The Long Barn Lodge — Hotel in Sonora

We had a wonderful one-night stay at the Long Barn Lodge. It is a charming resort that includes a building with motel style rooms (exterior hallways) on two stories plus several cottages and a full-sized pool. We stayed at the Superior Chalet cottage that featured two queen beds, a sofa bed, a full kitchen with a full sized refrigerator, a four burner stove and oven, two TVs, air conditioning unit, and a gas fireplace. Outside was a cozy porch with seating and deluxe propane barbecue grill. The Superior Chalet is ideal for a family of 4. It is set back from the road and very quiet. The smaller cottages are across the way, in a row, which is fine if you have quiet neighbors. The next door Bungalow is basically a 2-story house suitable for a large family. What was unique about the motel rooms was that the first floor rooms had two doors, one in front, facing the pool, and the other out back, opening directly into the parking lot which would be incredibly convenient for families with young children who are basically moving their household in. In a very unique feature, some of the motel rooms are connected to upstairs units by interior stairs, with a queen bed below for the parents and bunk beds upstairs for the kids. ||We chatted with the new management, an inspiring young couple who took over last year and are making many improvements to the property. Some of the fixtures and appliances are dated, but the new owners are working to update everything. They explained some of the history and said that they will be celebrating the property’s centennial in 2025! ||The Lodge is open year round and the area’s only skating rink will open at the end of November.||Highly recommend staying here with a family, especially you kids, hosting a family reunion here, or just enjoying the area with friends. My suggestion is to market the property as the Long Barn Lodge and Cottages. The cottages make the stay extra special!||While you are here, don’t miss the amazing breakfast at the Pine Cone Cafe and delicious brick oven specialty pizzas at...

We rented a studio Cabin in the C,G,H,I group listed on their website for a last minute Sunday night getaway where we could hang on the porch, make dinner and have our dog with us before heading to Pinecrest in the morning for a hiking day.|Upon pulling up to our cabin we were immediately greeted by a very loud drunk lady two doors down hollering from her porch asking about our dog, our car, and other random things. We were polite but short enough to let her know we weren’t there to hang with the drunk neighbors. |We got settled into the totally adequate “cabin” where the minimal decor was beach themed… odd for the mountains. Anyhoo, the kitchen was stocked with cheap but adequate utensils, flatware, and cookware. The guy at the front was cool and let us snag an available BBQ to use at our cabin even though it’s not technically included with that room.|It quickly became clear that we may have been the only “hotel guests” whereas the few others we were seeing were long term renters. The drunk folks 2 doors down grew increasingly louder, while their dog barked incessantly and I heard them talk about how they’ll have to leave as soon as the first snowflakes fall on Long Barn. So maybe they spruce things up for the winter guests?? |We still had a nice time on the porch playing cards and making dinner until the drunk long-termers started fighting on their porch which forced us to move inside under the harsh fluorescent lights where we started noticing the irony of all the signs threatening extra charges for not keeping things clean. It felt a little tacky given the bare-minimum accommodations and the noise outside. |The queen bed had a severe dip in the middle and with no AC the last thing we wanted was to keep rolling into eachother throughout the hot night. ||Long Barn Lodge could be charming with some care put into the decor and furniture and if they kick out the tacky drunk long term tenants who really bring the place down. All and all it’s FINE- not $200 a night fine, but it’s fine for...

We stayed at the Long Barn for the weekend of 01/20-01/22, 2023. We stayed at the Superior Chalet L. Here are some Pros and Cons:

Pros: Location: 2 hrs drive from East Bay, so easier accessible than Tahoe. A really beautiful trail nearby along the river, wasn’t cleared from snow, but due to multiple people walking there was kinda walkable. Dodge Ridge and Leland Snow park are within 20-30 mins (parking is tricky if don’t come early). Staff is friendly. Cabin had all the necessary things, like linens, blankets, kitchen staff, toiletries, towels, etc. Cabin was nice and cozy. It’s pet friendly, so we could bring our furry family member with us. Additional $20/night though. It’s just beautiful in winter with all the snow we had! The skating rink is cute and fun!

Cons:

There’s what smells like a gas leak from the stove, it’s not very old, but needs to be replaced probably. We all got headaches from it!

Blankets are not thick enough for winter, and have holes in them, so we had to run the heaters all night, which made it really stuffy in the cabin and gave us even more headaches.

The heater/fireplace was pre-set for 80+, and we couldn’t figure out how to change that. I mean we could change the temp, and we did. But it would go back to heating it up to 80+ during the night, even though the last setting we did was 72. We didn’t realize it was doing that until the second night as everyone thought somebody else changed it to be so high:) Smth for you to look into.

Overall, it’s not very clean, stained sheets/pillows/holes in blankets. Kitchen appliances are VERY dirty, coffee maker had mold in it, toaster was disgusting, fridge stinks. That’s smth that can easily be improved, and thus will improve overall experience.

It’s not “an affordable” stay at $550 for two nights in a tiny cabin with two beds/sleeper sofa (btw, the mattress on which is so dirty!). But we would stay there again if the above...