There is much more to The Landmark Trust USA than Naulakha!

Based at The Scott Farm on Kipling Road, Dummerston, VT the Trust owns three other rental properties and plans to renovate a further one. The Scott Farm itself operates a Heritage Apple growing farm that covers 626 acres. It has been planted with orchards producing over 70 varieties of organically grown apples, plus some other fruits, peaches for example. The apples are marketed through whole food shops throughout Vermont and selected markets in Massachusetts.

Scott Farm Heritage Apples in the Brattleboro Food Co-op

Read more about the Scott Farm here.

Our trip to Vermont last month was not our first visit to a Landmark Trust USA property. In 2008 we spent a week at The Sugarhouse where maple syrup had been produced up to 1970.  It’s a very simple, basic but cosy single storey building accommodating just two people. The interior is a single space with partitioned bedroom and the walls lined with warm honey-coloured pine panels. Like all Landmarks it has its shelf of books and a supply of jigsaw puzzles and games.

The Sugarhouse

The Sugarhouse Library

Another larger property on the Scott Farm is the Dutton Farmhouse. On both I visits I was lucky enough to be able to visit the house on changeover days but this year was extra special as we were accompanied on our visit by Kelly Carlin the Landmark USA’s Office Manager and fount of much knowledge about the houses, ownership and history. She told us lots about the work of the Scott Farm and its various projects.

It was a lovely walk up to the Farmhouse from Naulakha along a broad track with orchards of trees overladen with apples on the one side and forest/woodland on the other.

At one time the Dutton Farmhouse provided accommodation for the seasonal apple pickers working for the Scott Farm. They painted this mural on the wall in the dining room. It is too fragile to be moved.

The third Landmark Trust USA property, Amos Brown House, is located about 12 miles away from the Scott Farm in Whitingham, Vermont. Built by Amos Brown in 1802 it operated as a farmhouse for well over 100 years and in the 1930s the farm became home to Carthusian monks, a contemplative order founded in France.

“For nearly 20 years, the monks lived in shacks in the woods and held services and prepared meals in the house. By the 1990s the Amos Brown house had declined considerably and was abandoned. The owner gave the house to the local historical society.

The Landmark Trust USA acquired the property in 2000 from the historical society who found management of the property beyond their means and expertise. The house enjoyed its first visitors in 2003 after 2 years of restoration.” (From the Amos Brown webpage)

ABH sleeps 6 and is the most popular of all the accommodations with British visitors.

Plans are afoot at Scott Farm to convert a Milk House located on the farm itself and attached to the large barn into a bijou Landmark to sleep two. David Tansey the President and Farm Manager at Scotts showed us the Milk House and explained the plans for its conversion when we visited the Farm Shop on the Sunday of our stay.

The Milk House

The Milk House (It’s very small!)

The Milk House in the midst of The Scott Farm

The Trust has also taken on an educational role and encourages the maintaining of building and other craft skills. We noticed two examples of this. During the weekend of our visit the Scott Farm was hosting a class of dry stone walling students/enthusiasts. David showed us the results of the weekend’s work in the barn and Kelly explained that the stone walls surrounding the fields opposite the Dutton Farmhouse were gradually being completed by visiting wall building enthusiasts.

2008 View from the Dutton Farmhouse (of the Green Mountains of New Hampshire) NB no stone wall

The View in September 2012 – NB dry stone wall nearly complete

In the Naulakha logbook there are comments by a regular visitor who leads dramatisations of the works of Rudyard Kipling for local school children in the house in which some of them were written.

“February 8-11 2013 – Brattleboro VT, Might you be sitting on some great stories that you’d like to put out there…? For the 7th year, Jackson offers Springboards for Stories workshop/retreat in one of New England’s most inspiring settings: Rudyard Kipling’s historic VT home, “Naulakha”. Open to all regardless of performing experience.”

Display at The Farm Shop

The Farm Shop not only sells apples and related products – cider and frozen fruits and, if you are lucky, homemade apple pies but also has some interesting displays. Needless to say the property leaflets are available to take away and there are some of Kipling’s books on display.

Our attention was also drawn to the fact that the movie The Cider House Rules (1999) starring Michael Caine was partly filmed on the Scott Farm premises.