Stay | Local Business | Southern Vermont
When the family that owns Flower Brook Farm first bought it back in 1962, there was grass growing down the middle of the road. No running water. A single bare bulb for electricity, no indoor bathrooms, and wood stoves for heat. It's fair to say, quite a lot has changed.
It was a working dairy farm in the mountains of Southern Vermont, and the family - then living in Flint, Michigan - had fallen for the area after renting a place in nearby Dorset two summers in a row. They bought the farm that November and started coming up for summers and Christmases, tapping the maples, boiling syrup, and learning what it meant to really unplug. The phones were party lines. There was no radio or TV reception to speak of. That, as one of the owners remembers it, was the original way to disconnect.
More than sixty years later, the farm is still in the family - and still a place to get away from it all - but the farmhouse itself has been completely reborn. The result is one of the more unique short-term rentals you'll find in the state: a true Vermont farmhouse with a deep family history, sitting on more than 300 protected acres, rebuilt from the ground up to hold a big group comfortably.
Between 2016 and 2018, the family did something most people only talk about: they took the house down to the studs and physically raised it, lifting the entire structure to open up a fully usable lower level underneath. The project was designed by the family's own architect, who set out to do one thing above all - make room for everyone. The old kitchen and dining room were combined into one big open space. The lower level got radiant-heated floors. Light pours in through oversized windows, even below grade.
What they didn't do is erase the history. Much of the original wainscoting, the painted floors, the woodwork and doors were all preserved and worked back into the renovation. The materials they did add came from close to home: the siding was sawn at a nearby mill, the flooring was sourced locally, and the plumbers, electricians, and carpenters came from Rutland, Poultney, and Danby. As one of the owners pointed out, the project also brought money into the community and saved a house that otherwise would have fallen down. Art hangs throughout - including paintings by a family cousin who wrote and illustrated children's books, and work by Pawlet artist Matt Solon, who painted a portrait of the family's late patriarch.
That patriarch was a serious reader, and it shows. The lower-level library was built specifically to hold his collection, right down to a full set of the Oxford English Dictionary. There's a piano, plenty of workspaces, and no television by design - though there's wi-fi throughout for anyone who wants to stream a movie or get a little work done.
Here's the detail that tends to win people over: the combined kitchen-and-dining area has two of every major appliance - two refrigerators, two dishwashers, two sinks. It sounds excessive right up until you've tried to cook a holiday dinner for fifteen people with a single oven. This is a kitchen designed for big family meals, where more than one cook can actually work at the same time. The owners built it that way on purpose, because accommodating large groups was the whole point.
There's space to match. The house has 9 bedrooms, 17 beds, and four full and two half baths, and it comfortably hosts groups from a couple up to sixteen or more. A former workshop has been turned into a loft lined with bunk beds - the kind of room kids fight over. You could host a family reunion here without anyone feeling on top of each other, which is the rare trick this place pulls off: room to gather, and room to get away from each other.
The lower level is, in the words of one guest, every kid's dream: a game room set up for ping-pong and billiards, with board games for rainy afternoons. Across the dirt road there's a creek for frog-hunting and skipping stones. Outside, there's a fire pit (marshmallows recommended), a charcoal grill, picnic tables, and meadows in every direction, plus gear for croquet, bocce, badminton, volleyball, and basketball. It's the kind of setup where the kids disappear outside for hours and come back muddy and happy.
Bringing the dog? Good. Flower Brook Farm is pet-friendly, and there's no extra pet fee - which, for anyone who's tried to find a large group rental that takes dogs, is a real rarity. As the owners note, a lot of big properties won't allow pets at all, which means leaving the dog behind or paying for a sitter. Here, the dog comes too.
The farm sits on more than 300 acres, and the land is enrolled in Vermont's Use Value Appraisal program (better known as Current Use), which keeps it working and undeveloped for the long haul. That's a big part of what makes a stay here feel so private - you're not sharing a fence line with anyone. There's also a sugar bush, and the family still cuts timber every decade or so.
For guests, the draw is the walking and hiking. The property has marked trails that are mowed through the meadows rather than cut through the woods, which keeps the footing easy and helps keep ticks down. If you're up for it, there's a roughly five-mile loop around Mt. Hoag that starts right at the front door. One of the owners studied forestry and can name just about everything growing out there - and in spring and early summer, there's plenty to find: ramps, fiddleheads, raspberries, thimbleberries, gooseberries, tart cherries, and apple trees that have been on the property for over a century.
A few details you don't notice in photos but feel once you're there. There's an ADA-compliant bathroom on the main level and an accessibility ramp, so the house works for guests with mobility needs and for multi-generational groups where not everyone can manage stairs. The home runs on Tesla backup batteries, so a rural power flicker doesn't end the weekend. And because the renovation used good materials and real craftsmanship, the house simply feels healthy - one friend visiting during our tour, who described herself as the canary in the coal mine for dust and allergens, said she had no trouble at all.
Flower Brook Farm is about a 25-minute drive from Manchester, out through Dorset, which puts it within easy reach of the shopping, restaurants, and trails of the region while still feeling worlds away. It books directly through the owners - no third-party platform fees - and you can see availability and reserve on their booking page. You can learn more about the house, the rooms, and the land at flowerbrookfarm.com, and find it alongside our other Vermont short-term rentals on Vermont.com.
If you've been looking for a place big enough for the whole family but personal enough to truly feel like a home, this is one to put on the list. Come see it for yourself.
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