.

Interaction: We are happy to do what we can to make your stay most comfortable. If you forgot something, please let us know, we will do what we can to make it right. We are on Air BnB experience to give paid tours, so there may be other people around. Please let us know how much or little interaction you want. Sometimes people ask for verbal instructions on how to bathe (pour over in bathtub). This may be a way different kind of experience for you, so tell us what we can do to help clarify how to do something. If you need a rain coat or umbrella because it's suddenly raining. These things are available!

This is a small working homestead. Margaret and David live here full time with two friendly indoor/outdoor cats and a happy dog (they do not go in the guest room). We occasionally have volunteers living on the property. If we have a project that will impact your experience, we will let you know when you inquire about booking.

Personal space: Guests have their own room, but there is no door/cover to the entrance in the floor. The master bedroom is below the guest room. Nearby is a simple outbuilding, called the Clubhouse. It is available for guests to have their own porch to sit on. During the summer, hammocks in the woods and a campfire ring in the orchard are available to guests. Let us know if you’re interested.

Meals in general: There are some restaurants in Elkins, Thomas and Davis. You won't find Yelp much help but we can make recommendations. Or if you'd like, we are happy to prepare you breakfast for $15 each, or dinner for $20 each.

Our ideal guests come to see how a modern homestead works, experience starry nights, enjoy birdsong filled mornings, and a simpler way of being. Our guests will use and waste less…