My husband and I stayed at this beautiful home for two weeks that I’m told the owner Gary, a talented carpenter, built! Amazing craftsmanship - awesome wood in the place.
Pros: This house is super clean, well equipped and decorated in great location. I especially liked the safe box that I don’t usually find it at AirBnB. There are lot of windows that circulate the air very well and you can see a beautiful sunset from the Lanai. Those pictures on the website are accurate. I asked to see if the host can provide a hand soap for the kitchen and more hangers, and they provided them right away.
Cons:
Privacy - Important to understand the score here - See Julian’s review from 2019. Host will enter your house without your permission which was a real problem for us since we are here to be isolated from COVID. Regrettably, we reported a light bulb and cutting board was broken (so they were aware of it) and explicitly asked host to wait until we checked out to fix it. Unfortunately, that level of respect was not afforded to us. Colleen made us uncomfortable at times by not wearing masks and this was really not ideal for us since we are always very careful about it. The trash bin is on the the deck next to the living room and there are no curtains - and the owner picks up the trash without prior notice.
Quiet Time @ 8pm - Unfortunately, this technically is a condo with 2 other units.. not a whole house as advertised. There is almost no sound isolation between units and you can hear people snoring downstairs at night. We are middle aged folks without kids and just watching TV at a normal volume at 9pm prompted a visit from the host. This was only a small nuisance for us but don’t think of coming here if you have children or plan to have conversations after 8pm.
Working from home - Despite the early and strictly enforced quiet time we were told we should wait to speak on the phone for work from home before 7am. This was much more of a problem. Colleen also told my husband that she does not approve of people like us coming to Hawaii because we bring COVID and proceeded to lecture him on how it was our fault that the prices of homes and cost of living on the Big Island was going up. So this place is not anyone working from home or for people who have an interest in buying a place in Hawaii.
General Rules - This is not a good place for you unless you strictly adhere to the host’s rules and don’t get stressed out worrying about getting reprimanded and having to do everything just so. We were told that our car wasn’t parked straight enough on the first night and were asked to do unusual tasks at check out like opening all the windows and sliding doors before we left.
Bottom line: This is a beautiful and clean house in a great location but the hosts treat this location as their personal residence and are not kind or respectful of guests who don’t fit the right profile. You may want to review the profiles of other guests and see if they look like you before you come here. The price is under market but it comes with some severe constraints.