Historic site is a living testament to the dawn of recreational alpine skiing in America
By Tom Ayres, Senior Staff Writer
Gilbert’s Hill, the historic farmstead off Route 12 at the northern gateway to Woodstock Village, is recognized as the site of America’s first rope tow for skiing, installed in 1934. The iconic, 112-acre setting, which stands as a living testament to the dawn of recreational alpine skiing in the United States, is being offered for sale at $2.6 million.
Howard Krum and Mary Margaret Sloan, the veteran conservationists and environmentalists who have nurtured the fabled Woodstock site since they took over ownership of the site from the Vermont Land Trust (VLT) in 2016, are retiring to a new home on the coast of Maine and plan to bid goodbye to the property they’ve devoted their lives to for the better part of the past decade. The VLT held the property only briefly, having served as an intermediary property owner between the estate of the previous owners, centenarian farmers Alfred and Louise Appel, who passed away in 2012 at the ages of 101 and 102, respectively, and the mid-2016 sale to Sloan and Krum. The pair purchased the land, its main house, dairy barn, former ski lodge, warming hut, and other historic outbuildings from the VLT for $400,000 in the summer of 2016.
Woodstock native Chris Lang, the owner/agent for Bravynia, a Norwich-based boutique real estate agency that “specializes in the sale of exceptional Vermont properties [it refers to as] ‘Secret Sanctuaries,’” is facilitating the transfer of the Gilbert’s Hill historic site from Sloan and Krum to its next owners, who are destined to continue the land conservation and historic preservation ethos that has defined the property in for many years.
“We have absolutely loved being a part of this farm. We feel so honored to have been a part of all this,” Sloan, a longtime environmental activist and a member of the Town of Woodstock Planning Commission, said during a phone interview with the Standard last Saturday. “This is a part of our national history as [the site of the] first [mechanical] ski rope tow in the country,” she said of Gilbert’s Hill and its strong connection to the early days of recreational downhill skiing in the United States. “It has been just a dream for both of us — it has been a real pleasure to work with the Vermont Land Trust and to know that through the conservation easement, the property will never be developed. [The easement] prohibits the land from being subdivided, which is a great thing because the farm will be kept intact.” The late Appels, Sloan offered, deserve a great deal of credit for connecting with the VLT and helping to assure that their beloved family farm was preserved in perpetuity. “They lived there for more than 59 years — and they were just amazing stewards of the place,” Sloan stated.
The farmstead is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places and subject to a historic preservation easement, “ensuring the farm’s unique heritage of agriculture, skiing, and architecture are preserved for generations to come,” realtor Lang said in a statement sent to the Standard last week. The historic preservation status, Sloan added, covers the exterior (but not the interior) of four structures on the property, including the farmhouse and original barns, as well as the former ski lodge/warming hut, which has been fully restored and which has served as a short-term rental in recent years.
“It’s been a very easy relationship to work with [the Preservation Trust of Vermont],” Sloan offered. “On top of that, we got a historic barn grant from the state of Vermont, which we were very happy about. That enabled us to renovate the dairy barn, which is the barn that is closest to the road. There was no floor — it was just kind of sitting in the dirt — and one side of it was three feet lower than the other side. With that historic barn grant, we were able to lift up the barn, replace timbers, and so on, and now it is gorgeous.”
Sloan and Krum, in fact, renovated all of the buildings on the Gilbert Hill Property over the course of the last nine-plus years, which explains, in part, why the proposed sale price is more than six times the purchase price when the couple bought the old Appel Farm from the VLT in the summer of 2016. “We’ve renovated all of the buildings — updated them all — and just made sure that the historic essence of them was kept intact,” Sloan said.
One enticing feature of the newly reinvigorated Appel Farm/Gilbert’s Hill offering is a 700-vine vineyard that Sloan has established on the property since she and Krum took over as the owners. Sloan has tended annually to the vines, which produce a range of winter-hardy wine varietals, including, dedicated oenophiles might appreciate, varieties such as Marquette, Petite Pearl, Sabrevois, and Concord. Sloan and Krum share the fruits of the harvest with Lincoln Bridge Farms in Woodstock, which markets verjus — high-quality, unfermented juice produced from outstanding wine grape varietals — to co-ops and health food outlets throughout the region. In recent years, verjus has caught on with foodies and wine aficionados seeking non-alcoholic alternatives to wine and spirits — a steadily growing market in recent times.
She and Krum both say the ideal new owners of Gilbert’s Hill will arrive at the place with a strong environmental ethos and a vision of continuing the heritage of outdoor recreation and stewardship of the land that the setting has long epitomized. Sloan said the place remains as magical to her as it did the day she first set eyes on it nearly a decade ago. In the winter, she still treks to the top of the original ski hill — where poles paralleling the slopes remain from the historic, first-in-the-nation 1934 ski tow — and enjoys daily runs down the treasured slope.
“It really has been very special for both of us — a dream property,” Sloan commented. “We were sitting outside just last night and talking about just how beautiful it is there, and how quiet, and what a stunning piece of property it is. We are so grateful that we’ve been a part of that — and grateful to [Clinton and Pervis] Gilbert in the first place for getting all this going and opening the first ski run of the country. We’re just grateful to be a part of that history.”
Echoing sentiments expressed by Sloan and Krum, Bravynia Real Estate broker Lang said last weekend that he views the perfect buyer of the historic Woodstock property to be “somebody who may either have an appreciation for a wonderful old Vermont farmstead with great land — for a gentleman’s farm, I guess — or someone with a real affinity to skiing, continuing, “On top of that, there’s someone with a sense of history. Including family history, whether it’s kids who have grown up skiing in the area who are now adults or who currently remain involved in skiing,” Lang concluded.