Taylor Lodge is a shelter that has burned down twice, been dedicated three times, and named its own two-percent survival rate almost into a tradition. Tucked into Nebraska Notch — the deep cleft separating the Forehead of Mount Mansfield from Mount Dewey — it has stood, in one form or another, since 1926, memorializing the club’s own founder. The building on the site today, its third, dates to 1978.
A Notch in Need of a Lodge, 1925–1926
The idea for a shelter at Nebraska Notch surfaced in the summer of 1925, when the Green Mountain Club’s Burlington Section, which had been relying on the nearby Mansfield Trout Club’s facilities, felt the need for a lodge of its own in the vicinity. The Trout Club offered to donate land, but only on the condition that the structure be an open shelter — a stipulation the Section resisted, since it wanted something closed. The project stalled for lack of funds and the standoff over design, until, as the Burlington Section’s own history put it decades later, the main club stepped in:
“Then the Main Club came through with the offer of $1000 from the Judge Hazelton Fund for the building of a lodge. It was voted to start building the lodge in Nebraska Notch and the cost of the structure was not to exceed $750… Just how the objections of the Trout Club were overcome is not clear from the records, but the lodge referred to as Nebraska Notch Lodge and later named Taylor Lodge was built for $150 less than was authorized.”
— Jan Abbott, “Remarks at Dedication of 3rd Taylor Lodge” (September 1978), reprinted in Ridgelines (Burlington), Summer 2026, p. 5
The finished cabin was a comfortable closed lodge of peeled logs with bunks and mattresses for about sixteen campers — though, as one early visitor recalled, its outhouse remained “on the primitive side, and only semi-private.” Unusually among the three lodges that would eventually stand on the site, this first building faced away from the notch’s outlook rather than toward it. It was named for James P. Taylor, the Green Mountain Club’s founder, as a living memorial rather than a posthumous one — Taylor was very much alive when the lodge that bore his name went up.
Burned Down, Twice
The first Taylor Lodge lasted almost exactly a quarter-century. In the winter of 1950, it burned down — by one account, “burned down by careless campers” trying to keep warm, a detail that would recur with grim regularity in this shelter’s story. The Burlington Section, under the leadership of the late Roy O. Buchanan, rebuilt it as a similar log structure, and the replacement was formally dedicated on October 29, 1951:
“74 hikers attended the dedication and cabin-shower party at the GMC’s Taylor Lodge. Arriving about midday, they had lunch and inspected the cabin. All agreed that it was a fitting memorial to the memory of the founder, the late James P. Taylor.”
— Long Trail News, November 1951, quoted in Woodward, Paul & Joanne, Long Trail System Shelter History, 2nd ed. (1999), p. 117
By the time of that second dedication, Taylor himself had died, and the memorial had become a memorial in the fuller sense. The second lodge survived considerably longer than the first, but its end came the same way. On Sunday morning, September 25, 1977, it burned to the ground:
“Taylor Lodge, destroyed once by fire, has burned again. The lodge, located at the east end of Nebraska Notch south of Mt. Mansfield, burned to the ground Sunday morning, Sept. 25. The fire was discovered by an unidentified hiker who notified personnel at the Lake Mansfield Trout Club a mile and a half away. The Stowe Fire Department was called in but arrived far too late to save the building and could only prevent the blaze from spreading to nearby woods. Cause of the fire is unknown, but GMC State Ranger-Naturalist Cecilia Elwert on Mt. Mansfield speculated that a fire in the stove at the lodge had been left unattended by a departing hiker, with an escaping spark or ember subsequently starting the blaze.”
— Long Trail News, November 1977, p. 11
The lodge was insured, and Burlington Section president Jan Abbott announced almost immediately that it would be rebuilt.
A Caretaker’s Memory of the Second Lodge
Between the two fires, the second Taylor Lodge had its own life as a wilderness posting — most memorably recorded by Daan Zwick, a name that recurs across the Green Mountain Club’s shelter records (he would go on to caretake, and decades later help fund the reconstruction of, Taft Lodge as well). In 1938, at fifteen years old, Zwick became the first-ever caretaker at Taylor Lodge, hired by Larry Dean, who was then in charge of all four cabins maintained by the Burlington Section:
“So I was surprised when Larry Dean asked me early in 1938 if I would like to take such a job at Taylor, for I was only fifteen, just finishing my junior year at Burlington High School. Larry, in charge of the four cabins on the Burlington Section, was my Scoutmaster, so he knew of my love for the out-of-doors and the mountains. I was proud that he had that much confidence in me, so, with my parents’ permission I quickly accepted the position of the first ever caretaker at Taylor Lodge.”
