The Mount Mansfield Hotel was the highest-elevation hotel in Vermont and the only one ever situated directly on the Long Trail. Standing at 3,850 feet on the summit ridge of Mount Mansfield—just north of the Nose and on the trail itself—it operated continuously for more than a century, from a canvas tent in 1856 to its final season as a functioning hotel in 1959. It burned to the ground in 1964. In that span, it was variously known as the tent camp, the Summit House, and finally the Mount Mansfield Hotel; it passed through at least four managements, was rebuilt and enlarged multiple times, saw the mountain transition from a carriage-road destination to an automobile resort and ski area, and outlasted every other mountaintop hotel in Vermont by decades. The Green Mountain Club guidebooks, which listed it as an accommodation from the first edition through the mid-twentieth century, described it as "one of the last of the famous mountain hotels" and, simply, "the only hotel directly on the Long Trail."
Setting
Mount Mansfield is the highest peak in Vermont, with the Chin reaching 4,393 feet above sea level. Its summit ridge runs north to south for more than a mile, its silhouette resembling a human face turned to the sky: the Forehead, the Nose, the Lips, the Chin, and the Adam’s Apple. The Waubanakee people called it Moze-o-de-be Wadso—Moosehead Mountain. The University of Vermont has for many years owned a strip of land eighty rods wide along the very ridge, protecting it "for all time for the enjoyment of the people," as the 1920 Long Trail Guide Book noted.
The Long Trail traverses the full length of the summit ridge, following the exposed, above-treeline crest between the Forehead and the Adam’s Apple. Just north of the Nose, at approximately 3,850 feet, the trail passes the site where the hotel stood. East of the summit, a private toll road climbed 4.5 miles from its tollhouse on State Route 108—the Stowe-to-Jeffersonville road through Smuggler’s Notch—to the hotel. It is from this eastern approach that the hotel was most often reached by visitors. On the western (Underhill) side, a bridle path known as the Halfway House Trail climbed from a small hostelry part-way up the mountain to the ridge near the Nose.
The mountain was, and is, one of the premier hiking destinations in the Northeast. North and south, the Green Mountain ranges extend to the horizon; westward lies the Champlain Valley and, beyond it, the Adirondacks; northeast is the Sterling Range and the deep cleft of Smuggler’s Notch; to the east, the Worcester Range frames the Stowe valley. On a clear day, Mont Royal above Montreal is visible on the northern horizon, and, with glasses, boats on the St. Lawrence.
A Tent on the Summit: The Beginning (1856)
The recorded history of lodgings on Mount Mansfield begins in 1856. That year, David N. Shaw and George Downing erected a tent near the present hotel site to provide overnight accommodation for visitors making the climb. The date was established by Judge Clarence P. Cowles, who fixed it through a statement given by Cyrus Mead of Underhill in April 1924—Mead was among those present in those earliest years. The same season, a trail was cut to the summit; Walter Collins O’Kane’s Trails and Summits of the Green Mountains (1926) confirms that "a trail was built in 1856 that ascended over Maple Ridge to the Forehead" and that "that same year the first tent was erected on the mountain."
Floorboards were hauled up the mountain for the tent enclosure at twenty-five cents per board. A man could carry four boards at a time; a boy, two.
The tent drew visitors. What had previously required a formidable wilderness climb became, in rough form, an excursion that a traveler of modest preparation could undertake with the expectation of shelter at the top.
The Summit House: Hotel and Carriage Road (1858–1868)
The tent gave way to more permanent lodgings within two years. In 1858, at the suggestion of W. H. H. Bingham—a prominent Vermonter and Stowe resident—construction began on a carriage road ascending the mountain from the east. The road was built to the foot of the steepest portion of the ridge; from there, a trail continued to the top. Lumber was hauled up, and a small hotel was erected at the site of the tent. The Summit House, as it became known, was from the beginning a true mountain hotel rather than a rustic waystation.
In 1859, an addition was built. In 1868, a further addition was constructed and the carriage road was extended all the way to the summit—making Mount Mansfield accessible by carriage to visitors who did not wish to walk at all. The road’s completion transformed the character of the mountain’s tourism. By the time the 2nd edition of the Long Trail Guide Book appeared in 1920, its author could note that the Summit House "is the last of the mountain-top hotels that marked Vermont’s highest peaks fifty years ago"—meaning that in the 1870s, similar hotels had existed on Camel’s Hump and Killington Peak, all since vanished. The Summit House alone had survived.
O’Kane confirms the carriage road’s completion: "About this same time the carriage road that ascends the mountain from the east was finished as a road about two thirds of the distance to the summit and as a bridle path the rest of the way. The road was completed all the way to the summit in 1868." He also notes that "each of these ventures, however, with the exception of the hotel on Mansfield, declined in favor and presently came to an end"—a testament to the unusual durability of the Summit House compared to its now-vanished counterparts on other Vermont peaks.
