Staytripper, Summer 2022 by Seven Days

SUMMER 2022

Farmhouse Refresh

Bristol’s Tillerman inn is a new twist on an old fave

Watershed Moment

Serene sightseeing along the Northern Forest Canoe Trail

That’s So Fly

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Float Your Boat ON THE COVER: Canoeing on a remote pond in the Northeast Kingdom PHOTO BY NATHANAEL ASARO

STEEPED IN HISTORY...............6 Owners of the Tillerman have transformed a beloved Bristol inn and restaurant BY CAROLYN SHAPIRO

PADDLE POWER........................10 The Northern Forest Canoe Trail follows Native routes

Scorching temps arrived early in the Green Mountain State this year, so you may have crossed a few key items off your summer bucket list already — perhaps a lazy afternoon picnic and that first maple creemee. Lest you run through summer’s greatest hits too quickly, this issue of Staytripper, Seven Days’ road map to rediscovering Vermont, supplies plenty of off-the-beaten-path adventures for the season ahead. From woodlands to waterways, we’re covering all sorts of terrain. Dip your oar into the Northern Forest Canoe Trail to follow routes once used by Native American travelers, or rock the dock at a Lake Champlain flotilla concert. Take a literary stroll through the forest with a poet at Words in the Woods, or wander among sizable sculptures at Manchester’s Seven Springs garden. Catch live music under the stars at Knoll Farm in Fayston or by the firepit at Bristol’s newly transformed Tillerman inn. Hop on a mountain bike and sample local craft brews — not at the same time — with Stowe-based tour company 4 Points Vermont. There’s still more fun at an endlessly quirky hot-air balloon museum in Post Mills. If you’re lucky, you might just catch sight of a Vermontasaurus while you’re there. — CAROLYN F OX, EDITOR

BY SALLY POLLAK

READY TO ROLL........................12 4 Points Vermont offers insider brewery and mountain bike tours

Swanton

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BY JORDAN ADAMS

Late hot-air balloonist Brian Boland’s museum in Post Mills is one of a kind

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Burlington

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Owners of the Tillerman have transformed a beloved Bristol inn and restaurant

s soon as Jason Kirmse and Kate Baron closed on the purchase of the former Mary’s Restaurant and Inn at Baldwin Creek last summer, the couple and their two young sons ran straight to the creek on the Bristol property and jumped in for a swim. Kirmse spent the next few months clearing debris and cutting back foliage that had obscured INFO the waterway, a rippling ribbon over rocks and The Tillerman, 1868 N. Route 116, around curves southeast of the Bristol, 643-2237, thetillermanvt.com inn, which they renamed the Tillerman. The couple created a path down to the rocky bank so guests could easily access the natural feature. “I feel like this creek is a real draw that we haven’t really marketed much,” Baron said during a recent tour of the grounds. “You can actually get in it. You can fish in it. You can explore it.” 6

SEVEN DAYS STAYTRIPPER SUMMER 2022

BY CAROLYN SH API RO • shapiro@sevendaysvt.com

The Tillerman’s owners have embraced many such discoveries as they’ve spruced up the property, a 38-year fixture for locals and travelers, and made it their own. Inside, they ripped out carpeting and restored the original wood floors. They refurnished the six guest rooms, blowing a breezy West Coast vibe into the sprawling 1797 New England farmhouse. Whimsical, vibrant artwork by Baron’s mother, Torrey Baron, adorns nearly every wall and inspired the Tillerman’s logo and website illustrations. “We wanted it to feel really unique and kind of quirky and eccentric and not corporate,” Kate Baron, 47, said of the décor. The restaurant veterans from California overhauled and opened up the kitchen to enhance the communal experience. Baron and Kirmse turned the former front dining room into a parlor and added a 16-foot maple farm table, which — they’re proud to admit — they got for a steal at $800 at an estate sale.

Mary’s Restaurant pioneered the state’s farm-to-table movement when Doug Mack, a founding member and first president of the Vermont Fresh Network, opened it in 1983 with his wife, Linda Harmon, helming the inn. I had heard accolades about the place but never made it there before it changed hands. On an unusually warm spring evening in mid-May, I arrived for an overnight stay. The inn hosts live music every Wednesday, and the weather allowed that evening’s trio — Michael Chorney, Lowell Thompson and Pat Melvin — to set up at the open door of the big barn across from the restaurant’s loose-stone patio. By the time my husband and I arrived for dinner, a crowd had moved to the Adirondack chairs facing the barn, and the patio tables were full. The owners’ 7- and 9-year-old sons, Oliver and Henry, played on the green under a big magnolia tree’s fragrant white blooms. The inn’s well-tended gardens would soon burst with color. Around the grounds, firepits occupy

different “zones” where guests can gather: in the garden, outside the barn, near the creek. “That’s our happy space,” Kirmse, 44, said. “That’s when life slows down, when you sit around a campfire or you sit around an oven that’s cooking your food.” My husband and I slowed down with drinks on the porch while waiting for our table. I sipped the Ward Eight, a blend of rye whiskey, citrus and pomegranate molasses, which was lighter than it sounded and sparked my appetite. The Tillerman’s menu is focused and seasonal. Most main dishes emerge from the wood-fired oven that dominates the open kitchen, overseen by chef Justin Wright. The restaurant sources everything from as close to Addison County as possible. The greens and produce come from Footprint Farm in Starksboro or Last Resort Farm in Monkton. Pizza crusts are made with Elmore Mountain Bread’s milled flour. My husband and I dug into an antipasti plate with burrata from

