Who are we?

We are a Dutch couple from Astoria New York that found our dream house on the location where we would like to retire when retirement age comes in a few years. Until this time we try to rent our place through Airbnb on the days that we can not be there. We hope that guests enjoy our place as much as we do and treat it like it is their own house.

The Dutch Hill Cottage (previous The Rose Cottage) is an almost newly renovated cottage, rustic chic design, comfy & cozy country getaway. Situated on private 10 acres of rolling hills. Perched on a peak at the forests edge with an expansive view all the way down to the Never Sink river.

The Neversink river is a shallow streaming river with a lot of wildlife, great for canoeing and fishing.

Winter Wonderland. Winters can be cold and harsh but the views from our deck will warm you up instantly. Just remember a 4×4 is a must since we have a pretty long uphill driveway

Inside the Cottage

The wood burning stove is wonderful and basically warms the whole house if operated correctly.

How to operate the wood burning stove?

Let me first say that I am also not an expert but this is what I learned while working with our stove:

Make some ‘plugs’ from newspapers or magazines, open the front door of the stove and put them in the bottom of the stove, put some kindling over them and on top of that one dry log that will be ignited. Once the first log is going it’s pretty simple to keep the fire going. The front door you only use to start the fire and once it goes you only use the door on the left to keep the fire alive by adding one log at the time when necessary. When the flames are getting less intense just open the door on the left a little and you will see that the suction from the chimney will accelerate the fire again. If you bought wood from a store its normally pretty dry and ready to go but if you want to use wood that you find around the house or in the woods behind the house its probably to wet for a good fire so only use that wood to keep the fire going once it is hot enough inside the stove so it will not kill the fire you just got going.

I am always amazed by how much warmth this little stove produces and how much fun it is to keep it going a whole night with as least wood as possible.

5 steps to start a fire — 5 steps to start the a fire

Kitchen and living area

Basement/entertainment area

The basement has the entertainment area with a big 65″ HDTV, Polk audio system, XBOX One and the possibility to stream from your own devices

Bedrooms

We have two bedrooms on the second floor, two bedrooms on the main floor and one bedroom in the basement. All beds are comfortable and sleeping in this house is just fantastic because it is very quiet and all you hear is the sound of nature.