WE LOVE IT HERE, YOU WILL TOO!

OUR STORY

Cooks Cottage was purchased in 1936 by O.R. Cook (Corey’s Great Grandfather) and is a 4th generation cottage on Lake James. Until 2016, the cottage was always seasonal and would get closed down in the winters. When Corey & Michelle took it over, they decided to make it a year around home and remodeled the kitchen and living areas to be more comfortable and modern. When we lived in Westerville, Ohio, Michelle worked for several full service hotels as Director of Sales and Corey owned a market research firm providing market intelligence to hotels in Cleveland, Columbus & Cincinnati for 18+ years. We used to take walks everyday and would talk about our plan in retirement to operate a little B&B out of our cottage along with providing historical tours of the lake. On March 15, 2020, little did we know that the pandemic would cause Corey to lose his market research company and so after much thought… we decided to fast forward our plans a decade earlier and test out our future plans much sooner. Our dream in retirement was to be ambassadors to this wonderful lake community that we live in by offering part of our cottage to guests, hosting cooking classes for both our guests as well as people from the area to make new friends while connecting over great food and providing historical boat tours on Lake James for those interested in learning the rich history of Steuben County and it’s 101 lakes. We’ve poured years—and our savings—into these businesses, unsure if they would ever truly take off, but now in our 4th year of hosting and obtaining the highest ranking of all the Airbnb’s in the area (top 1% with over 130 perfect reviews) we have manifested our dreams! Corey has been selected by Airbnb to be an area coach helping others turn their cottages into vacation rentals and sharing the expertise we’ve learned from our 30+ years working in hospitality. When passion fuels your work, it never really feels like work. You wake up excited, grateful, and ready for the next chapter! We hope you’ll come visit us and book a cooking class and a historical sunset cruise so we can share this wonderful corner of the world with you and extend the best hospitality we know how! Corey & Michelle