By the early 1920s, the Green Mountain Club had spent more than a decade building the Long Trail through Vermont’s rugged spine, and its members were ready for a home worthy of that achievement. In December 1922, The Green Mountain News announced that a clubhouse at Sherburne Pass was at last assured. The Club had arranged to lease several acres of land from the Vermont Marble Company, and the building would rise where the trail crossed the highway. The trees had already been cut at the chosen site. Financing would come partly from private subscription and partly from the general treasury. Mortimer R. Proctor of Proctor, described as “most generous in financial aid to the Club,” opened the subscription with a gift of $200, and another friend added $100.
The ambition grew quickly. By April 1923, Mortimer R. Proctor had pledged a full $2,500 for the construction of the clubhouse, and his mother, Mrs. Fletcher D. Proctor, offered to donate the furnishings and supply the water. With private generosity securing the project, the Club engaged Paul W. Thayer as architect. Thayer’s charge was singular: build a lodge that belonged to the mountains. He answered it with a structure unlike anything Vermont had seen.
The building was designed to fit into the rugged surroundings and to utilize not only native materials but the cliffs themselves at the selected site. Logs of yellow birch and white birch, their shining bark left untouched, were hewn into beams and posts. Lichen-covered, fern-decked rocks were laid into the walls themselves. A great chimney, resting directly upon a ledge of bedrock, supported two massive stone fireplaces — one warming the lounge, the other the piazza. Bedrooms were outfitted with furniture crafted from native wood, and even the lighting fixtures were fashioned from sections of birch limbs. The total investment, including outbuildings and grounds, would eventually reach approximately $17,500, with more expenditure yet to come.
The house was formally opened and dedicated on Saturday, December 1, 1923, with a public reception. More than 200 visitors attended during the afternoon and evening, enjoying dancing to the music of a five-piece orchestra and a buffet lunch. Allen Chamberlain, writing an illustrated article in the Boston Transcript, called it “a camp de luxe.” Professor W. S. Monroe declared it “without doubt the most luxurious mountain lodge in the world.”
Opening to the Public (1924–1925)
The clubhouse opened fully to members and the public on May 1, 1924. The policy adopted was open and democratic: meals would be served to anyone who came; lodging was available to guests introduced by members, who could show letters of introduction or membership cards. Nine bed or bunk rooms, each sleeping two to four people, provided accommodations for hikers and tourists alike. From May 1 to June 15, meals were served à la carte; from June 15 through the close of the season, three regular meals a day were offered at $1 per meal. Lodging was set at $1.50 per night for guests, with a reduced rate of $1 for Club members.
Management was engaged with care. Mr. and Mrs. Charles H. Lester of Rutland, who had previously managed the Knights of Columbus Home in Rutland, were hired to run the house. They took possession of a complex that already included not only the main lodge but a garage accommodating twelve cars, an icehouse, woodshed, toolhouse, and engine house — all electrified. Three comfortable cabins for staff were also built on the grounds.
A bronze tablet was installed in the lodge commemorating the Proctor family’s gift, though it was later removed at the request of Mortimer R. Proctor himself, in characteristic modesty. (The tablet had cost $64.)
One complaint arose quickly and persistently: with patrons arriving in large numbers, meal service was slow. Success, it turned out, was the lodge’s first operational challenge. The road approaching from the east was also found to be in poor condition, requiring reconstruction; during the work, the Club recommended approaching the house from the west via Rutland.
On October 25, 1925, a special meeting of the Trustees was held at the clubhouse, and a significant decision was made: the building was formally renamed. The GMC’s home in Sherburne Pass would henceforth be known as the Long Trail Lodge.
A Lodge in Full Flower (1926–1929)
As the late 1920s brought prosperity to the nation, Long Trail Lodge flourished. The lodge stood close to the motor thoroughfare through Sherburne Pass, making it easily accessible to automobile travelers as well as hikers, and visitors arrived in a remarkable variety. During the summer of 1929, the season opened “with a rush.” Among the early parties entertained were the Young Ladies’ Academy of Rutland (for tea), the Proctor University Club (for a banquet and business meeting), Vermont Marble salesmen, Eastern New York Eye, Ear, Nose & Throat Specialists attending a banquet with Rutland physicians as guests, engineers of the New York Central lines, the Whist Club of Claremont, New Hampshire, and the Arlington, Vermont Refrigerator Company’s salesmen and their wives. The Lodge’s manager, Mrs. Bates, noted with satisfaction that “the delightful coolness which pervades the Lodge at all times makes it a most attractive place to visit in the warm summer months.”
