Quechee Is the Ideal Vermont Town

QUECHEE, Vt. — If your idea of the good life is staying in an 18th-Century country inn, picnicking beside a waterfall or old covered bridge as deer nibble nearby, feasting your eyes on fall foliage or browsing antique shops until you uncover that long-sought heirloom, this town and its surroundings are definitely your cup of apple cider.

And just to add to the mixed bag of pleasurable activities hereabouts, the Quechee Polo Club plays a match every Saturday from June until mid-September, with eight chukkers of hard riding and some serious tailgate parties in the offing. Or spend the afternoon more productively by hauling a few trout from lakes or streams.

Chambers of Commerce are noted for their hyperbole, but when Quechee residents say the town “is not only a special place to visit but a wonderful place to live, work and raise a family” they don’t miss the mark by much.

In eastern Vermont just a few miles from the New Hampshire town of Hanover with its Dartmouth College, Quechee (pronounced kwee-chee) almost rightfully bills itself as a year-round destination. We say “almost” because of our considerable acquaintance with Vermont’s March-April “mud months,” when the remaining snow is slushy, skies are gray and spring has yet to blossom.

But summers are glorious, fall a symphony of color and winter downhill or cross-country skiing just the thing to put you in the mood for a roaring fire and steaming dinner.

Getting here: Fly Continental, United or USAir into Burlington, Vt. From there it’s a two-hour drive on to Quechee.

How long/how much? Give the area three days, which should allow you to cover a reasonable part of this small state’s magnificent east-central region. Lodging costs are just a notch over moderate, dining certainly reasonable.

A few fast facts: Vermont Transit has a fleet of neat and comfortable buses covering much of the state, but a rental car frees you from the hassle of schedules and destinations. Fall foliage season and December-February skiing are the busiest and most crowded times.

Getting settled in: If you’ve seen that lovely Christmastime beer commercial of the eight-horse team pulling a sleigh through the snow, that beautiful inn it passes is Kedron Valley Inn (Vermont 106, South Woodstock; $110-$180 double with full Vermont breakfasts and dinners). Owner Max Comins graduated from Harvard and then bounced around earning money to buy the inn, which he and his charming wife Merrily manage with great finesse and enthusiasm.

Large Rooms

Rooms are large, most with four-posters, homemade quilts, fireplaces and TV. One room was a hide-out for slaves moving along the underground route to freedom during the Civil War.

There is also a spring-fed pond with sand beach (imported) and the former owner’s stable nearby, where it is possible to rent horses or a surrey for a ride in the countryside.

Quechee Bed & Breakfast (U.S. 4, just outside town; $65-$95 double B&B;, $75-$115 during fall foliage season) is a 1795 Colonial farmhouse at an oxbow of the Ottauquechee River, with glorious views of the water and woodlands. Bedrooms have queen-size, four-poster or sleigh beds, baskets of flowers, silver ice buckets holding a chilled bottle of Saratoga water.

This enchanting house is of post-and-beam construction, some rooms still having the original 18th-Century beams. Breakfasts are the Vermont variety of stick-to-the-ribs fare and just the thing to gird you for a walk through a covered bridge into the village.

Quechee Inn at Marshland Farm (Clubhouse Road; $108-$178 double, depending upon season, with breakfasts and dinners included) is another old one, built by Joseph Marsh in 1793 and every inch a quiet and cozy place to get away from it all.

Antique furnishings, used brick, wood-burning fireplaces and portraits of George and Martha Washington over the hearth reflect the farm’s beginnings perfectly. Bedrooms elicit the same feeling.

Play croquet on the front lawn, row a canoe on Dewey’s Mills Pond across the road or attend the Vermont Fly Fishing School at the farm. And, like most guests, have your picture taken cuddling with the gigantic stuffed teddy bear sitting on a living room couch.

Regional food and drink: Milk-fed Vermont veal, local turkeys and a plethora of wild berries are too good to believe, so be sure to have a go at all of them. Mushrooms are plentiful, Cheddars and goat cheeses marvelous and locals swear by Vermont’s Catamount beer.

Good dining: Parker House (mid-village) unites an owner from Brittany and chef from Alsace to transfer an authentic touch of the French provinces to rural Vermont. Built in 1857, the house has been transformed into an old-fashioned but very formal manor, with hand-screened-toile wall coverings, beautiful linens on tables and fine oil paintings with an ancestral-gallery look to them.

A prix fixe menu at $30 will include such things as a mousse of fresh scallops with dill sauce, salade vinaigrette, medallions of venison with a red currant sauce or broiled fresh salmon in a basil-bearnaise sauce, plus dessert and coffee.

Kedron Valley Inn also has a French chef, although the dining room is informal. Appetizers range from snails in a puff pastry with roasted fennel and garlic butter to the chef’s homemade pate and chutney. Select entrees from lobster with wild mushrooms, Kedron Valley salmon stuffed with a seafood mousse, lamb chop stuffed with herbed chevre and served with a fresh-rosemary sauce. It all adds up to some of the best food we’ve had in New England.

We’ve written here before about Simon Pearce’s The Mill in Quechee, and our enthusiasm hasn’t dropped one iota for this Irish potter’s skill at the potter’s wheel or for what comes from his kitchen. In an 1801 woolen mill beside a waterfall, The Mill turns out world-acclaimed pottery and glassware as well as great Irish favorites such as beef-and-Guinness stew and Ballymaloe brown bread.

Pearce’s mother taught his cooks how to make the Ballymaloe bread, a real morsel from heaven, plus her own scones and other tricks from the Auld Sod.

Try the hickory-smoked Coho salmon, shepherd’s pie or one of the numerous quiches made daily. The French-German-California wine list is extensive for these parts, and the view from the river-side terrace is downright celestial.

On your own: Get right into the outdoor life of Quechee by signing up at Wilderness Trails Outfitters (Quechee Inn) for a Connecticut River canoeing venture. It’s more a half-day floating trip downstream, with no white water. These folks will also arrange fishing boats on Dewey’s Mills Waterfowl Sanctuary, where six-pound bass are said to frolic.

Serious riders could be interested in the Inn-to-Inn horseback journey from the Old Tavern in Grafton, Vt., to the Kedron Valley Inn, with five nightly lodgings in historic inns, dinners, Vermont breakfasts and trail lunches. It’s a great way to see the foliage, and you may reach the Inn-to-Inn people at (802) 457-1480 or 457-2734.

Antique Mall

Antique shoppers will rejoice when they enter the Antique Mall (225 exhibitors) in a reconstructed 1925 barn at Timber Rail Village. And for a literal taste of local life, visit Laro’s Farm (U.S. 4, Quechee), where locals take their smoked meats, cheeses, homemade jams and jellies for you to pack or ship home.

For more information: Call the Vermont Travel Division at (802) 828-3236, or write (134 State St., Montpelier 05602) for a Quechee brochure, touring guide and official state map. And call New England USA at (800) VISIT NE for information on travel in all six New England states.