— Daan Zwick, “A Memoir from 1938 Taylor Lodge Caretaker,” Long Trail News, Spring 2017, p. 6
Zwick’s memoir also preserves a telling piece of local history behind the notch itself: a century before his caretaker summer, Nebraska Notch had been a wagon route connecting farmers on Mansfield’s west side to town meetings — a crossing difficult enough, particularly in March, that it eventually led the Town of Mansfield to dissolve and split into Underhill (west) and Stowe (east). By 1938 the old road was barely recognizable, marked mainly by cords of chestnut wood the Civilian Conservation Corps had stacked along the trail in a salvage effort after the chestnut blight — wood that, so far as Zwick knew, was never used and simply rotted where it lay.
The Third Lodge, 1978
Rebuilding began the following summer. The Burlington Section carried in materials on June 3, 1978, and construction continued through July, this time producing a fundamentally different kind of structure — an open-front, post-and-beam design with no wood stove inside, a deliberate choice to reduce both fire risk and vandalism after two log cabins had burned. The finished building measured 24 by 18 feet, with a large open front porch and railing and a semi-enclosed bunkroom.
The dedication, held September 2, 1978, drew eighty-eight people to Nebraska Notch, ranging from five-month-old Brian Stewart to guests considerably older, and turned into something between a memorial service and a costume party:
“There are some things that the Green Mountain Club does very well — acting is one of them. Building shelters seems to be another, if the new Taylor Lodge is any indication of their work… To help celebrate the occasion several unusual characters were on hand. Vermont’s largest porky (alias Dot Myer) I assume was uninvited… A husband and wife hiking team from 1927 came (Al and Brad Perkins). He carried both packs and all the wood; she just led the way. Other hikers included Rod and Emily Rice (1951) and Lile Sutherland and Andy Thoma (1978).”
— Cathy Frank, Ridgelines (Burlington), September 1978, p. 1
The official program included remarks by GMC president Joe Frank and a history of the lodge delivered by Jan Abbott, illustrated with photographs and early newspaper accounts contributed by Harold Collins and Ken Fisher, and pictures of James P. Taylor himself — standing beside the plaque dedicating the very first Taylor Lodge in 1926 — supplied by Arlene Weitzel. A new plaque was unveiled for the third time in the shelter’s history:
“‘Twas an historic moment when the new plaque for the new Taylor Lodge was unveiled at dedication ceremonies Sept. 2. Club President Joe Frank and Burlington Section President Jim Abbott did the honors while other GMCers look on.”
— Long Trail News, November 1978, p. 5
Roughly forty Burlington Section members and other volunteers had contributed to the construction, supervised by Jack Lance. The Long Trail News coverage paired that account with an older photograph for contrast — Taylor himself, posed in 1928 beneath the sign of the original 1926 lodge that once stood on Mount Mansfield’s summit, a shelter the article noted “would have viewed with delight the antics” of the costumed 1978 dedication.
Vandalism and Repair
The new lodge’s fireproof design did not make it invulnerable. In the fall of 1981, it was seriously vandalized: wire bunks were pulled apart and burned as fuel for a fire that ate through the floor, though the building’s frame survived. It was not clear, according to the Burlington Section’s own account the following spring, whether the damage was intentional vandalism or simply a careless attempt by unprepared hikers to keep warm. Help arrived from an unlikely quarter:
“When the news was publicized, we received an offer to repair the damage from the Boy Scouts of Troop 3, Burlington, and their leader Bill Ward. The Troop made two preliminary visits in February and March to assess damages, plan their work, and take measurements… Once at Taylor, the Scouts set to the task of clearing up the mess so they could start rebuilding. They fixed two holes in the floor, a bunk, and a table, built two benches, a caretaker cache box, installed two bunk ladders, and creosoted the porch area… The Scouts not only completely repaired Taylor Lodge but provided all the materials, too!”
