Down on the farm, May 20 and 21, 2015

When passing through Cuyahoga Valley National Park, I stayed at Shady Oaks Farm Bed and Breakfast, which I think may have been for sale.

The house was large with an impressive dining room fireplace, but what I loved most were the rooms. To get to one of them, you went down a few steps, then up a few steps into the next room, all connected, set up for children. I can’t get enough of houses with oddities like this — multiple levels on one floor, attic rooms, mysterious little slanted doors or floors that sort of thing.¹

As a farm, Shady Oaks featured horses, with two or three in a pasture and a pony in the stable. The B&B could accommodate travelers with horses too. On their website, they warned fussier visitors that theirs was a working farm, so there might be equipment, hay, etc., about the place. People had complained. Between the horses and the comfortable porch overlooking the pasture and the long drive ahead, I found Shady Oaks very hard to leave.

Shady Oaks Farm Bed and Breakfast

10 photos

¹ My favorite was my aunt’s second floor apartment in Altoona, Pennsylvania. When you walked through her bedroom and maybe down a step or two (memory fails), you found yourself in another bedroom — in another house. Those houses have since been torn down, and I doubt their like will be seen again in our present-day bland, cookie-cutter modern housing.