Blog

It’s been a real winter and March came in like a lion! Hopefully these will be the last of the ice and snow posts until next winter!

How time flies when you’re having fun! Can it already be March?! As you can see, we’re making serious progress on the cabin! Here are a few sneak peeks! It is filled with lots of surprises and special features! We are so anxious to open North Star Cabin to our guests! Be sure to follow our progress on Instagram.

We are so grateful to those who stayed with us last year and hope to see many of you again, as well as meet lots of new folks! We have only just begun and are thrilled with the recognition we’ve received so far! We reached ‘superhost’ status on Airbnb, we won the local newspaper Reader’s Choice Award for ‘Favorite Bed and Breakfast’ and we were mentioned in the Hipcamp Journal by our guests, Melissa and Mark!

In House Concert News, we’ve had a change in the lineup for our 2018 house concert series. Heron Valley, from Scotland, were not able to tour after all but we are just as happy to get Téada, from Ireland, to kick things off on March 15! On April 8th, we have April Verch Band (that should be easy to remember!), on May 12th, Austin MacRae, a singer songwriter from New York will be here for the first time. In June we welcome back multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter, and Irish dancer, Dave Curley! July welcomes back a favorite at OMH, Ari Hest! Ari will return on July 29th. We haven’t booked a show for August. We will be heading to Dublin Ohio for the annual Irish Festival. We attend each year to see and hear new bands as well as old favorites. Then, on September 1 (which happens to be Labor Day weekend) we’re excited to introduce to our area the band, The Novel Ideas! And finally, on October 7 we welcome back Christian Pabst, from Amsterdam, as the Christian Pabst Trio! Check out all of these artists online and be sure to RSVP on the Facebook event page by selecting ‘going’ or via email to reserve your seats. It is very important (and courteous) that folks let us know how many seats you want to reserve as we have to prepare, with setup and refreshments. Some of these shows will include a potluck, otherwise, guests typically bring their favorite beverage and a snack to share. As always, please feel free to share concert announcements with your friends! Invite them to like our pages on Facebook and to follow us on Instagram!

There are many events in the area coming up in the warmer months. There is a canoe/kayak race on March 31, the annual Red Moshannon Downriver Race, (RedMo) and on May 7th is the 15th Annual West Branch Susquehanna River Wild Canoe and Kayak Race. We’ll include other spring and summer events in future posts. If you need a place to stay, we are the Ultimate Restination in the heart of the Pennsylvania Wilds! Come… stay with us!

Until next time… be well, be kind, be happy!

Anna Marie & Ed

Winter is here and where did the time go? I had every intention of posting in November but the busyness of the holidays overtook me so here we are, at the end of December and knocking on the door of a brand new year! We hope you had a wonderful holiday season!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As I sit by the light of our Christmas tree all cozy and warm by the fireplace I can quote The Night Before Christmas because ‘the moon on the breast of the new fallen snow, gives the luster of mid-day to objects below!’ It’s a frigid 12 degrees outside but inside we’re toasty and warm. We’ve been fortunate to have bluebirds who have decided to stick around. There are four of them that we see eating the bittersweet from the wreath I made as a fall decoration.

 

Hunting season and the cold is keeping the deer deeper in the woods but we still see them around.

Since our last post, we’ve had some diehard campers who braved the cooler temperatures and inclement weather but we have ‘the hut’ that keeps them or their gear out of the weather. We may need to have a contest to name the little structure that our son has been working on which will be available as a retreat/reading nook or for indoor camping. He lives about three hours away so he doesn’t get much time to work on it but hopefully by next summer it will be completed.

Ed has been making a lot of progress on North Star Cabin (I may have called it ‘cottage’ before but we decided to call it a cabin). He replaced all of the windows, attached rough lumber siding on the outside, laid the new flooring and started framing and installing the bathroom and kitchen. We’re very excited to complete the renovations so we can open it as our main B&B!

We held our final house concert for 2017 on November 13 with The Black Feathers from the UK. It was their second time playing here and they were fabulous! We have had an incredible year for concerts beginning last February with the Sea Offs and the Rivers band, followed by The Outside Track from Scotland, Ireland, and Canada. Then we had The Brock McGuire Band from Ireland and Jazz by Pitch Plot 4 from Amsterdam with NYC bassist, Jim Cammack. Next we had Dave Curley, Joanna Hyde and Tadhg O Meachair from Ireland and the US followed by FullSet and Goitse, both from Ireland. We closed out the year with The Black Feathers. We hosted quite a few Irish bands this year and they are always a huge hit with our audience.

Next year we have several singer-songwriters lined up, some familiar names as well as some new faces and voices! We’re really excited to kick it all off in March with a new, young, six piece band from Scotland called Heron Valley! Be sure to follow our Facebook page and check out our events page for details.

We want to wish you all a very happy, healthy, and prosperous new year and hope to see you sometime in 2018!

