The Big House was built of redwood as the property Dorn bought had been previously clear-cut and redwood would cut the risk of fire.   The logs were from California and shipped via the Panama Canal to the building where they were left rounded on the outside and planed smooth for the interior.   Meals and the bar are located the Big House, along with several rooms/suites.   Also on the property is a spa, workout room, and play room that had a self serve ice cream bar and fresh popcorn to go with games and such.  The property has numerous fishing lakes for fly fishing only and they have gear for you to use.  There is also skeet shooting, biking and golf carts to supplement the numerous hiking trails.  We got fish food from the staff that we could toss to the growing fish and boy did the fish go crazy for it.  On Friday and Saturday nights they have live music at dinner.  On Fridays it’s a guitar/singer and on Saturday it’s a pianist.  It was a lovely accompaniment to dinner.  They also had a buffet set up outside the cocktail room with boiled shrimp and cheese in the foyer.  Each night the menu changes some of the selections and the quality of all varies but is overall quite nice, however many of the service staff are fairly young and inexperienced.

Set-Up

 

Food

Snacks included fresh boiled shrimp, artichoke fritters, olives and snack mix. The shrimp were in the reception hall, displayed on ice with seaweed underneath. They were attractive and had a good cocktail sauce for enhancement. The artichoke balls were very mild.

 

Bread service was a pecan apple bread with apple maple butter and butter with pink peppercorn (no photo). The bread was soft and the apple butter was sweet. It was fine.

 

An amuse bouche was a fish soup with croutons. It was very savory. I’m not sure how they made the fish croutons as they were a large lump without the texture of bread. Even so it was warm and tasty.

 

Roasted Salsify Velouté was around ricotta tortelloni and chestnuts. The very thick pasta wrapper was cooked through but too thick. The broth was a good consistency with a lovely flavor, but both needed a touch of salt. The hazelnuts provided a good crunch for the dish.

 

Veal Blanquette was made with spaghetti squash, pearl onions, Shimeji and topped with King Horn mushrooms. The veal was tender and lovely in a really flavorful creamy mushroom sauce. The spaghetti squash was from their garden and added good things to this great dish. A real favorite here.

 

Sea Trout was on bacon-sweet potato hash, Nantucket scallops and scampi butter. The sweet potato hash was tasty as were the scallops but the fish was badly overcooked, dry and inedible. The server asked and I had to admit it was terrible so in their defense they did take it off the bill.

 

Spiced apple shortcake contained Pennsylvania maple-cinnamon whipped cream. This filling was made with Glendorn apples and the whipped cream spiked with local maple syrup and cinnamon. The apples were delicious but I found the pastry to be dull – it needed something to give it a spark, maybe as simple as a dash of salt. Didn’t matter though as the apples and cream were a delight. They ended the meal with the same mini pumpkin pie cookie as the night before. Well spiced and tasty.