History of The Cottages at Millbank
The Cottages at Millbank is located within one mile of historic Ligonier and the Elmer E. Deeds Farm, which was once part of the Deeds Farm. The farm’s storied history includes allowing overnight guests or boarders in the early to mid-1900s era, when Idlewild was known as a “boarding house.” City dwellers who came by train to Millbank Station, a stop on the Ligonier Valley Railroad, flocked to the farm’s lovely fields that border the Loyalhanna Creek, one of Pennsylvania’s finest stocked trout streams. They debarked for a short walk across a swinging bridge that spanned the Loyalhanna Creek to Deeds Farm, where they stayed at the farmhouse, springhouse or bunkhouse for a rural retreat and Ella Deeds’ farm-fresh, home-cooked meals.
Today, the farm is continuing to bring joy to guests young and old, as it has been passed down through the generations of Elmer E. Deeds’ descendants. Julie and Ann Donovan, along with Ann’s husband Lynn Balthaser have kept true to the original farmland while renovating accommodations such as The Springhouse and Bunkhouse with new windows, hard wood floors, appliances fit for a cottage escape including flat-screen televisions and internet service all set in rural countryside scenery that won’t be going anywhere soon.