PHOTOS: CALEB KENNA

Steeped in History

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Clockwise from top left: The Tillerman’s loosestone patio; outdoor dining at the restaurant; wood-fired pizza; live music at the barn

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Maplebrook Farm in North Bennington, charcuterie from Barre’s Vermont Salumi, slabs of speck, olives and breadsticks made from leftover pizza crust dough — the perfect foundation for the savory balance of flavors. We shared a Caesar salad of Little Gem lettuces, expertly dressed and topped with anchovies. Anchovies reappeared atop the wood-fired broccoli rabe, doused with crispy bread crumbs and chile flakes. The Fungi pizza packed a pungent punch with slabs of Bayley Hazen Blue cheese from Greensboro’s Jasper Hill Farm amid the mixed Blue House mushrooms from Ferrisburgh, enhanced with roasted garlic. I finished the meal with a smooth, creamy and not-too-sweet panna cotta topped with rhubarb right from the inn’s garden. My husband went home to Burlington to stay with our dogs, who aren’t allowed inside the inn, while I headed upstairs for a night in the spacious and serene Ramona room. It has a European-style en suite bathroom, with the pedestal sink in the room itself and the toilet and clawfoot tub/shower in a separate space behind a door. The Tillerman stocks Ursa Major soaps and toiletries, made in Vermont. The owners outfitted each guest room with Saatva mattresses, Brooklinen sheets and duvet covers, and plush towels befitting a five-star hotel. My king-size bed was so comfortable that I quickly grew drowsy while checking my email. I cracked one of the inn’s original windows to let in the cool night air and fell asleep to the sound of the flowing creek. The Ramona’s bathroom is one of just two in the Tillerman that haven’t had a recent update, which the owners plan to do. Many of the guest bathrooms already boast elegant tiling and modern fixtures.

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FILE: CALEB KENNA

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Steeped in History « P.7

We wanted it to feel really unique and kind of quirky and eccentric.

SEVEN DAYS STAYTRIPPER SUMMER 2022

From top: A guest room at the Tillerman; owners Kate Baron and Jason Kirmse with their sons, Oliver (left) and Henry; outdoor dining and live music

CALEB KENNA

where they hope to host more weddings — two are scheduled for this summer and fall. They’ve cleared the rustic barn, which is wide open inside and has original beams, for events, as well. Baron aims to use a small space off the restaurant as a mercantile shop, selling products such as loose-leaf “tea from the Tillerman” made with the inn’s own herbs. Beyond the garden, along Route 116, Kirmse planted 20 sugar maple trees, which will take at least a decade to mature. The couple’s commitment to the buildings and the land is clear. Baron’s description of Cat Stevens’ music fittingly applies to this 200-year-old property: “It just always stood the test of time.” m

FILE: CALEB KENNA

performed in San Francisco in 2016. Kirmse bought his wife a front-row ticket The North Country room, for example, so she could go to the show while he offers a sophisticated king suite with a stayed home with the kids. gas fireplace, sleek bathroom and small Stevens was playing over the parlor sitting area with built-in twin beds facing speakers on the morning of my stay, when head-to-head under the slanted ceiling. I found a locally anchored breakfast Also ideal for traveling spread on the long families, the Keepsake dining table: hardroom has a separate boiled eggs from sunny nook with bunk Kenyon’s Farm in beds. Waitsfield, banana Tracy and Dennis bread baked with Iannelli, Boston Elmore Mountain residents and longtime Bread’s flour, yogurt Stowe visitors, stayed at from Rogers Farmstead the Tillerman the night in Berlin, housemade KATE BARON after I did. The Bristol granola and rhubarb inn quickly made their list of special places compote from the inn’s crop. I brewed in Vermont, Tracy said. a French-press pot of coffee from “The property is spectacular,” Burlington-based Brio Coffeeworks and she enthused by phone a few days later, dipped my peeled eggs, which had flavormarveling over the quality of the food and ful, bright-orange yolks, into fresh-flaked the charm the owners have infused in the Maldon salt and chile flakes. place. “It was just so well thought through. With the heart of Bristol just three They did so much in such a short amount miles down the road, there are plenty of of time. It’s astounding. And their sign [in nearby places to explore, and I planned front] that says ‘eat, stay, celebrate’ — that’s to visit a few on my way out of town. their vision, and they’re nailing it.” For edible treats, head to Downhill Baron grew up in Armonk, N.Y., and Bread, Jones the Boy Bake Shop, and Kirmse in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. They met the new Minifactory café and market in northern California and lived there launched by locally famous jam maker V for 20 years. Kirmse owned restaurants, Smiley. For gifts, don’t miss the Vermont and Baron worked as a chef and in HoneyLights store. sustainable food systems. In early 2020, Before I left, Baron and Kirmse showed facing skyrocketing real estate prices me the spot at the front of the inn where and increasingly intense wildfires, the they plan to plant a flower bed and couple sold their stake in the restaurants kitchen garden. They aim to grow herbs and prepared to move to Spain. They had and specialty vegetables such as Jimmy airline tickets and were arranging their Nardello peppers. Off the inn’s southern visas just as COVID-19 shut down most of side, facing the creek, they’ll add an arbor, the world and ground international travel to a halt. So they shifted their attention to Vermont, where the culinary and political culture seemed like the right fit. They packed up the car and kids and drove east to scout out possibilities. In November 2020, the Mary’s property went up for sale. “We bid on it, and we lost it,” Baron said. The sellers accepted another offer, but that deal fell through. When the Bristol inn came back on the market, Baron and Kirmse figured they’d try again. They closed on the property last June, moved into the innkeepers’ house a few dozen feet from the Tillerman and welcomed their first guests last fall. Baron conceived the name of the inn long before she ever set foot in Bristol, she said. Growing up, she played the Cat Stevens album Tea for the Tillerman on repeat, and her love for it never wavered. Stevens, who later became a Muslim and changed his name to Yusuf Islam,

