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Jewel of the North Country
Whitefield began its history as little more than an afterthought
STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY JASON SCHREIBER
Nestled in the shadows of New Hampshire’s majestic White Mountains, the area that encompasses the town of Whitefield was once described as a tract of land that no one wanted.
According to historical accounts of this Great North Woods community, incorporated in 1804, Whitefield was simply the leftovers after neighboring towns had set their boundaries.
For those who have made their permanent and summer homes here and warmly welcomed generations of visitors, it’s hard to imagine that this place — with all its natural splendor and breathtaking mountain views — could have been left behind.
“If you want peace and quiet, this is a good place,” said 83-year-old Rodger Vermette, who grew up in Whitefield and moved to Maine when he was 25, but like so many others, retired and came home.
In this town of 2,500 residents, the motto inscribed on the welcome signs along the roadside reads: “A friendly town with a beautiful point of view.” It’s an inviting message that conveys Whitefield’s neighborly personality and picturesque landscape.
With Route 3 winding its way through the center of town by the nearly 150-yearold iconic bandstand in King’s Square, some think of Whitefield as merely a passthrough town on the way north or south.
The Triangle Dairy Bar, a Dunkin,’ and a Mobil station with a Jiffy Mart sit at the busy intersection of routes 3 and 116. While they serve locals, they also serve as a pit stop for out-of-towners headed elsewhere.
But Whitefield offers much more than a temporary stop on a North Country journey. With stunning views of the Presidential Range, the Mountain View Grand Resort & Spa is the town’s crown jewel and continues to be a destination for vacationers seeking the glorious grand hotel experience.
The resort employs nearly 200 workers during its busy season and is one of the largest employers in town.
The hotel’s storied past dates back to a stormy night in 1865 when a stagecoach headed northbound from Boston to Montreal crashed, and its two wearied passengers sought refuge nearby at what was then a farmhouse owned by William and Mary Jane Dodge. The Dodges were kind enough to take them in for the night and prepared breakfast in the morning.
Awe-struck by the mountains and enamored by the Dodges’ hospitality, the pair of passengers turned their unplanned visit into an extended stay. The chance encounter with the strangers made the Dodges realize that others might also like to enjoy their slice of paradise, and the following year they turned their farmhouse into an inn known as the Mountain View House.
Over the years, the hotel continued to expand, attracting former U.S. presidents, prominent writers, celebrities and other famous guests, but it closed in 1986 and faced an uncertain future.
The closure came at a time when Whitefield, which had been a thriving town with grocery stores, shops, pharmacies and other services, began to lose a vital part of its business community. Meanwhile, nearby Littleton was beginning to develop its industrial park with an eye toward becoming the commercial hub and tourist destination that it is today.
“We had these old stores that went out of business, and there wasn’t another generation to take them over. These older people had nobody to sell to. Nobody wanted them,” recalled 70-year-old Scott Burns, who is the seventh generation of the Burns family living on their property along Burns Lake. “Of course, it didn’t help when the Mountain View closed. That really set the tone for the town.”
The shuttered hotel was a blow to the town, but after failed attempts to reopen it and a series of purchases, it eventually found a new owner, underwent a $20 million restoration, and reopened in 2002. It’s now listed on the National Register of Historic Places and continues to attract visitors from near and far while celebrating its past and deep roots in the town.
“I hope we’re responsible stewards of the area. I want to not just be a giant resort in the middle of a tiny town. I want to be part of the town, and we’ve really started to work on that,” said Lloyd Van Horn, the resort’s managing director. “We have a good portion of the community working for us. You can’t go into a store without seeing people who work here.”
Additional efforts are underway to preserve and breathe new life into other aging buildings and businesses — some of which could have been lost. Grandma’s Kitchen is a popular breakfast and lunch spot that closed its doors last November, but reopened under new management in February. When Mac’s Market, Whitefield’s only remaining grocery store, closed in 2019, many in town expressed shock and sadness. The closure was short-lived thanks to new owner, Josh Dumont, who took it over a month later and reopened the store as Whitefield Market n Deli.
“We were quick to get the store back open. The community was in an uproar,” store manager Sue Mohla said. “Mac’s had closed very quickly, and people needed the local grocery store because some don’t have transportation. They love their little store.”