Warmest wishes from Oak Mountain Hideaway in the cold of winter!
Anna Marie & Ed

October has been an exciting month! We attended the World Premier of the film,  Generational Sins, at the historic Rowland Theatre in Philipsburg, PA on October 5th. They even rolled out the red carpet for the affair! The lead actors were on hand as well as the director, Spencer Folmar, who happens to be a very dear friend of the family.

The film features our cabin as the childhood home of the eldest brother in the story, Drew, played by Australian actor, Daniel MacPherson. If you didn’t get to see the film, it’s available online through Amazon, iTunes and many other outlets. Most of the film was shot locally, in Clearfield County, and many of the scenes were in or around our cabin. Be sure to check it out!

Ed has been making progress on the renovations to North Star Cottage, ‘the cabin’ and we’re very excited! He stone-cased the chimney with stone from the property. It looks great, don’t you think? We can’t wait to open it up for rentals but in the meantime, we’ve been hosting folks in the main house. We’ve had a lot of guests interested in seeing the Pennsylvania Elk herd and we’ve enjoyed taking them out to see them locally. Some recent guests came to us from as far away as Belgium, Israel!

The fall leaves this year aren’t quite as impressive as last, but it’s been rather dry during the late summer months. October is definitely a popular time in our neck of the woods! We’ve hosted some Hipcampers, as well, who come for the autumn leaves, for hiking, and elk viewing, not to mention, the serenity! Visit each of our three listings on Hipcamp.com to see some new photos!

We’re very excited for our final house concert for the year as we welcome back from Gloucestershire England, The Black Feathers! Sian Chandler and Ray Hughes are a phenomenal husband and wife duo. Their perfectly blended voices create the most gorgeous harmonies! Details for this show can be found on our event page and be sure to follow Oak Mountain Hideaway House Concerts on Facebook to keep up with who we’ll be bringing next for our concert series. More on that in next month’s blog. But for now, stay tuned for updates on the progress of the cabin and watch for all of our upcoming events at the Ultimate Restination in the heart of the Pennsylvania Wilds… Oak Mountain Hideaway!

Get to know us and Oak Mountain Hideaway by following our blog! Here, we’ll be sharing what’s happening, what we’re seeing and doing at our mountain hideaway, and the progress we’re making on creating our new adventure… Oak Mountain Hideaway LLC and North Star Cottage, our new B&B and event location!

This is our dream home, and it would be safe to say, a lot of folks would dream to have a place tucked away from everything! As many of you know, we’re very happy to share what we have! We have been hosting house concerts as part of the Oak Mountain Hideaway House Concert Series since 2005. We have been very blessed and it is too beautiful here to keep it all to ourselves. Thus, we’ve begun renovations to the cabin that was on the property when we purchased it.

A little background on our good fortune to end up with such a magnificent piece of property. We built our first home in 1979 not too far from here. We were married in May of that year and moved into the shell of our home in June. We lived there for 24 years. Ed continued to build the house as we had enough money and we raised five children. By then, the older ones were beginning to move out and we had no intention of relocating or selling our home but in 2001, this gem of a property caught Ed’s eye while he was working nearby. He showed it to me and the rest, as they say, is history! We ended up buying it. In 2003 we sold our first home and moved into the hunting cabin that was on the property while we built our dream house. I designed it, Ed, our boys and son-in-law built it.

It was rustic living while building the main house with no electricity, no water, just a roof over our heads, and pleasant weather for six months. We managed to ‘rig up’ some power and water feeding off of the new house, with an outdoor shower on the porch of the cabin! By Christmas, we moved into the new house and the cabin has since sat vacant for 14 years.

In 2005 we had our first house concert and have been holding 8-10 of them each year ever since. We’ve had a lot of practice hosting guests and everyone seems to really enjoy their time here.

With all of our children on their own now, we recently opened up two rooms in our home on Airbnb. I guess you could say it’s practice, for when we open the cabin. We are going to call the cabin, North Star Cottage, because… you guessed it, it faces the North Star which you can see quite clearly in our dark sky. We are far from city lights and the Milky Way spans the heavens so star gazers and astronomers will find it a very good location for star gazing! If you enjoy star gazing, perhaps you would enjoy sleeping under the stars! In addition to offering the rooms in our home, we also are listed on the camping reservations site, Hipcamp! We currently offer three primitive sites. Stay tuned on updates and improvements.

The cabin may soon become famous with the release of the Hollywood film, Generational Sins which premiers on Thursday, October 5 at the historic Rowland Theatre in Philipsburg, PA. Parts of the movie were shot in the cabin and on the grounds. Be sure to check out the film! Then come and stay with us to see the authentic ‘movie props’ that will become part of the decor in North Star Cottage.

We’re very excited and full of ideas of what Oak Mountain Hideaway will have to offer those who love the outdoors, peace and quiet, music, and opportunities to learn and to experience solitude, or community, in a stunning natural environment! We hope you will follow our blog to keep abreast of all that’s happening and to learn of future plans and upcoming events!

’till next time… Anna Marie