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COURTESY OF SCOTT STAPLES

work includes establishing and overseeing campsites along the trail, which are placed every five to 10 miles. The group also constructs and maintains access points to the water and builds relations with landowners whose property is along the trail. The use of this private land builds on the region’s tradition of a “wonderful culture of the outdoors,” Thomas said. “It’s a real privilege to be able to use the waterways of Vermont, because so much of it is private,” she said. “The generosity of these private landowners is KARRIE THOMAS what allows us to do that.” In addition to maintaining the trail’s infrastructure, the nonprofit organizes canoe-related events and offers trip planning, navigational tools and maps. It recently introduced a GPS-enabled app, in collaboration with adventure guide company FarOut, that “includes over 1,400 waypoints, site photos and several base maps,” according to Northern Forest Canoe Trail’s website. The app marks campsites, portages, natural attractions and more. In Vermont, the trail runs from Lake Champlain in the west to the Connecticut River at the New Hampshire border. The in-state waterways are joined by a 28.5-mile dip into Québec. “The trail has an enormous variety of types of water in Vermont,” Thomas said — including lakes Champlain and Memphremagog, a stretch of whitewater on the Missisquoi River near Swanton, and the meandering Clyde River, which passes through marshland in the Northeast Kingdom. Thomas’ family has enjoyed a trip that combines paddling on the Missisquoi River with cycling on the Missisquoi Valley Rail Trail, which runs beside the water. The excursion involves first locking your bike along the rail trail, then canoeing to that location and cycling back to your starting point. Missisquoi Paddle-Pedal, an annual event organized by the canoe trail nonprofit, follows a similar route; this summer it will be held on July 16. Macfarlane, the canoe maker from Addison, has paddled the trail in both directions: steering his cedar-strip boat from the Adirondacks to Maine following the conventional route and “upping the ante” on a more rigorous journey east to west. In this direction, canoeists are faced with substantially more upstream paddling. Both times, Macfarlane traveled alone and packed light in order to carry his canoe and gear in one haul on portages. He slept in a hammock, ate a lot of rice and beans, and canoed long distances each day. “It’s a beautiful thing,” Macfarlane said, “if that’s what lights your candle.” m

It’s a real privilege to be able to use the waterways of Vermont.

Paddle Power The Northern Forest Canoe Trail follows Native routes BY S A L LY POL L AK • sally@sevendaysvt.com

eter Macfarlane has paddled into a headwind riding four-foot waves on Lake Champlain. He’s seen ospreys, eagles and kingfishers while canoeing on the Missisquoi River. And he’s eaten pizza in Swanton and dinner at the Inn in Montgomery Center after a day’s travel by boat. These experiences — rigorous paddling, viewing serene scenery, dining at restaurants — all took place during Macfarlane’s trip on the Northern Forest Canoe Trail. The 740-mile INFO waterway stretches from Old Forge, N.Y., Learn more about the in the Adirondacks to Northern Forest Canoe Trail at the St. John River in northernforestcanoetrail.org. Fort Kent, Maine, and includes 145.5 miles in Vermont. Macfarlane, a fiddler and canoe maker who lives in Addison, has paddled the full trail twice. “For a trip of that length, if I had to describe it in one word, I would say it’s immersive,” the 59-yearold said. “Usual, everyday life fades very much into the background. You become totally immersed in the process of moving through the natural environment.” The Northern Forest Canoe Trail is managed by a nonprofit that’s based in Waitsfield, and the waterway passes through four states and Québec. The trail was completed in 2006, half a dozen years after organizers started to work on it, executive director Karrie Thomas said. 10

SEVEN DAYS STAYTRIPPER SUMMER 2022

The project was spearheaded by Kay Henry, former co-owner of Mad River Canoe, and Rob Center, who was the business’ marketing director. The two were inspired by Native Trails, a defunct group that was based in Maine and worked to research and map preindustrial travel routes, Thomas said. For much of its length, the Northern Forest Canoe Trail follows waterways that historically were used by Native American travelers. In mapping the trail, organizers worked with people in local communities through which it passes, Thomas noted. Paddlers who follow the route will encounter a range of canoeing experiences, including placid rivers, whitewater, glacial lakes and portages. They’ll float past farmlands, forests, wetlands and small towns. It’s unclear how many people complete the journey each year, Thomas said, because not everyone reports their trip. Ten were known to have paddled the entire 740 miles last year, she said. The journey can take anywhere from three weeks to two months. “It depends on your boat, the water, and how many days you want to stop and smell the flowers,” Thomas said, adding that she is “blown away and in awe” of people who paddle the full distance. “I tend to go out with the intention of having fun,” she said. The nonprofit performs a variety of functions in its stewardship and management of the waterway. Its

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From left: Paddling on the Missisquoi River below Richford; Missisquoi National Wildlife Refuge

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Karrie Thomas, executive director of the Northern Forest Canoe Trail, provided the following three route recommendations. Missisquoi National Wildlife Refuge: A wonderful 10-mile loop can be paddled from Louie’s Landing via the Missisquoi River, Lake Champlain and Dead Creek. This flatwater route passes the Shad Island heron rookery and allows people to dabble in the bigger waters of Lake Champlain without spending too much time in the broader lake. If you get to open water and the wind is strong, you can turn around and go back the way you came to avoid tangling with potentially dangerous conditions. This section of river holds water all through the summer and can be paddled even when other spots are too low.

