Issues → November/December 2008 → Travel →

Christmas in Vermont

Chester, Grafton, and Woodstock

by Christina Tree

COMMENT

SINGLE PAGE

SHARE

SOCIAL BOOKMARKING SITES

X

•  del.icio.us
•  Facebook
•  Google
•  StumbleUpon
•  Yahoo!
•  Windows Live

EMAIL

PRINT

Credit: Lisa Sacco

Grafton, Vermont's proudly crafted clapboard and brick houses date from the early 1800s when the village grew at the junction of major stagecoach routes. In the 1830s, the town was home to 482 people and 10,000 sheep. Then travel routes shifted, and the railroad passed it by, leaving Grafton as a lovely time capsule of New England history.

Credit: Lisa Sacco

The Fullerton Inn, rebuilt in the 1880s, is on Chester's village green.

Credit: Lisa Sacco

All decked out for the holidays, The Old Tavern at Grafton has been hosting weary travelers since 1801.

Credit: Lisa Sacco

Woodstock's Memory Tree on the village green is lit for the holiday season during the town's annual Wassail Weekend.

VIDEO: Christmas in Vermont

In the early-December dusk, carolers gather around the lighted tree and gazebo on Chester's green. The sky glows, but the air is frigid, and after the final "Silent Night," everyone heads into The Fullerton Inn for cocoa. Earlier on this same afternoon in Woodstock, 25 miles north, a top-hatted Father Christmas, costumed choristers, and hundreds of carolers sang around a blazing Yule log on the town's green. The event, one of many during this annual "Wassail Weekend," capped a parade of elaborately dressed celebrants on horseback and in carriages. In Grafton, seven wooded miles south of Chester, the village is dressed sumptuously for the season, decked with 250 wreaths and 3,000 yards of roping. Different as each of these communities is, all three towns offer real season's greetings, about as far from hectic mall traffic as you can get.

Come Home to Chester

Chester (population 3,044) sits at the confluence of three state routes (five major roads all together). In winter, cars stream by heading north to Okemo Mountain. Few stop. If they did, they'd likely discover why Chester residents call their town "the Vermont you've been hoping to find."

"I immediately felt the friendliness of people here," reflects Canadian-born Jack Coleman, who launched Chester's "Overture to Christmas" events more than 20 years ago. He'd been a writer, president of Haverford College, and head of a major foundation. Then he bought the 21-room Chester Inn, christening it "The Inn at Long Last." Today the owners are Bret and Nancy Rugg, who have preserved its reputation for good food, refurbished its guestrooms, and revived the original name: The Fullerton Inn. "I don't know where I'll end up, but I hope it's right here," concludes Coleman, who still lives next door.

Chester consists of three villages, with its core along the stretch of Main Street (Route 11), flanked on one side by its mellow brick, original Academy and graveyard, and on the other side by the green, backed by a line of shops, restaurants, a church, a Masonic hall, and the inn. Folks who fork north onto Route 103 will find Chester Depot, a late-19th-century village centered around a brick railroad station (the terminus for the Green Mountain Flyer) and the town's terrific general store, Lisai's Market. Route 103 doglegs northwest at Stone Village (formerly North Chester), a striking double line of early-19th-century houses, all built from locally quarried granite. In the middle of the village an "Open" flag is usually out, marking the home of Bonnie's Bundles Dolls.

"I want to meet the people who buy my dolls," explains Bonnie Watters, who welcomes visitors into her parlor to inspect roughly 100 one-of-a-kind cloth dolls.

Nearby, watercolorist Jeanne Carbonetti greets visitors in the many-windowed Crow Hill Gallery, which she and husband Larry designed and built on a rise off above the meadows. It's an ideal setting for her richly colored paintings.