Mountain Meadows Lodge is a rarity in the Green Mountain Club’s shelter records: not a shelter at all in the usual sense, but a private inn that has spent six decades functioning as one anyway. Sitting directly on the Appalachian Trail where it skirts Kent Pond, the lodge has offered generations of thru-hikers a shower, a bed, and a hot meal — and, in 2014, it hosted the club’s own Annual Meeting.
From the Combination Farm to a Lodge
The land the inn now occupies has a working history that predates the Appalachian Trail by decades, and by more than a century predates Mountain Meadows Lodge itself. According to the lodge’s own published history — a source outside the Green Mountain Club’s archive, and treated here as the proprietor’s own account rather than an independently verified one — the original farmhouse and barn were built in 1857 by Nathan and Mary Maria Chauncey Adams, who named the property “Combination Farm.” Nathan Adams ran thirteen dairy cows across 200 acres by 1881 and kept a daily farm diary later maintained by a descendant. Ownership passed to Eli Blanchard in 1901 before returning to the Adams family, whose Chauncey H. Adams ran a sawmill on Thundering Brook. In the 1920s and ’30s the farm expanded to 600 acres under new owners Ali Boutwell and W. H. Hulett, who built it into a maple syrup operation later expanded by Howard and Andrew Townes. A subsequent owner, George Kent, renamed the property Kent Farm and redirected Thundering Brook into what became Kent Brook — the pond’s namesake — before the Vermont Parks Department acquired part of the acreage in 1939 to establish Gifford Woods State Park.
It was under the Hulett ownership that the farm left its most durable mark on the local map. The connection to Hulett’s Combination Store in Rutland was substantial enough that it gave its name to the road running past the farm, a detail preserved independently in the Sherburne town history used elsewhere in this narrative:
“From early records it is learned that the brook that parallels this road was called Thundering Brook and that is the road’s official name now, but in the 1920s and 30s it was known as Combination Road. Why? Because what is now Merle Schoenfeld’s Mountain Meadows Lodge and Kent Pond was on the farm of W. H. Hulett, owner of the Combination Store in Rutland. The 600 acre farm provided cattle and produce and maple sugar abundantly for the store.”
— Madeline C. Flemming, An Informal History of the Town of Sherburne, p. 85
The same local history locates the property precisely, noting that the Appalachian Trail runs along its southern edge and borders both the lodge’s land and the Kent Pond dam:
“The Appalachian Trail runs along its southern edge, bordering land of Mountain Meadows Lodge, and along the dam. The lake can be seen readily from U.S. 4 at Merrill’s Garage and is a very pretty picture and exceedingly popular with fishermen.”
— Madeline C. Flemming, An Informal History of the Town of Sherburne, p. 81
The shelter database’s own architectural note adds that, according to a 1924 Long Trail guidebook, the structure was “the same structure as Gates Camp” — a detail that did not turn up independently corroborated in any newsletter or guidebook searched for this history, and is recorded here only as a note in the database rather than a documented fact.
Merle Schoenfeld’s Inn
By the time Merle Schoenfeld purchased the property in 1959, the once-600-acre farm had been whittled down to about 75 acres. Schoenfeld’s own biography, preserved in his 2022 obituary, fills in a figure the Green Mountain Club’s own records leave almost entirely blank. Born in Hulmeville, Pennsylvania, to Rae and Alvin Schoenfeld, he served in Germany from 1944 to 1946 — notably as a driver for General Patton — before an enthusiasm for skiing and golf eventually brought him to Killington in 1959. There he bought what remained of the old Combination Farm and, in the years that followed, converted it into Mountain Meadows Lodge, working for a time as a ski instructor at the property himself. In 1964 he married Beverley Eastman, whose daughters Diane and Deb joined the family.
It took roughly six years for the farm to become an inn: Mountain Meadows Lodge opened for business in 1965, with the farmhouse converted for lodging and, at some point afterward, the adjacent barn renovated into the main lodge building still in use today. No dedication, opening announcement, or contemporary newsletter account of the 1965 opening turned up in the Green Mountain Club sources searched for this history.