Nulhegan Fen: The Northeast Kingdom’s Nulhegan River flows through the Silvio O. Conte National Fish and Wildlife Refuge and the Audubon-designated Nulhegan Basin Important Bird Area. Start at the outflow from Nulhegan Pond, just east of Island Pond, and end at Wenlock Crossing. This eight-mile stretch meanders through boreal forest, bog and fen. An active beaver population makes this section hold water through the year, but you will definitely encounter evidence of their industriousness, which will require stepping out and pulling over dams. In the spring, this is a relatively small effort; later in the season, it can be daunting. Needless to say, the wildlife viewing and solitude are magical. When you are finished, consider refreshment at the Essex House & Tavern in Island Pond!

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Missisquoi Paddle and Pedal: The Missisquoi River parallels the Missisquoi Valley Rail Trail from Richford to Sheldon Springs. This 27-mile stretch can be broken down to a number of day trips that all have an easy bike shuttle, or to a couple of options for overnights. For an easy beginner’s overnight, start in Richford and camp at Northern Forest Canoe Trail’s Doe Campsite, about five miles down the river. After a

leisurely morning, take out a mile downriver at the Route 118 bridge in East Berkshire. If you want to extend this, start about five miles upstream of Richford at Stevens Mills and finish 10 miles downstream at Lawyers Landing, above the dam in Enosburg Falls.

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SEVEN DAYS STAYTRIPPER SUMMER 2022

5/19/22 9:34 AM

Ready to Roll

4 Points Vermont offers insider brewery and mountain bike tours BY JORDA N ADA MS • jordan@sevendaysvt.com

ccording to tour guide Rick Sokoloff, there are four things to keep in mind when carving up the woods on a mountain bike: Stand up often, keep feet level to the ground when not pedaling, cover the brakes at all times and keep your eyes on the trail ahead. The name of his tour company, 4 Points Vermont, refers to those tenets — and the four cardinal directions, which the compass rose in his logo implies. A fifth tenet could easily be added: Chill out post-ride with a good craft beer. Sokoloff, a longtime Stowe resident, offers mountain bike and brewery tours through 4 Points. He and a team of wellinformed guides take groups on excursions through

the mountainous region’s craft breweries, cideries and distilleries. Sokoloff also runs mountain bike clinics to teach riders some skills before taking them out on trails. Primarily aimed at tourists, 4 Points tours are often booked by bachelor or bachelorette parties and corporate groups, but people of all kinds sign up. For $99 per head for groups of 14 or fewer, bikers and drinkers get an insider’s perspective on the vast array of trails and alcoholic beverages found in and around Stowe. Sokoloff has been a professional tour guide and mountain bike and ski instructor for decades. “Have I ever done anything professionally?” he said jokingly to his Swedish American wife, Marina

Meerburg, during a recent drive through Stowe. She and Sokoloff met in the 1980s in Bad Gastein, Austria, a resort town where they both worked in the ski industry. A longtime translator, Meerburg also leads tours as a 4 Points guide. She said the only tours she doesn’t do are bachelor parties. “I don’t want them to feel like their mother is there, right?” she said. In the early 2000s, Sokoloff cofounded the Stowe Mountain Bike Club, which has since become the Stowe Trails Partnership. He also sat on the board of the Vermont Mountain Bike Association. He’s offered mountain bike lessons for nine years and estimates he’s taught more than 1,000 people the sport. JEB WALLACE-BRODEUR

Marina Meerburg, co-owner of 4 Points Vermont

SEVEN DAYS STAYTRIPPER SUMMER 2022

COURTESY OF THE ALCHEMIST FILE PHOTOS: JEB WALLACE-BRODEUR

Clockwise from top left: Heady Topper at the Alchemist Brewery; Idletyme Brewing’s backyard beer garden; snacks and a flight of beer at von Trapp Brewing Bierhall

The upcoming season is Sokoloff’s eighth doing brewery tours. He combines wheels with beers in his bike-and-brew tours. But some people have misconceptions about that. “They think you’re gonna ride a mountain bike to [each of ] the breweries, which would be a really bad idea,” Sokoloff said. Instead, the day starts on Stowe’s network of mountain bike trails. Groups do ride to the first brewery, but once the booze starts flowing, the bikes are locked up in a tow trailer and carted from place to place. Sokoloff takes alcohol safety seriously and requires that tour-goers sign a waiver at the start of the day stating they understand the risks. A newer offering, Sokoloff’s bike-and-brew tours aren’t as popular as his brewery tours. “The barrier to riding a mountain bike is higher than it is to drink beer,” he quipped. But it’s not an impossible barrier. George Lewis, innkeeper at Stowe’s Brass Lantern Inn, said he was an experienced road biker but had never tried mountain biking before taking lessons from Sokoloff. “There’s a technical ability that you need to have to be safe and enjoy it,” Lewis, 61, said. But after a day at the Trapp Family Lodge, where Sokoloff holds his clinics, Lewis was ready to ride the trails. Sokoloff can adapt lessons for each individual, Lewis continued: “He looks at the person and can figure out what their abilities are and then modify his teaching.” 4 Points tours are similarly customizable. Before planning, Sokoloff asks his clients what their tastes

are. Beer drinkers are the easiest to please, but not everyone drinks beer, he pointed out, and some people have special diets or food allergies. Most producers on a 4 Points tour will have some kind of alternative, such as the housemade hard seltzers at Rock Art Brewery in Morrisville. “We tailor it to their taste,” Meerburg said. In fact, 4 Points will work with potential clients to

