My Favorite Airbnb in New York: A Sprawling Mountaintop Getaway in the Catskills with Private Hiking Trails and a Treehouse
All listings featured on Condé Nast Traveler are independently selected by our editors. If you book something through our links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Anyone who’s lived through the current pandemic in a city knows that feeling: there’s a certain breaking point when you wake up in the middle of the night, straighten up and think, “I have to get out of here.”
At least, that was the case for me in the fall of 2020, after a surreal and somewhat sweltering summer in New York. Luckily, a few of my friends had already started hatching a plan to head upstate for a long weekend in search of some much-needed space and distraction, and to my relief , I quickly marked a vacation on my calendar. Our requirements for an Airbnb were broad but reasonable given the circumstances: a well-equipped kitchen so we could cook extravagant group meals, a decent amount of space to ensure we never felt on top of each other, at least a fireplace and lots of land to explore outside the house. In the end, we wanted to find a place that would allow us to be completely independent and, above all, to forget the outside world, even if it was only for 72 hours.
What we found in the Catskills delivered all of that and more. In fact, I credit the house we found with pulling me out of my first pandemic malaise. Not only did it feel like a safe haven in the woods amid endless uncertainty, but it had the most essential qualities: it was fun.
A 20-minute drive from Hudson, New York, this five-bedroom mountaintop home is so large its Airbnb listing describes it as a “resort.” In fact, the property almost resembles a church in its size. The main room (or “the great room” as we’ve dubbed it) has high ceilings, floor-to-ceiling windows, and a gargantuan indoor fireplace that immediately sparks fantasies of being snowed in. There is an attic area which doubles as a small library – perfect for an afternoon absorbed in a voluminous novel – an additional living room with a large vintage globe and a large open kitchen which would resemble a rustic farmhouse . We found the latter to serve as a natural gathering point throughout the day, whether for breakfast (bagels and lox, with all the trimmings) as the morning light streamed in through the windows or for a late afternoon cocktail as the sun went down and the temperature started to drop.
Comments are closed.