Schoenfeld’s tenure as owner did not last long past that opening. According to his obituary, he sold the lodge in 1973 and went on to a second career as golf pro at the Proctor-Pittsford Country Club, where he won four club championships and took particular pride in establishing the club’s Junior Golf Program. He died on January 28, 2022, at age 95, survived by his daughters, a grandson, and three great-grandchildren.
Part of a Hiker-Friendly Network
That 1973 sale — undocumented in any Green Mountain Club source, but dated precisely in Schoenfeld’s obituary — explains a gap this history could not previously close. By 1976, Mountain Meadows Lodge had become one of a handful of Vermont inns organized into a loose network aimed squarely at Long Trail and Appalachian Trail hikers, offering guided hikes and lodging arrangements to guests making their way along the corridor. Its point of contact by then was no longer Schoenfeld, but a Bill Stevens:
“The inns involved are: Mountain Meadow Lodge, Sherburne; Tulip Tree Inn, Chittenden; Churchill House Inn, Brandon; Cooiman House, Ripton; Long Run Lodge, Lincoln; and Knoll Farm Country Inn, Waitsfield. Further information can be obtained by contacting Mike Shonstrom at Churchill House, Gerald Liebert at Tulip Tree Inn or Bill Stevens at Mountain Meadows Lodge.”
— Long Trail News, August 1976, p. 11
Stevens was, in other words, very likely the buyer — or at least the new operator — who took over when Schoenfeld sold in 1973, though no source found confirms this directly or gives his fuller biography. The ownership chain remains unresolved beyond that point: nothing in the record documents how or when the lodge passed from Stevens to Bill and Anne Mercier, who were running it by 2014.
The Woodward shelter-history reference book, compiled decades later, still listed Mountain Meadows Lodge as part of essentially the same network of trailside country inns:
“Mountain Meadows Lodge, Sherburne; Tulip Tree Inn, Chittenden; Churchill House Inn, Brandon; Chipman House, Ripton; Long Run Lodge, Lincoln; and Knoll Farm County Inn Waitsfield.”
— Woodward, Paul & Joanne, Long Trail System Shelter History, 2nd ed. (1999), p. 153
A Favorite Among Thru-Hikers
By the late 1980s, the lodge’s reputation among long-distance hikers was well established. A 1988 Smoke and Blazes survey of comments left in nearby shelter registers — compiled from the log books at Governor Clement Shelter and neighboring sites — found hikers repeatedly singling the inn out by name:
“Many praised Mountain Meadows Inn as a good respite from nights on the trail. It seems especially popular with the Appalachian Trail End-to-Enders, of whom quite a horde registered.”
— Smoke and Blazes (Killington), 1988, p. 8
That reputation rested, per the shelter database’s history record, on practical amenities rarely available to backpackers passing through: showers and a work-for-food arrangement that let hikers earn a meal or a bed rather than pay for one outright.
Host to the Green Mountain Club
Mountain Meadows Lodge’s closest institutional relationship with the Green Mountain Club came in June 2014, when the Killington Section hosted the club’s 104th Annual Meeting at the lodge over the weekend of June 13–15. The Long Trail News previewed the venue’s appeal in terms that doubled as a small advertisement for the inn itself:
“Mountain Meadows is directly on the Appalachian Trail on Kent Pond, making it a perfect location for all our outdoor activities… The annual meeting will kick off Friday with a work hike north of Route 4 in Mendon. Join us later for dinner at Mountain Meadows Lodge, followed by music from singer-songwriter Phil Henry.”
— Long Trail News, Spring 2014, p. 6
The weekend’s schedule, printed in full, ran from a Friday work hike and evening concert through a Saturday of business meetings, board elections, afternoon outings ranging from an easy walk to Thundering Falls to a difficult push up Killington Peak, a catered dinner, and a speaker’s presentation — with camping free on the lodge’s own property for the occasion. A Killington Section account afterward credited the lodge’s innkeepers directly for the weekend’s success:
>”A good place to start is the venue: Mountain Meadows Lodge on Thundering Brook Road in Killington. All in attendance seemed to agree that the location chosen by our Section was superb, well worth the facility and tent rentals incurred. Our hosts, Bill and Anne Mercier, and their staff, served us wonderful meals. Lodge Operations Manager, David Wright, was a big help, making sure we had everything we needed.”