Hub of the Mountain: The Hotel Before the GMC (1870s–1910)
Through the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Summit House was the dominant presence on Mount Mansfield for anyone seeking overnight lodging near the top. Burlington-area mountain enthusiasts who wished to explore the ridge made it their base. The Halfway House—a smaller hostelry on the Underhill side of the mountain—also served hikers, maintaining a bridle path to the ridge near the Summit House. The two establishments together constituted the mountain’s tourism infrastructure.
Before 1910, as John Page wrote in the Long Trail News in 2020, "the Summit House hotel at the top of the toll road from Stowe was the center of hiking activity on Mount Mansfield. Guests driven to the hotel spent their days exploring the top of the mountain, and many of today’s side trails around the main ridgeline date from that period." Among the Burlington-area enthusiasts who regularly explored the mountain from the Summit House was a lawyer named Clarence Cowles—who would go on to become one of the most consequential builders in GMC history.
The Long Trail Era: A New Kind of Hiker (1910–1921)
When James P. Taylor convened the first meeting of the Green Mountain Club in 1910, Clarence Cowles attended and signed up as a charter member. In the next seven years, Cowles personally cut the original Long Trail from Mount Mansfield to Camel’s Hump, and helped extend it south to Middlebury Gap. In 1920, he supervised the building of Taft Lodge on a sheltered spot at 3,650 feet beneath the Chin—an alternative base for hikers that did not require going to the Summit House at all. He then built the Profanity Trail connecting Taft Lodge to the hotel, the Sunset Ridge Trail from Burlington to the ridge, and the Laura Cowles (originally Cowles Cut-Off) Trail. As his son later observed: "Father’s trails always aimed up toward the chin of the mountain and Taft Lodge." Within a few years of Taft Lodge’s opening, the summit’s center of gravity for hiking had shifted from the hotel to the Chin.
The early GMC guidebooks nonetheless listed the Summit House as an accommodation, and did so prominently. The 1st edition (1917) described it as a "summer hotel" with "Mt. Mansfield P.O." The 2nd edition (1920), published the same year Taft Lodge opened, noted that the Summit House was "under the same management as the HOTEL VERMONT and the well-known VAN NESS HOUSE in Burlington"—suggesting a connection to Burlington’s premier hostelry.
The 3rd edition (1921) marked a name change: the listing now read "MT. MANSFIELD HOTEL (SUMMIT HOUSE)," with the hotel’s formal name taking precedence over its informal one for the first time in GMC literature. An advertisement in that edition listed the manager as C. R. Riley and the rate as "Four dollars and fifty cents and up per day." The 4th edition (1922) made explicit what the guidebooks had implied: the Mount Mansfield Hotel was "the only hotel directly on the Long Trail."
The Hotel Company and the Automobile Age (1919–1940)
In 1919, both the toll road and the hotel were purchased by the newly formed Mount Mansfield Hotel Company. Two years later, in 1921, the road was rebuilt and improved for automobile travel—the carriage road that had been sufficient for horses since 1868 now required upgrading for the motor vehicle age. The toll stood at $3 per round trip for car and passengers. An auto bus operated from Stowe twice daily, at 9:30 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., with fares of $1.50 for the run from Stowe to the hotel.
In 1923, the hotel itself was rebuilt and enlarged. The 6th edition guide (1924) noted that sixteen new rooms with hot and cold running water had been added, along with bunk rooms for hikers at reduced rates. The rebuilt hotel was described as "a comfortable and well-managed inn." Rates by this point had settled at $5 per day, American plan, where they would remain through the early 1930s.
The hotel’s managers changed over the years. C. R. Riley managed it in 1921; M. C. Lovejoy’s name appeared in GMC guide advertisements from at least the late 1920s; by the 11th edition (1937), the listing showed R. C. Isham as manager; by the 12th edition (1940), George Morrell was listed as "Owner-Mgr."
The hotel consistently welcomed Long Trail hikers alongside its regular guests. Guidebook ads through the 1920s and 1930s noted that hikers could purchase maps at the hotel and that bunk accommodations were available at rates below the standard room charge. The 13th edition (1947) advertisement stated simply: "Hikers are always welcome at the Mt. Mansfield Hotel."
In the 1930s, CCC crews cut ski trails on the mountain, broadening the hotel’s potential season and the mountain’s appeal. The hotel, perched at 3,850 feet, was increasingly surrounded by the infrastructure of a developing ski destination.
A Consistent Presence Through Mid-Century (1937–1951)
The guidebooks of the late 1930s through early 1950s repeated a settled description of the hotel’s place on the mountain, varying only in minor details. The 11th edition (1937) offered a passage that would recur with small changes through the 13th edition (1947):
"Those wishing more luxurious accommodations may find them at the Mount Mansfield Hotel, which has stood since the 1850’s on the summit ridge of the mountain just north of the Nose. It can be reached by auto via private toll road from the Toll House on Route No. 108."
