This listing really undersells this house. The house is HUGE and it overlooks a river. My favorite part of the day was to sit on the covered porch and just listen to the river.
We spent seven wonderful days in the home with three families with kids ranging from 2 years old to 10. It was perfect.
Our trip started out with the kids seeing a black bear right outside the house coming up from the river as we unpacked the cars. What an exciting first day! We spent time walking around Montreat up to Lake Susan and wading in the creek near the park. There's a huge park down the path and a big field across the river which we used for running bases, bocce ball, and soccer.
The older kids took a hike up to Overlook which was amazing. We also drove out to the Blue Ridge Parkway to hike the Pink Beds trail and capture some amazing overlook photos on the parkway.
We did a whitewater rafting trip with French Broad Adventures and a canoe trip with Headwaters (note they will let kids under six sit in the middle spot while others won't). And a social distant brewery tour with takeaways from the breweries in Black Mountain (Lookout Brewery is the best). Highly recommend making a stop at Okie Dokie's for BBQ.
And every night we were happy to return to our home in Montreat. The shared space looks small in the pictures but was plenty big for our group. The big table was fantastic for our large group meals. The bedrooms were very large.
Graybeard was a model of how a management company should run. They texted before the trip and were very easy to get a hold of. We had some trouble with the grill and they brought over a new one within an hour.
This is a very cool historical home, built in 1909 and with some very cool photos and artifacts throughout the house, but fully modernized and very warm and welcoming. We'd recommend this to any big group looking for a peaceful retreat. We'd definitely stay again. I already miss the rumbling of the river.