— Ridgelines (Burlington), June 1982, p. 1
GMC members pitched in alongside the Scouts, digging and relocating a new outhouse pit and replacing wall and door boards. Routine maintenance continued through the following decades — a 1986 Ridgelines notes the Burlington Section re-blazing the Nebraska Notch trail and giving the lodge “a new coat of creosote” that October — while the shelter settled into a long, comparatively quiet middle age, watched over by a rotating cast of volunteer adopters (Jenifer Andrews held the post as of 2010) and caretakers whose names are preserved year by year in the club’s own shelter-history records: Ann Pesiri in 1979, Wayne Bronson in 1983, and many others across the caretaker program’s history.
Correcting the Guidebook, and a Tradition of Oyster Stew
For decades, Long Trail guidebooks advertised Taylor Lodge’s capacity at twenty campers. That figure was quietly revised only with the 1996 edition, as Daan Zwick’s 2017 memoir points out — the one change he had personally observed in the lodge since his 1938 caretaker summer:
“The only change I have observed since then is on paper — the 1996 guidebook now recognizes that its capacity is 15 campers, rather than the 20 advertised in previous guidebooks.”
— Daan Zwick, Long Trail News, Spring 2017, p. 6
The lodge also became known for something considerably more festive than fire safety: the annual Oyster Stew Suppers that grew into a mid-winter Burlington Section tradition, drawing snowshoers up the Nebraska Notch Trail for a hot meal in the depths of winter — evidently a fixture memorable enough that one 1978 dedication attendee joked the food that day was nearly the best ever served at the lodge, “if it were not for the fact that Taylor has hosted many an oyster stew dinner.”
Still Standing
Nearly fifty years on from its 1978 dedication, the third Taylor Lodge remains standing and in regular use, drawing both overnight hikers on the Long Trail’s Bolton–Smugglers’ Notch stretch and day-trippers exploring Nebraska Notch’s beaver ponds and views of Mount Mansfield and the Worcester Range. Water for visitors still comes from a spring 0.2 miles down the Lake Mansfield Trail. Wood fires remain prohibited inside the shelter, a rule the 1996 guidebook states plainly and one that traces directly back to the two fires that destroyed its predecessors. Burlington Section outings continue to visit regularly — a November 2025 hike, for instance, followed the Nebraska Notch Trail from Stevensville to the Long Trail before continuing south to the lodge — keeping alive a pattern of use that stretches back, with two interruptions by fire, a full century to 1925.
Sources
- Long Trail News, November 1951 (dedication of 2nd Taylor Lodge), quoted in Woodward, Paul & Joanne, Long Trail System Shelter History, 2nd ed. (1999), p. 117.
- Long Trail News, November 1977, p. 11 (“Taylor Lodge Burns”).
- Long Trail News, May 1978.
- Long Trail News, November 1978, pp. 4–5 (“Rare Photo and Rare Time”; “Taylor Tableau”).
- Long Trail News, February 1982, p. 1 (vandalism at Taylor Lodge).
- Long Trail News, February 1986, p. 4.
- Long Trail News, Spring 2011, p. 10 (Nebraska Notch geology feature).
- Long Trail News, Spring 2017, pp. 6–7 (“A Memoir from 1938 Taylor Lodge Caretaker,” by Daan Zwick).
- Ridgelines (Burlington Section), September 1978, p. 1 (“Burlington Section Dedicates and Celebrates,” by Cathy Frank).
- Ridgelines (Burlington Section), June 1982, p. 1 (“Troop 3 Repairs Taylor Lodge,” by Andy Squires).
- Ridgelines (Burlington Section), September 1982, pp. 1, 3.
- Ridgelines (Burlington Section), Fall 2002, p. 2.
- Ridgelines (Burlington Section), Winter 2005, p. 2.
- Ridgelines (Burlington Section), Fall 2005, p. 5 (“More History of the Burlington Section’s Lodges”).
- Ridgelines (Burlington Section), Summer 2010, pp. 3, 5.
- Ridgelines (Burlington Section), Winter 2024, p. 5.
- Ridgelines (Burlington Section), Fall 2025, p. 6.
- Ridgelines (Burlington Section), Summer 2026, pp. 4–5 (“A 3 Part History of Taylor Lodge (Part 1),” reproducing Jan Abbott, “Remarks at Dedication of 3rd Taylor Lodge,” September 1978, ed. Ted Albers).
- Long Trail Guide Book, 22nd ed. (1983), p. 68.
- Long Trail Guide Book, 24th ed. (1996).
- Woodward, Paul & Joanne, Long Trail System Shelter History, 2nd ed. (Green Mountain Club, 1999), pp. 117, 159, 174, 176, 185.
