Grand 1920s Estate | Pool, Spa & Gym | Sleeps 16

Positive: N/A

House was great and outside area was amazing.

Our group loved the property in Ocala we stayed at for our 50th reunion. Very nice house and pool. We are not sure, but believe this property is owned by a corporation and we were only given a phone number to communicate with the owner. I tried 3 days in a row before going to see if we might be able to check in a little early. Every time I called I got voicemail and left a message, only to then receive a text saying that they saw they missed my call and was there anything they could do to help. I replied to each text asking if we could check in a little early and they never text or called me back as I had asked them to. When we got to the house the code they gave me to open the door didn’t work. I called and text and they did call me back, only to realize that they had not added to the code that I needed to press a symbol after the numbers to open the door! It was very frustrating to not be able to communicate with them before arriving and then to not be able to get in the house once we arrived.

I don’t like to write negative reviews, but I feel that I need to share our experience so that it doesn’t happen to someone else. First, the house is the old clubhouse for a golf course that was on the property in the 1920s. It’s very cool, old house with an interesting layout. However, the house is currently for sale, and the owners clearly have not kept the house up. The house has a major cockroach infestation, both smaller ones and palmettos, predominately in the basement and in the pool house/gym. There are also large wolf spiders. The bugs were so bad that many of our party actually left early. There was also a creepy room piled high with tons of dirty laundry, snakes out by the pool area, and the pool had not been cleaned when we arrived so there was green algae in the hot tub. The yard was overgrown and full of mosquitoes. There also weren’t nearly enough dishes in the house for it being advertised to sleep 16 people, and only 1 roll of toilet paper per bathroom. The outdoor furniture was old and had mildew on it. We planned to spend a lot of our trip hanging out at the house/by the pool and had to majorly change our itinerary. The management company was nice and responsive but when we requested a cleaning they only sent out one person who didn’t clean. There were no cleaning products in the house so we had to buy our own. We are currently working with VRBO to get our money refunded. For thousands of dollars it’s not worth the disappointment!

Our stay was absolutely incredible and the house was everything we hoped for and more! The host was amazing about communication and everything was exactly as advertised and I used it for a group doing a yoga retreat, and every single person felt at home in this beautiful neighborhood and historic house. I would highly recommend this place to anyone I know and will definitely be booking again.