The Solitude Inn
The Solitude Inn is situated on a dead end road, and boasts 200 acres of cleared land, woods, stands of Fraser Fir Christmas trees, and old roads for hiking. It is surrounded on three sides by New York City land, thousands of acres of which are available for hiking. A section of the Finger Lakes Trail is easily accessible at the end of Chamberlain Brook Road. In addition, NYS Route 10 is a designated bike path.
In late spring, a pumpkin patch begins to set fruit behind the farmhouse, a plot full of winter squash, pumpkins, and gourds. Stay at harvest time, and pick your own. Take a boat out on the reservoir to fish during the season. Or paddle around in a canoe or kayak during recreational boating season, Memorial Day to Columbus Day each year. Sit on the wraparound porch where doing nothing is always doing something.
When your life has been “noisy,” you will relish your time at The Solitude Inn.
The Views
The Cannonsville Reservoir is pristine and beautiful. It affords visitors the grace and comfort of light, just as The Solitude Inn affords visitors the grace and comfort of home. A car or bike or motorcycle ride around the reservoir is good for the spirit.
Sometimes, in early morning, the sun breaks through a hole of cloud and throws a silver circle on the water. On the side hill, an intersect of birches is a white web against brown. An eagle may be perched there, eying iridescent fish at shallow water’s edge. Red tailed hawks career across water, wings hitched up, the tell-tale of hawks. A crow perches like a Christmas star on the leader of a fir tip so seemingly tender as to remind one of the hollow bones of birds. Holsteins graze in the flat along the river pushing pink noses into the last growth of grass in corn stubble. The sun blows the clouds out and illuminates the golden beaks of hawks and hollow bones of birds and heavy hooves of cow, a symphony of sight.