Maple Shade Villa

We went to Cooperstown Field of Dreams a Tournament and stayed at this loft for a week. Lots of good things about the rental and a few questionable things as well.
Pros: 1) Directly outside of the Dreams Park which made getting to and from the park very easy. We had rain delays, and instead of just hanging out at the park to see when the rain would stop, we went back to the loft and relaxed in bed watching TV or whatever.
Pros: 2) They have private parking in the back of the house just in front of the stairway to the entrance. Although we were right on the busy highway, it felt secluded because the entrance was at the back of the house adjacent to a large grassy meadow.
Pros: 3) They had built in washer/​dryer in the unit. So we did laundry daily and didn’t need to bring another suitcase of extra clothes.
Pros: 4) The wifi was strong enough to do work and stream videos online. Very handy when you have kids around.
Pros 5) There was a small kitchen that made meals and snacks 100x easier that living in a hotel.
Pros: 6) The people who live on and own the property were nice and were available when needed.
Cons: 1) You don’t have a secure unit. By that I mean that the front door lock is easily bypassed. Also there is an inside door that leads down to the second level that has no lock on it. The unit is potentially accessible to other/​former guests. In fact, one of the male owners/​family members came into our loft during our stay without giving any notice, to «get something out of the laundry closet». I realize that they may have gown up in the home, but I felt there needed to be notice given if they enter while «Guests /​my family» were renting the unit. I felt really uneasy leaving my wife and daughter there alone and leaving our electronics/​laptops in the unit while we were out. We didn’t lose anythings during our stay, just felt uneasy.
Cons 2) Although there was a «kitchen» it was not set up with proper ventilation. There are no windows or venting system in place to take the vapors/​smoke/​gas-​byproducts of cooking out of the kitchen. We had to rig up a system of fans to blow air out of the kitchen via the door entrance. Less than ideal, but we made it work.
Cons 3) More attention could have been paid to the cleanliness of the unit as a whole. Example, the window Air conditioning units smelled like mold/​mildew when turned on. When I looked closer, the AC units looked like they have not been cleaned in some time and the filters were dirty. We left the AC off for the Duration of the stay, even though some days called for some AC. There are ceiling fans in each room that help with circulating the air a bit. There was a towel bar in the bathroom that was half hanging off the wall (obviously broken, but left as is for our stay. A doorknob to one of the bathrooms came off in my daughters hand when she tried to open the bathroom door… small things like that.
Cons 4) The loft is on the third floor, up a very long and intimidatingly steep flight of wooden steps. Not a big deal most of the time, but carrying bags of groceries or luggage up and down the steps is a chore. Families with very young kids may get nervous as the tall staircase is sturdy but less than childproof, and its a long way down to the ground.
Con: 5) There was work being done on the house during the week that we were staying. Scaffolding was set up and it just didn’t look like a place that was in its prime, ready for guests.
Around the house itself there were lots of odds and ends/​construction materials/​old things that otherwise should have been in a storage unit. The feeling is that of a rural cabin as opposed to a «resort vacation rental».
All in all we had a pleasant enough experience with the Maple Shade Villa and we made the best of the situation. Our team went 6 – 0 in the pool play, so everyone was in a good mood. However, if we had known the details of the loft at the beginning before we booked, I think some of the cons may have caused us to go elsewhere. This place has a lot of potential, it just needs some attention to the details noted above.