By October 1929, approximately 6,800 people had taken regular meals at the Lodge during the season — a figure that made the need for expansion undeniable.
Also enriching the Lodge’s appeal during these years was the presence of Maurice Broun, the Club’s naturalist, who spent each season in residence. Broun undertook the identification and marking of the plant life, shrubs, and trees in the vicinity of the Lodge, and made himself available to parties wishing to study the botany of the Green Mountains. His work gave the Lodge a scientific and educational dimension that set it apart from ordinary mountain resorts.
Expansion and Cabins (1929–1932)
The Lodge’s success made growth inevitable, and plans for major expansion were drawn up by Paul W. Thayer, the original architect. The kitchen was to be enlarged into a new dining room seating 100; an additional porch would accommodate 75 more; a new wing would house a serving room, kitchen, and cooler; a hillside outbuilding would serve as laundry and bake room; and the woodshed would be converted to employee dormitory quarters. The Trustees were clear-eyed about the risks of over-expansion: they resolved that no further additions should follow, fearing that a still-larger operation would introduce “too much of a commercial atmosphere” and sacrifice the lodge’s woodland charm.
The cabin complex also grew. In addition to the existing accommodations, five small cabins — each with a living room, bedrooms, and a large fireplace, built in the same novel style as the main lodge — were available for rent by the day or week. Seven additional plain cabins without fireplaces or living rooms offered less expensive overnight accommodation.
Tragedy struck on the morning of July 25, 1930, when fire of unknown origin destroyed “Undercliff,” the sleeping cabin nearest the main lodge. The loss was covered by insurance, and the Club moved promptly to rebuild. The new Undercliff cabin, completed the same autumn, occupied the same site and cost $1,300. A second new cabin, “Woodfin Camp,” was erected nearby as a gift from Mrs. Frank D. White of Rutland, in memory of her mother, at a cost of $750. Both contained two bedrooms and a living room with a stone fireplace; Woodfin accommodated six guests, Undercliff four.
In June 1932, a shortage of sleeping quarters prompted construction of three additional plain cabins, each accommodating two persons, at $200 each, to be situated in the woods toward Pico Peak. State Forester Merrill offered to oversee their construction.
The Treadway Era and the Question of Identity (1932–1941)
By 1932, the Trustees were wrestling seriously with the Lodge’s future. At a special meeting on September 10, the Board debated the feasibility of leasing the property and the question of winter use, ultimately deciding to open a few cabins experimentally to guests of known reliability during the off-season.
The following February, a resolution arrived. The Board of Trustees approved an agreement with the Treadway Service Company, a professional hospitality firm, granting it possession and management of Long Trail Lodge for the next five years. The Club retained ownership and the right to cancel the lease under certain circumstances, but the daily business of running a resort — with all its demands on staff, capital, and attention — passed to professional hands. The arrangement, the Trustees concluded, offered better prospects of profit than Club management had provided, while freeing the GMC to focus on its true mission: building and maintaining the trails of Vermont.
Under Treadway management, the Lodge continued to thrive. In 1933, the management explored remaining open until Thanksgiving to capture the hunting season. By 1937, gross business had grown 15 percent over the prior year. A new cabin, “Spruce,” was built with $500 advanced by the Club — a single room with bath and hot and cold running water, a notable amenity. From mid-July to Labor Day 1937, the Lodge ran at 90 percent occupancy on ordinary days; on weekends, two to four times its capacity were turned away.
Winter operations were added beginning December 10, 1938, in line with the Club’s growing interest in winter sports along the Long Trail. The main lodge was fitted for winter sleeping accommodations for 45 persons, with a second-floor bunk room developed for the season. Winter rates on the European plan ran $0.75 to $1.25 per person per day; the American plan was $3 to $4 per day.
