-Cynthia MacKay contributed to this article
We drove 300 miles from Rye to Shelburne, Vermont, in June for an enjoyable three-day vacation, experiencing nature, history, and the arts.
Fifteen minutes south of Burlington, the area has three outstanding attractions: Shelburne Farms, Shelburne Museum, and the Shelburne Farms Inn. As an extra bonus, we had a short two-hour stop at Fort Ticonderoga, New York, on the way home.
Shelburne Farms is a 1,400-acre working farm on the shores of Lake Champlain. At the start of the 20th Century, it was the agricultural estate of Lila Vanderbilt Webb, daughter of railroad magnate William Henry Vanderbilt, and her husband William Seward Webb. In 1972 family descendants founded an educational nonprofit there.
Their aim was to respond to and address global environmental concerns. This place became a living classroom institution to bring stories of sustainability alive. It is a National Historic landmark.
The original Webb farm was created as a model agricultural estate, with Frederick Law Olmstead designing the landscape and Robert Henderson Robertson designing the buildings.
One attraction is the Farm Barn standing five stories high with a two-acre courtyard as the education and administrative center. Others are the Brown Swiss cows, sheep, walking trails, flower gardens, and a shop selling products from the farm such as cheddar cheese and maple syrup. An exhibit explaining how cheese is made is especially good.
Shelburne Museum is a museum of art, design, and Americana located on 45 acres near the farm, founded by Lila Webb in 1947. The museum’s collection was begun by Electra Havermeyer Webb. Over 150,000 works are exhibited in 39 exhibition buildings, 25 of which are historic structures (including houses, stores, and farm structures) from the area that were relocated to museum grounds. The art includes Impressionist paintings, folk art, quilts, and textiles, decorative arts, furniture, American painting and range of 17th to 20th century artifacts.
The Shelburne Farms Inn was originally the early 20th century summer home of the Seward-Webb family. Rehabilitated in 1987 into a comfortable hotel with 24 guest rooms in the main house, plus cottages, it has an excellent farm-to-table restaurant, the meals prepared with products and ingredients made from a working farm. There are outstanding views from the Inn across Lake Champlain to the Adirondack Mountains on the far side, as well as beautiful rolling farm landscape. Open mid-May to mid-October, the Inn is an inspiring place to stay.
Fort Ticonderoga (about 50 miles and one hour southwest of Shelburne) is one of America’s most historic sites, strategically located at the junction of Lake Champlain and Lake George, and nestled between New York’s Adirondack and Vermont’s Green Mountains.
It played an important role in the American Revolutionary War when Aaron Burr and Ethan Allen captured the fort from the British in 1775, its star-shaped fort an iconic symbol of victory in United States military history. With a tour of the fort, one gains knowledge of its importance and the flow of control between the Indians, the French, the British, and the Americans.