While the Mountain View Grand Resort & Spa is a big draw for a certain type of visitor, Whitefield is also a place where summer cottages have given generations of families an escape.
That’s what first brought Sam Chase from upstate New York to Whitefield. The first Chases arrived in the 1820s, and by 1850 had built a homestead on Parker Road. His great-grandfather was part of the original family, and Sam remembers coming to visit when he was a young child. In 1967, his family began making regular visits in the summer.
“When we started coming up here in ’67, Whitefield was still a booming town,” he said.
He and his late wife eventually bought a piece of the farmland and built a summer vacation home in 1987, but after retiring from his job in New York, they decided to move to Whitefield and make it their permanent home in 1993.
The Chase farm property is steeped in history, most notably serving as home to the Chase Barn Playhouse, which opened in 1934. Will Chase, who was an arts critic for The New York Times, along with Lucy Chase Sparks, operated the theater in a barn and brought in performers from New York to entertain during the summer months.
The theater closed in 1962, but there was still interest in offering live entertainment in Whitefield. When Gibbs Murray and the late Tom Haas began exploring their options, Lucy Chase Sparks led them to property on Route 3, where they opened the award-winning Weathervane Theatre in 1966 to offer professional plays and musicals. The 250-seat theater remains a popular venue that continues to operate with a resident acting company that performs an alternating repertory with Broadway-style shows throughout the summer.
Theater hasn’t been the only entertainment in town. Locals recall how for more than four decades, a place called Newell’s Casino on Forest Lake was a hot spot with a dance hall that attracted countless young people, and even celebrities like Bette Davis, who danced there in the 1930s, and later, with the rise of rock bands in the 1970s, Aerosmith.
Newell’s was popular at a time when cottages were popping up everywhere during the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s.
Visitors would come by train from Boston, New York, and other cities when the now-abandoned railroads were in operation. The Mount Washington Regional Airport — a public airport in Whitefield offering general aviation, business, and charter flights but no commercial flights — once provided daily service between Boston and Whitefield.
“Cottages were a big industry for Whitefield. We would get the same people back year after year after year,” Burns said.
The lake, which still has mostly seasonal cottages dotting the edge, was once known as Montgomery Lake until the Burns family succeeded in getting the Legislature to rename it Burns Lake in 1921. It was a bit of a race to change the name as another family in town was looking to have the lake carry their name.
“We beat them down there, and got it changed to Burns Lake,” said Burns, who is quick to correct anyone who refers to it as Burns Pond, as some do on occasion. In fact, he carries a small piece of paper in his wallet that documents the legislative action that formally changed the name to Burns Lake.
The Burns’ property used to be a working dairy farm, but these days, Burns and his sister, Sandy Burns McKay, 73, invest their time in a maple sugaring operation that has become their passion. “Sugaring to me is just something you grew up with, and either you like it or you don’t,” she said.
Like others, Burns and his sister moved out of Whitefield at one point in their lives, but eventually returned. “This is home,” he said.
When Rodger Vermette moved away, he thought he would retire on the Maine coast, but found that it was far too expensive. That’s why he came back to Whitefield for retirement and now enjoys working at Our Corner Store thrift store in the center of town.
Affordability is also what brought portrait artist Ralph “Stoney” Jacobs and his wife, Jeannie, from Boston to Whitefield in 1985.
“We just drove until we could afford a house, and also the house had to run the north-south line because he uses the north light in his paintings,” said Jeannie, a retired teacher who taught at the local school for 33 years.
Her husband, whose work has been purchased by Oprah Winfrey, has painted portraits of former Govs. Jeanne Shaheen and John Lynch; Donna Sytek, New Hampshire’s first female House Speaker, and the late Caroline Gross, the former House majority leader, all of which hang in the State House. He’s been approached about painting Maggie Hassan next to represent her time as governor.
“It’s nice knowing that my grandkids can go in there and say, ‘That’s Grampa’s painting.’ It’s nice to think about that. It’s a part of history,” said Jacobs, who also paints still lifes and landscapes in his studio and has been inspired by the nature that surrounds him in Whitefield.
The Jacobses have no regrets about their move to town.
“It’s been great,” Jeannie said.