brew tour to get them prepped for the summer season. At each stop, he shared factoids about the various breweries, including info on their ingredients, machinery and processes. 4 Points tours will put a little bit of food in each client’s belly, but not a full meal or even a full appetizer. At Idletyme, Sokoloff ordered up a few small plates for the group to share. He makes sure his clients have dinner plans worked out ahead of time so they don’t have to scramble after a long day of drinking. He’ll drive people to restaurants, recommend caterers and even drop them by the grocery store. Sokoloff recently acquired a fleet of e-bikes. Those can’t go on the mountain trails, he noted. Instead, they’re for gravel road tours. Sokoloff said he has an eye on some wineries in the Champlain Islands, which bikers would reach via the Colchester Causeway. Though Sokoloff and his guides are highly knowledgeable, they aren’t the focus of a 4 Points tour. Instead, they prioritize their customers’ fun and satisfaction. Sometimes that means letting their guests take center stage, especially if they know a lot about beer. “Let them show how smart they are,” Sokoloff said. “People love that. We don’t need to be the experts. We’re here to show them a good time.” m

Once the booze starts flowing, the bikes are locked up in a tow trailer. craft nearly any kind of tour they want, though that raises the fee. Want to see covered bridges and waterfalls? Sokoloff will make it happen. A typical 4 Points brew tour hits places such as the Alchemist, Green Mountain Distillers, Ten Bends Beer, Stowe Cider, Idletyme Brewing, von Trapp Brewing Bierhall and Hill Farmstead Brewery — though that last one, in Greensboro, is a bit farther off the Stowe circuit and often has long lines. Sokoloff takes care of everything for his clients. He picks them up and drops them off with one of his tour vehicles, including a brand-new 14-passenger Ford Transit. He alerts the hosts of each stop on the tour before they arrive, which helps them prepare for the guests. Many places offer flights, which can include up to eight small glasses of beer. Those take time to pour, especially if there are as many as 14 people waiting to toss them back. Recently, Sokoloff took his team members out on a

INFO Visit 4pointsvt.com to book brewery tours and mountain bike clinics. SEVEN DAYS STAYTRIPPER SUMMER 2022

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‘Fly High’

Late hot-air balloonist Brian Boland’s museum in Post Mills is one of a kind BY SALLY POLL AK sally@sevendaysvt.com

COURTESY OF JIM BLOCK PHOTOS: EMILY POGOZELSKI

SEVEN DAYS STAYTRIPPER SUMMER 2022

n an old MG convertible parked in Post Mills, a village in Thetford, someone used their finger to scratch out a message in the dust on its hood: “Blue Skies Brian! Fly High.” On a red Mazda Miata nearby, similar sentiments are expressed, also imprinted in dust: “Miss You” and “RIP.” The messages are for Brian Boland, who died last summer at 72 in a hot-air ballooning accident. He designed and constructed the building that houses the cars and countless other objects — from beer bottles to typewriters to flags. Roughly 180 feet long, the structure has room for a lot of stuff. Boland filled it, floor to rafter. In addition to being a renowned hot-air balloonist, he was a designer, maker and collector whose eclectic treasures are on display in his oneof-a-kind museum. The backroads repository has two names, each written on a sign that hangs in the building: Brian’s Museum of Rusty Dusty Stuff and the Experimental Balloon & Airship Museum. Both names fit the bill. Many items in the museum, like the cars, are indeed dusty. Other objects — outboard motors, saw blades and sleds — are rusty. The museum is also filled with things that could fly, did fly or might fly. These include woven balloon baskets, single-engine airplanes and hot-air balloons stuffed into sacks like giant sleeping bags. Crammed amid the dust, rust and flying machines are plastic pink flamingos, dentist chairs, soccer balls, scales, frying pans, a urinal and Boland’s paintings from his art school days in New York City. A jumble of skis are propped on their ends, standing together like a fistful of extra-large pickup sticks ready to be dropped. The inventory goes on and on. If you name it, Boland probably collected it — or 27 of it, or maybe 127. To get a sense of the place, imagine what might’ve been if Shelburne Museum founder Electra Havemeyer Webb had had a secret life behind

the wheel of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the fictional flying car. Boland’s interests — flying and collecting — sometimes overlapped. According to his partner, Tina Foster, he spotted some of the stuff he accrued from the sky, as he soared in a balloon over the hills and farms of the Upper Valley. When he was back on terra firma, he’d seek out the goods seen from on high. People also gave him items or FLY HIGH

» P.18

IF YOU LIKE THIS, TRY... Chip’s Sculpture Park, Bradford

When artist and house painter Chip Hopkins gives directions to his small sculpture garden in Bradford, it’s clear the destination is going to be out of the ordinary. “It’s the first woods off South Road, on the right, before you get to the brook,” he explained by phone. “You’ll see a triangular piece of woods and a tepee in there.” Once you find the little art park, bordered by Waits River Road on its north side and South Road on the south, Hopkins’ directions make perfect sense. “It’s a secret treasure,” he said. Hopkins, 66, sited his first sculpture in the pocket of woods he owns in 2018. Today there are about two dozen pieces. About half are works of metal, mostly figures, made by Hopkins. A red one crafted from scrap metal is of particular note: Its eyes are coiled springs, its forked tongue is an old wrench, and its nose resembles the shape of Vermont. The other pieces, made from materials including stone, concrete and wood, were sculpted by artist friends and acquaintances from Maine to New York City. Hopkins works in his nearby studio, a converted shipping container. “I always wanted to be an artist,” he said. “Ever since I was little.” He had formal training at two acclaimed art schools, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia and Pratt Institute in New York City. At the latter, Hopkins studied puppet-making with Kermit Love, cocreator of Big Bird on “Sesame Street.” Folks are welcome to picnic at a Hopkins-made table in the woods, he said, as long as they clean up after themselves. m

