Woodstock Inn

The Woodstock Inn & Resort is one of Vermont’s true gems for travelers. It offers warm New England hospitality amidst an atmosphere of country elegance and year round recreation. Resort facilities include the new 10,000 square-foot Spa, the Resort’s Nordic Center, Suicide Six alpine ski area, the Resort’s Golf Club, and a 41,000 square foot Racquet & Fitness Club. However, it’s the lavish details of the wood-burning fireplaces in guest rooms, luxurious terrycloth bathrobes, and locally made furnishings, that defines country sophistication and completes the picture of charm and comfort at the Woodstock Inn & Resort, which rises above expectations.

The Woodstock Inn & Resort is a 142-room, AAA Four Diamond Resort and a member of Preferred Hotels & Resorts. Woodstock is a village located in the Green Mountains near the center of Vermont, which has antique shops, art galleries, boutiques, restaurants, and specialty food markets in the downtown area. But if you also want recreation, the Woodstock Inn & Resort delivers.

Woodstock cross country skiing

In the winter months, the inn’s Racquet & Fitness Club hosts the Woodstock Nordic Center. There are partnerships between the inn and both Fischer Nordic Skis and Tubbs Snowshoes. The Fischer Nordic Adventure Center maintains some 60 kilometers (37.28 miles) of trails in the area – half of which are part of the nearby Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park. Professional instruction, ski storage, equipment sales and rental equipment are available at the ski shop, as well as a full line of clothing and accessories for cross country skiing and snowshoeing.

The Tubbs Snowshoes Adventure Center features expert-led tours, group team building exercises, and family-friendly scavenger hunts. Beginners and experts alike ski the Tubbs Snowshoes Adventure Center with 30 kilometers of trails against the backdrop of the Resort’s expansive grounds. Flat tracks skirt the sometimes babbling Kedron Brook on the golf course and more challenging up and down hill tracks are laid out on the adjacent Mt. Peg property. From romantic to adventurous, there are value-packed getaway packages with the adventure centers designed for guests to enjoy an exhilarating way to experience the peace and tranquility of Woodstock in winter.

Woodstock couple

My wife and I enjoyed part of the Romance Excursion Package which included luxury accommodations for two nights, welcome gift basket, breakfast, a four-course dinner for two at the Red Rooster Restaurant, and a guided snowshoe trek to a four-course chef’s dinner at the Mt. Tom Cabin in the national park. Our first sunny morning we went cross country skiing on groomed ski tracks accessed from the Racquet & Fitness Club. Then it was two wonderful massages in the Spa. On the second morning I went snowboarding at the nearby Suicide Six ski area while my wife took a yoga class at the club. Overall, we were impressed with the inn and its entire staff.

On Saturday evening, we reached the Mt. Tom Cabin after crunching about one and a half miles on snowshoes up a hardpacked snowy trail under a clear and cold starry night. The meal created by the Woodstock Inn’s chef in a candlelight cozy setting prepared on a wood-burning cookstove was exquisite. The evening’s guide was a naturalist who shared some of his knowledge about winter nature and history of the park, which is the only national park dedicated to conservation stewardship. The 550-acre hemlock and Norway spruce forest is one of the oldest professionally managed forests in the USA.

The Inn has 142 recently renovated guest rooms, all outfitted in classic Vermont style with modern touches, from the colorful hand-dyed wool blankets and Vermont original artwork, to central air-conditioning and luxurious mattresses on clean-lined wooden furniture. Plush bathrobes and Vermont-made bath amenities are found in each bathroom. There is a granite fire pit behind the Inn and an outdoor, heated swimming pool. Meals are served in The Red Rooster Restaurant. The chef-driven, farmland inspired northeastern cuisine offers AAA Four Diamond dining complemented by an extensive domestic and international wine list.

Woodstock gameroom

The inn’s Main Lobby is comfortably furnished and features a 10-foot fieldstone fireplace at its center. The Shop at the Inn offers Vermont crafts and food products as well as sportswear and unique gift items. Don’t miss the newly opened Game Room, which is a hoot for the kid in all of us. It has a mix of games including a 4-foot scrabble board on the wall played with magnetic tiles, three real pinball machines, billiards, foosball, six TVs, video games, and more.

The new (2010) 10,000 square-foot LEED-certified spa has 10 treatment rooms, a luxurious suite, tranquil men’s and women’s lounges, a light-filled Great Room, enclosed outdoor courtyard featuring a meditation tree, wood sauna and hot soaking pool, reception and retail space featuring a comfortable seating area with a wood-burning fireplace, spacious lockers and shower areas, and a salon. Guests can choose from a wide selection of treatments performed by specially-trained and licensed therapists.

The Resort’s Racquet & Fitness Club is located at the southern end of the golf course, about one mile south of the village. The 41,000 square foot facility includes indoor and outdoor tennis courts, indoor squash and racquetball courts, an indoor lap pool, a whirlpool, VR2 Cybex Equipment, aerobics facilities, a steam room, a sauna, and the Woodstock Nordic Center.

The Woodstock Inn & Resort ’s own Suicide Six ski Area opened in 1937, just a few years after the first ski tow in the United States was rigged up just over the ridge at Gilbert’s Hill. Suicide Six has since evolved into a friendly, personal ski area that caters to families and local skiers. Two chair lifts and a J-bar serve 23 trails. Snowmaking helps when Mother Nature falls behind on the snow supply. There is a ski school, ski shop, cafeteria, and lounge/restaurant in the modern Base Lodge. On Sunday morning when I visited, the slopes were covered with young local ski racers learning the ins and outs of skiing gates.

Guests in the Woodstock area can enjoy other activities aside from the facilities offered at the inn including snowshoeing or cross country skiing the trails of Mt. Tom and Mt. Peg (many of which are machine-groomed), antiquing, shopping, and day trips to nearby points of interest such as Calvin Coolidge’s birthplace in Plymouth (also home to a cheese factory), Simon Pearce Glass, Shakleton Furniture, or the spectacular Quechee Gorge. Vermont’s first National Historical Park, which opened in June 1998, is the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park. The park operates in partnership with the Woodstock Foundation, Inc., and the Billings Farm & Museum – a working dairy farm and agricultural museum that mirrors rural life in Vermont in the late 1800s.

Woodstock gameroom pinball machines

Travelers and local residents alike have been welcomed to the present site of The Woodstock Inn & Resort since 1793, when Captain Israel Richardson opened Richardson’s Tavern. The Tavern changed hands a number of times over the course of the next 100 years. Several additions were made as well as some name changes, including Church’s Hotel and the Eagle Hotel. In 1891, an entirely new structure was built to replace the old building and the establishment was named the Woodstock Inn. In 1969, Laurance S. Rockefeller purchased the property and, with the 1891 building being beyond restoration, built the present Inn, which opened in November 1969.

Woodstock is a 20-minute drive from the airport at Lebanon, New Hampshire, which is served by a number of commuter airlines from Boston, New York, and Burlington, Vermont. Interstates 89 (from the Boston area) and 91 (from Hartford, Connecticut) intersect only 15 minutes from Woodstock.

Website: www.woodstockinn.com Address: The Woodstock Inn & Resort, Fourteen The Green Woodstock, VT 05091-1298, (888)-338-2745.

Roger Lohr is Cross Country Ski Editor of SnoCountry.com. He is founder and editor of XCSkiResorts.com and is a writer and marketer, based in Hanover, N.H. He can be reached at his website roger@xcskiresorts.com