— Barry Griffith, Smoke and Blazes (Killington), 2014, p. 4
GMC President Jean Haigh echoed the sentiment in her own year-end account, calling the lodge “a perfect venue” and singling out the Merciers as gracious hosts whose food was “delicious.” The weekend doubled as a fundraiser for the club: the Killington Section’s raffle and Chinese auction, organized by Cindy Taylor-Miller, brought in a $540 check presented to incoming executive director Mike DeBonis. It was also, by multiple accounts, a rainy one — a “morning chill” and “lingering clouds” on Saturday gave way to a clear afternoon that let the section’s planned hikes go ahead as scheduled.
A Stop on the Trail, Before and After 2014
Mountain Meadows Lodge’s role as a hiker way station continued well beyond its turn hosting the Annual Meeting. A 2015 account of the corridor between the Vermont border towns and the Connecticut River, describing the businesses that had grown up to serve Appalachian Trail thru-hikers passing through in the annual summer rush, placed the lodge among a short list of established stops:
“Hiker-friendly businesses have evolved to serve thru-hikers as well. From trail-south to trail-north (that is, Maine Junction to the Connecticut River) they include the Inn at Long Trail at Sherburne Pass; Mountain Meadows Lodge at Kent Pond; On the Edge farm stand and the Appalachian Trail House barn-hostel on Route 12…”
— Preston Bristow, Long Trail News, Summer 2015, p. 17
That same year, GMC’s own Trails and Shelters Committee floated a plan — pending U.S. Forest Service and Appalachian Trail Conservancy approval — for a new official blue-blazed side trail linking Kent Pond at Mountain Meadows Lodge to the Killington Visitor Center near Base Camp Outfitters, to be named the Kent Pond Trail. No source found confirms whether that proposed connector trail was ever built.
Sources
- Long Trail News, August 1976, p. 11.
- Long Trail News, Spring 2014, p. 6.
- Long Trail News, Spring 2014, p. 7.
- Long Trail News, Spring 2014, p. 27.
- Long Trail News, Fall 2014, p. 23.
- Long Trail News, Summer 2015, p. 17.
- Trail Talk (Montpelier Section), Summer 2014, p. 2.
- Trail Talk (Montpelier Section), Fall 2014, p. 1.
- Trail Talk (Montpelier Section), Fall 2014, p. 5.
- Ridgelines (Burlington Section), Spring 2014, p. 3.
- Smoke and Blazes (Killington), 1988, V41 N01, p. 8.
- Smoke and Blazes (Killington), 2014, V67 N01, p. 10.
- Smoke and Blazes (Killington), 2014, V67 N02, p. 3.
- Smoke and Blazes (Killington), 2014, V67 N03, p. 4.
- Smoke and Blazes (Killington), 2015, V68 N04, p. 7.
- Footnotes (Upper Valley/Ottauquechee Section), June 2014, p. 1.
- GMC Annual Report, FY 2014, p. 6 (Mountain Meadows Lodge listed among corporate/foundation donors).
- Madeline C. Flemming, An Informal History of the Town of Sherburne (Sherburne Library), p. 81.
- Madeline C. Flemming, An Informal History of the Town of Sherburne (Sherburne Library), p. 85.
- Woodward, Paul & Joanne, Long Trail System Shelter History, 2nd ed. (Green Mountain Club, 1999), p. 153.
- “Merle Schoenfeld, 95,” The Mountain Times, obituary (2022).
- “Our History,” Mountain Meadows Lodge (mountainmeadowslodge.com), accessed 2026 — the lodge’s own published account of the property, from 1857 to the present; used here for biographical and pre-1959 ownership detail not found in Green Mountain Club sources, and flagged where it goes beyond what those sources independently confirm.