Wartime Closure and Postwar Lease (1942–1951)
The Second World War interrupted the Lodge’s operations. Wartime restrictions forced closure in both 1942 and 1943. In April 1944, the Club announced a new arrangement: L. G. Treadway agreed to lease the property from the Club for a further period of years, assuming all expenses and paying a nominal rent. Treadway could not say when the Lodge would reopen, but the Club retained ownership “out of respect for the donors and the uniqueness of this attractive woodland resort.” The management of the Lodge would remain independent of the Club, but the spirit of the original gift — the Proctors’ vision of a true mountain home — was acknowledged and honored.
Sale and the Proctor Memorial Fund (1953–1954)
By the early 1950s, the Green Mountain Club had arrived at a considered and deliberate conclusion: the Lodge should be sold. On April 10, 1953, the Board of Trustees formally recommended disposition of the property. The reasoning was both practical and principled. The Club carried debt; the proceeds of a sale, if wisely invested, would generate income sufficient to support Vermont trail and shelter maintenance — the work the donors had always most wanted the Club to do. The Board proposed that all monies received from a sale be placed in a fund to be known as the Proctor Memorial Fund, the income from which would be available to the Club for carrying out its proper objectives. “The benefit which the donors would surely be pleased for us to have,” the resolution read, was not a lodge but a trail.
On April 24, 1954, an agreement was reached with Grover Wright for the sale of Long Trail Lodge. The Club’s thirty-year stewardship of its most celebrated property came to an end. The building passed into private hands, and the Proctor Memorial Fund was established to carry forward the spirit of the family’s generosity in a more enduring form.
The Fire of November 1968
Long Trail Lodge continued to operate as a private resort through the 1950s and 1960s. Then, on a November morning in 1968, members of the Killington Section of the Green Mountain Club awoke to news that shook those who had ever walked through its birch-log doorway: Long Trail Lodge had burned to the ground. The fire destroyed the building entirely.
The Lodge’s career had lasted forty-five years. In that span, it had served as the Green Mountain Club’s most ambitious public undertaking — a mountain retreat whose very walls were made of Vermont itself, built on a ledge, lit by birch-limb lamps, and animated by hikers, naturalists, banqueters, skiers, and travelers from across the northeastern United States.
Epilogue: The Carriage House and a Continuing Presence
The site was not entirely abandoned. In November 1976, the Long Trail News reported that the Club was considering new office locations, among them “the former carriage house building at the Long Trail Lodge in Mendon” — a remnant of the old complex that had outlasted the main structure. Though the proposal for the Club’s headquarters did not ultimately come to fruition there, the mention is a reminder that the Lodge’s physical footprint lingered on the landscape even after the fire.
The Proctor Memorial Fund, established as the condition of the 1954 sale, endured as the Lodge’s most lasting contribution — a transformation of timber and stone into perpetual support for the trails that the Proctor family had helped to create and that Vermont hikers have walked ever since.
Sources
The Green Mountain News, December 1922
The Green Mountain News, April 1923
The Green Mountain News, December 1923
The Green Mountain News, April 1924
The Green Mountain News, December 1924
The Green Mountain News, April 1925
Long Trail News, October 1925 (renaming of Lodge)
Long Trail News, August 1929
Long Trail News, October 1929
Long Trail News, August 1930
Long Trail News, October 1930
Long Trail News, June 1932
Long Trail News, November 1932
Long Trail News, February 1933
Long Trail News, September 1933
Long Trail News, April 1938
Long Trail News, January 1939
Long Trail News, April 1944
Long Trail News, May 1953
Long Trail News, May 1954
Long Trail News, February 1969
Long Trail News, November 1976
Long Trail Guidebook, 5th Edition, 1924 (Green Mountain Club)
Long Trail Guidebook, 50th Anniversary Edition (16th ed.), 1932 (Green Mountain Club)
Long Trail Guidebook, 10th Edition, 1935 (Green Mountain Club)
Long Trail Guidebook, 23rd Edition, 1985 (Green Mountain Club)