Clockwise from left: A hot-air balloon at the Experimental Balloon Festival at Post Mills Airport; Brian Boland; messages for Brian Boland; inside Brian’s Museum of Rusty Dusty Stuff; the Vermontasaurus

INFO Visit Chip’s Sculpture Park at the intersection of Waits River Road and South Road in Bradford. SEVEN DAYS STAYTRIPPER SUMMER 2022

Fly High « P.17

From top: Tina Foster in front of a hot-air balloon at the Post Mills Airport; inside Brian’s Museum of Rusty Dusty Stuff

SEVEN DAYS STAYTRIPPER SUMMER 2022

and others wrote to describe his balloon projects and inventions are posted here and there. One piece, titled “No Chase Required!,” describes Boland’s effort to build a balloon basket that he could drive back home after a ride. The contraption meant that Boland wouldn’t need a chase vehicle to transport him and his gear home. He also wouldn’t need to hitchhike or take a long walk. The vehicle, called a cloud car, is in a secondary building at the museum, a long shedlike structure housing a stable of Bolandconstructed three-wheeled vehicles. “[I]t has been a quest of mine to design and build a self-contained flying balloon/retrieve vehicle,” Boland wrote in article that’s displayed with the vehicle. “The problem with this is that no sooner is one creation designed and built than new ideas pop into one’s head for improvements or a completely different approach, warranting the creation of another vehicle.”

He liked interesting stuff, unexpected stuff, weird stuff. TINA FOSTER

In his will, Boland deeded his property to Foster, a physician at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center and Clinics, and to the Town of Thetford, according to both parties. In the coming months, the Thetford Selectboard will decide whether and how it wants to take ownership of the airport, said Brian Monaghan, a lawyer who represents the town. Town manager Bryan Gazda recently visited the site. “I’m not a balloonist,” Gazda said, “but it’s a very unique and interesting museum.” Foster intends to establish a nonprofit, tentatively called the Brian J. Boland Memorial Foundation, at the 50-acre property. She envisions a community gathering place for arts and crafts, ballooning events and education, movie screenings, and ecology projects. She’d like to plant a pollinator meadow between the two runways. Dust is probably the most fitting medium in which to write a message to Boland. But a more formal homage can be found at the museum, where a table holds notebooks and pens for visitors who want to pay tribute. “We miss you, Brian,” one note reads. “The morning sky is so quiet in Post Mills.” m

INFO For more information on Brian’s Museum of Rusty Dusty Stuff, aka the Experimental Balloon & Airship Museum, email balloons@vermontel.net or call 333-9254.

PHOTOS: EMILY POGOZELSKI

just dropped stuff off. He found things on the side of the road. “His aesthetic was definitely rusty and dusty,” Foster said. “He liked interesting stuff, unexpected stuff, weird stuff and stuff people had made.” This summer, Foster is opening the museum to visitors by appointment. But people are also welcome to peek into the museum on their own, she said. This is easy to do, thanks to Boland’s building design, which incorporates big, open cutouts along one wall — essentially windowless windows. The museum’s setting, both pastoral and unusual, is reason enough to visit. It’s located at the Post Mills Airport, a charming two-runway airstrip that Boland purchased in 1988. He flew his hot-air balloons from the site, and ballooning events are still held there. The annual Experimental Balloon Festival took place in mid-May, and on summer weekends gliders manned by pilots take off from the grassy field. Launched by an airplane with an engine, they fly quietly away — sometimes soaring as far as New Hampshire’s Mount Washington — before reappearing over the trees to land at the airport. “It’s just a nice, healthy, beautiful place to be,” said pilot Pete Dodd of New London, N.H., a member of the Post Mills Soaring Club. The grassy expanse of the airport is bordered by two structures: the museum and a local attraction called the Vermontasaurus. The creature is, as its name suggests, a dinosaur-shaped sculpture that Boland constructed, with help, from scrap wood. “He just got this idea in his head that he wanted to build a dinosaur,” Foster said. “He didn’t like sitting around. He was constantly thinking of new things to make and modifying things.” A small exhibit by the Vermontasaurus’ head describes the piece’s origin. It includes a sign from late spring 2010, on which Boland announced that he was seeking help, from June 4 to 13, to build a dinosaur. By the next month, the 120-foot-long creation was in place at the airport. A note dated July 7, 2010, written by Boland in black marker, advises visitors: “Please, Feel free to stand back and feast on the ‘Vermontasaurus.’ Just do not go under it or we’ll have to tear it down, I’ll be fined or I’ll go to prison … or who knows what the authorities will do. Thank you very much. Have a great day! Brian J. Boland.”