(The 12th edition of 1940 introduced a minor error, citing "since the 1880’s"; this was corrected to "1850’s" in the 1947 edition and matched the established chronology.)
By 1947, the approach to the mountain offered more variety than it had in the hotel’s early decades. A chair lift had been installed, rising more than 2,000 feet over approximately 6,000 feet of horizontal distance from a state parking area in Smuggler’s Notch to the Octagon Hut near the hotel. Built originally for skiers, it was also operating in summers by 1947. Principal hiking approaches to the hotel included the Haselton (Running Water) Trail from Barnes Camp on Route 108, the Profanity Trail from Taft Lodge (1¾ miles, described as the "best route, with Long Trail, from Taft Lodge to Mount Mansfield Hotel"), the Fern Trail through the "Wall St." crevice, and, on the western side, the Halfway House Trail, described in the 1935 edition as "built more than 75 years ago and once used as a horseback trail."
Hotel rates by 1947 had risen to $5.50–$8 per day, American plan; by 1951, the range was $6–$8 per day. The 1951 guide described the hotel as one that "has stood since the 1850’s on the summit ridge"—the same description, nearly word for word, that had appeared in guides since 1937.
The Final Season and the Fire (1959–1964)
The 1959 season was the Mount Mansfield Hotel’s last as an operating hotel. The Long Trail News of May 1960 recorded the closing. The hotel had stood on the summit ridge for more than a century.
On a date not recorded in the GMC’s shelter history, the building burned down in 1964. The fire destroyed a structure that had been continuously occupied since 1858—more than 105 years. The GMC guidebook described it at closing as "one of the last of the famous mountain hotels."
After the fire, the site was occupied by other summit infrastructure. The 22nd edition of the GMC guidebook (1983) noted that Summit Station, Television Station WVNY, and FM Radio Station WEZF had taken up residence at or near the site.
The Site Today
The summit ridge of Mount Mansfield remains a signature destination of the Long Trail. The Long Trail and Sunset Ridge Trail ascend to the ridge from the Underhill side; the Haselton Trail and Hell Brook Trail approach from the east; the Profanity Trail, now named as Cowles named it, still connects Taft Lodge to the ridge. The bare, windswept summit—still above treeline, still botanically remarkable, still owned in part by the University of Vermont—is traversed by thousands of hikers each year.
The toll road corridor is now the Mount Mansfield Auto Toll Road, still privately operated and still ending near the Nose. The chair lift has been replaced by modern ski infrastructure. The Octagon Hut, referenced in the 1947 guidebook as near the chair lift terminus, succeeded the hotel as the summit hiker facility.
No structure marks the hotel’s exact footprint. The Long Trail passes through the site.
Sources
Green Mountain Club. Long Trail Guide Book, 2nd ed. Waterbury, VT: Green Mountain Club, 1920, p. 11.
Green Mountain Club. Long Trail Guide Book, 3rd ed. Waterbury, VT: Green Mountain Club, 1921. [Advertisement: C.R. Riley, Manager; $4.50/day and up.]
Green Mountain Club. Long Trail Guide Book, 4th ed. Waterbury, VT: Green Mountain Club, 1922. ["The only hotel directly on the Long Trail."]
Green Mountain Club. Long Trail Guide Book, 6th ed. Waterbury, VT: Green Mountain Club, 1924, p. 17. [Summit House listed at 3,849 ft.; 16 new rooms with hot/cold water noted.]
Green Mountain Club. Long Trail Guide Book, 7th ed. Waterbury, VT: Green Mountain Club, 1928, p. 22.
Green Mountain Club. Long Trail Guide Book, 11th ed. Waterbury, VT: Green Mountain Club, 1937, p. 52. [R.C. Isham, Manager.]
Green Mountain Club. Long Trail Guide Book, 12th ed. Waterbury, VT: Green Mountain Club, 1940, p. 55. [George Morrell, Owner-Mgr.]
Green Mountain Club. Long Trail Guide Book, 13th ed. Waterbury, VT: Green Mountain Club, 1947, p. 51.
Green Mountain Club. Long Trail Guide Book, 14th ed. Waterbury, VT: Green Mountain Club, 1951.
Green Mountain Club. Long Trail Guide Book, 22nd ed. Waterbury, VT: Green Mountain Club, 1983. [Summit Station, WVNY, WEZF at site after fire.]
Long Trail News, May 1960. [Last season as hotel, 1959.]
O’Kane, Walter Collins. Trails and Summits of the Green Mountains. Cambridge: The Riverside Press, 1926, pp. 42, 428.
Page, John. "100 Years of Taft Lodge on Mount Mansfield." Long Trail News, Summer 2020, p. 14.
Woodward, Paul & Joanne. Long Trail System Shelter History, 2nd ed. Waterbury, VT: Green Mountain Club, 1999.
