The sign of the very best vacation stays is when you forget the house isn't actually yours...that you haven't always been there...tho it feels like you have. This property is as close to ideal (for me, at least) as I could get. Background: I've been companion to my Mother in her 90s the past 1+ year--with COVID it's hard for her to do shopping, run errands, and keep the household purring smoothly without help--it's an honor and I'm grateful for the opportunity to be there but leaving my separate adult life and profession and sunny West for smalltown New England has taken a toll and I was cold and exhausted. What I wanted was absolute solitude, peace, quietude, inspiring beautiful nature, sunshine and hot hot heat, unfussy elegant interior decor, a well-equipped kitchen to cook up superb meals, no responsibilities, easy access to groceries, ziplining, art museums, horeseback riding, and a POOL and hottub so I could spend most days sleeping late, being awakened by birds, having a strong coffee and breakfast on the terrace, and basically all day read and go from hottub to pool to reading to hottub to pool to dozing....
It was astonishing. At night the telescope in the livingroom came in handy for viewing the Leonids AND lunar eclipse. By day birds of all sorts (from hawks to hummingbirds) came to visit the pool and I pretended me. The bed was a dreambed or comfort. The giant shower was amazing. Every single thing I wanted or needed was there in the kitchen, including cast iron pan set--perfectly seasoned and ready to roll--for meal after meal.
I just loved the place so much, and bonus is that it comes with Elma and Hans, the latter of whom happened to be at the house when I arrived to greet me and show me around--a witty, conscientious, and kind seeming man. Elma was available to lend a hand with a few little things, like re-setting the modem. She is extraordinary and much like the house itself, it seemed we had been acquainted before--and like the house itself, she's comfortable, elegant, unpretentious, intelligent, and interesting.
I have been back in New England for 3 days now but the Tucson house and landscape are still etched into my brain. I miss it tremendously, the morning doves who'd come to call, floating in the pool looking at clouds listening to Hank Williams, the "free-range" cattle who lumber nearby lowing and eating palo verde trees branches. Spectacular stay. Spectacular house. Spectacular experience. Just wow...