The Vermontasaurus will certainly catch a visitor’s eye. But the overarching theme at Boland’s museum is ballooning. Boland even used a balloon for construction, employing one to lift a gazebo into place on the roof. Photographs of balloons hang on the second floor of the museum. Sewing machines, including the one Boland used to make his first balloon 50 years ago, are displayed on windowsills. (These windows have glass and rise three stories high.) Articles that Boland

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Not-So-Secret Garden Discovering the delights of Manchester’s newly opened Seven Springs Garden & Sculpture Park STORY & PHOTOS BY AM Y LI LLY • lilly@sevendaysvt.com

ermont has some remarkable sculpture parks, but few are as serene, navigable and beautifully manicured as the Seven Springs Garden & Sculpture Park in Manchester. Compared with Cold Hollow Sculpture Park’s 70 sculptures on 40 acres in Enosburg Falls and Lemon Fair Sculpture Park’s 50 sculptures on slightly less acreage in East Shoreham, Seven Springs stands apart for its more manageable size — 15 sculptures on 20 acres — and for its grounds, which are also a work of art. The park is the project of Stan and Sylvia Stroup: Stan selected the sculptures, and Sylvia, his late wife, was the gardener. When the couple acquired the property in 1998, its pre-Civil War house was already surrounded by beautifully planned gardens, thanks to the Childs family, who had owned the place for three generations. The Stroups kept those gardens, leveled the cow pasture behind the house, preserved and augmented the adjacent apple orchard, and added a Japanese-inspired garden and a shady woodland trail. Stan sited the sculptures, and Sylvia created their landscaped settings with help from North Hill Garden Design in Readsboro and other professionals. The couple named the park for the natural springs a neighboring farmer told them about that originate on both their properties. 20

SEVEN DAYS STAYTRIPPER SUMMER 2022

On a recent sunny weekday, Stroup, a lean, quiet man, walked the grounds with a reporter. The retired lawyer worked at Wells Fargo in Minneapolis as general counsel; he and Sylvia bought the Manchester property after years of summering in Vermont. She died in 2017. He now lives in the property’s house while the park is open, from June through September, and spends winters in Hilton Head, S.C. When asked whether he would ever add more sculptures to Seven Springs, Stroup said with a chuckle, “I hope not! They’re a lot of work.” He chose the sculptures mainly by looking at artists’ websites after encountering their work in person. The park is complete, and he plans to create a foundation to preserve it for future visitors. It first opened to the public in the middle of last summer as a test run. Despite the short season and limited publicity, the destination attracted hundreds of visitors, Stroup said. Parking lies past the guesthouse, which the couple built uphill from their home in 2007, and next to a red-roofed sugarhouse. On Thursdays and Saturdays, when the park is open, volunteers from the Garden Club of Manchester welcome visitors and distribute maps and brochures. From the sugarhouse, the park’s entry is as understated as possible: You walk

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past three flat boulders placed in a line on a grassy knoll. There is no set path; visitors can enter the tree-filled Japanese garden via an arched wooden bridge or traverse a raised walkway leading into the woods. The latter choice reveals the first sculpture at its far end: Norwich artist Phil Thorne’s “Open Vessel,” an assemblage of flared sheets of stainless steel. The Japanese garden, designed on commission by local architect Ray Smith, features winding gravel paths that lead past Asian stone garden accents, as well as a 1930s French art deco metal gate, which the Stroups placed in a torii-like timber frame. A mushroom-shaped English staddle stone, originally used to support the corner of a grain crib, might be easily missed at knee level, where it sits among ground-covering plants next to a stone wall. “The nice thing about a garden is the sense of mystery,” Stroup commented. Some of the mystery lies in Sylvia’s plantings. When asked to identify a pinkblossomed bush, he pulled out his phone, saying, “I don’t know, but I have an app for that.” NOT-SO-SECRET GARDEN

» P.22

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Not-So-Secret Garden « P.21 The park has two roughly parallel defining borders. A shallow, stone-lined arroyo, which the Stroups installed to follow the natural path of snowmelt runoff, links the various garden areas and is planted with hostas, reeds and other beds. Flat bridges placed at intervals allow easy crossing to the sculptures on either side. On the southern edge of the property, a mossy drystone wall likely dating from the 19th century follows an allée of equally old trees. Chester’s Sugarrock Landscapes rebuilt the wall. Between these two verges lie the pasture and orchard, where most of the sculptures sit against a sweeping view of the Green Mountains to the east. Oodles of flawless grass, discreet flower beds and copious seating — including large, flat boulders pulled from the pasture during construction and repurposed as benches — make a sculpture tour effortless and casual. Many of the sculptures, meanwhile, introduce rather different emotions. The figurative bronze by Thomas Ostenberg, titled “...but, I feel fine,” is a balancing act that shouldn’t work: an acrobat doing a one-handed handstand on the back of a twisting horse that rides, rather than pulls, a two-wheeled cart. The Roman-looking contraption appears about to careen down its sloped base. The whole sculpture evokes joyful audaciousness and sure destruction at once. “Layers of Different Directions,” by Michigan ceramic sculptor Mark Chatterley, groups seven genderless, life-size human figures together in an arrangement that looks both uncomfortable and beautiful. Standing, leaning

SEVEN DAYS STAYTRIPPER SUMMER 2022

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on each other, sitting or crouching, they fit together like a puzzle yet nearly crush each other. Animals are the subject of several sculptures, among them the pair of 12-foot-tall minimalist bronze sheep on towering pedestals, by Peter Woytuk, that overlook the property from its eastern border. Woytuk, originally from Minnesota, is an internationally known sculptor who works in a scale that only foundries in Thailand and China can accommodate. (He recently made two life-size bronze elephants.) “Goats,” by Connecticut artist Roger DiTarando, are three copper-and-bronze creations with wildly tufted (and sharp) woolly coats, mounted on and around a boulder. And a spirited horse, “Gallant Bess,” by driftwood sculptor Rita Dee, hails from the opposite side of the property. Its palpable energy is captured in curving sticks recovered from the Hudson River. Asked whether he had a favorite sculpture, Stroup said no; he likes “the variety.” Several abstract works illustrate his range in taste. Three organically curved bronzes by Vermont sculptor Richard Erdman, who grew up in nearby Dorset, grace the property. “Continuum,” in

particular, morphs with every slightly shifted sight line, though a half-round bench positions visitors to regard it against the stunning mountain backdrop. George Sherwood, a Massachusetts artist who

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attended the University of Vermont, is represented here with “Pirouette,” a stainless-steel construction of curved branches that appear to weave and dance among each other as the piece rotates in the breeze. Vermonters may recognize Sherwood’s kinetic sculptures from showings at Shelburne Museum and the Vermont Institute of Natural Science in recent years. Another abstraction, titled “Gabriel,” is a low, branched bronze by New York sculptor Hans Van de Bovenkamp. It graces a flower bed at the far end of the orchard, where an elongated mown-grass path, lined with a center band of old bricks recovered from a dismantled factory in New York, takes a hairpin turn. The design idea came from an English garden, Stroup said. Gardeners Janette Morrison and Ernie Dibble maintain the picture-perfect grounds and gardens. As the Garden Club of Manchester vice president Becky Burke put it during a phone call, “There are no weeds.” Burke was among the volunteers who staffed the park during its inaugural season last year. “People were just amazed by it,” she recalled. “There are not many gardens around like it.” m

INFO Clockwise from top left: “Inner Key” by Royden Mills; “Large Sheep Pair” by Peter Woytuk; “...but, I feel fine” by Thomas Ostenberg; “Gallant Bess” by Rita Dee

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Destinations In search of summer fun? Just add water. Burlington’s Community Sailing Center rocks the boat with its third annual Bolton Memorial Flotilla Concert, an afternoon full of performances with Lake Champlain as the stage. Whether attendees choose to sit on a dock or turn their own boat into box seats, it’s a show like no other. “The flotilla concert is the year’s only on-water concert event,” CSC executive director Owen Milne said, noting that audiences can attend for free by kayak, canoe or sailboat or snag a dock access ticket. “Plus, all donations go towards providing lake recreation to underserved youth in the community. A complete win-win!” Founded in 2020, the Dana Bolton Legacy Fund memorializes a beloved CSC volunteer, instructor and board member by directing donations toward projects he was passionate about. Proceeds from last year’s flotilla concert totaled more than $45,000, and this year the CSC is aiming even higher. Ticket prices and additional donations will support two initiatives: the Dana Pier, a new walkway that will make the CSC campus accessible to all; and the Dana Scholarship, which helps local kids ages 6 through 14 attend the CSC’s LeaderShip program to learn important life skills and sailing fundamentals. This year’s concert lineup features the Ryan Montbleau Band, whose recent multipart album, Wood, Fire, Water and Air, links thematically with the elemental nature of the outdoor show. Also performing are the superstar team-up of soul performers Jennifer Hartswick and Nick Cassarino, as well as high-octane New England funk and hip-hop fusion outfit Harsh Armadillo.

BOLTON MEMORIAL FLOTILLA CONCERT Saturday, July 16, at Community Sailing Center in Burlington. Buy tickets and register boats at communitysailingcenter.org.

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Summer in Vermont signifies many things — hiking season, blueberry season, maple creemee season — but one of the best is outdoor concert season. Fayston’s Knoll Farm strikes the right note with its Picnic Concert Series. All summer long, families and friends take in folk music while lounging in the grass between the blueberry fields and the Icelandic sheep herds. Premade, farmfresh picnic dinners, as well as wood-fired pizza by the slice, are available for those who don’t want to BYO. “Last summer, Kat Wright performed on our gorgeous new stage, surrounded by flowers and fields and mountains and stars,” Knoll Farm co-owner and cofounder Helen Whybrow said. “It was a drop-dead inspiring and beautiful event and left us all wanting to do more.” This year’s lineup includes Cold Chocolate, a high-energy, genre-bending Americana outfit known for tight harmonies and folk-funk fusion; April Verch and Cody Walters, a husband-and-wife duo combining disparate bluegrass backgrounds into foot-stomping fiddle and banjo tunes; and innovative old-time twosome Marc and Billy, hailing from the hills of Vermont and New Hampshire. Each show comes with a backdrop of spectacular views of the Northfield and Green Mountain ranges. “I think we have all been craving more ways to celebrate and feel joy in shared spaces again,” Whybrow said. “What better way to do that than to spread out on a gorgeous hillside and listen to live music on a summer evening?”

WORDS IN THE WOODS Begins on Saturday, June 11, at Elmore State Park; additional dates and locations follow. See full schedule at vermonthumanities.org.

Hot tip: If two roads diverge in a yellow wood, take the one that leads to Words in the Woods. For the third summer, local poets will guide lit lovers into the wilderness for this hit series, a collaboration of Vermont Humanities, Vermont State Parks and Vermont Arts Council. And for the first time, every poetry reading-cum-nature walk will be held in person (though some will be recorded for at-home viewing). “Many of our programs tend to take place indoors during cold weather, so it’s a treat to go out into the state parks in the summertime,” Vermont Humanities interim director of programs and communications Ryan Newswanger said. “Being outdoors adds an extra dimension to the works that the poets read, like the way food always tastes better around a campfire.” In addition to getting an incomparable literary experience from poets Bryan Blanchette, Toussaint St. Negritude, Carol Potter and Keiselim “Keysi” Montás, participants will experience the beauty of Vermont’s state parks in the summertime. Families already planning to camp at or visit the parks won’t even have to preregister. “Since the inception of the Words in the Woods program in 2020, we’ve highlighted LGBTQ+ poets and poets of color. This season, we’ll do the same,” Newswanger said. “It feels important to counter the dominant narrative of who camps and who doesn’t, and who can be inspired by nature in their creative work. Inspiration from nature goes across any racial, class and gender boundaries.” EMILY HAMILT ON

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