Green Mountain Sugar House: Third-Generation Maple and Vermont's Best Creemee in Ludlow

There are maple creemees, and then there is the maple creemee at Green Mountain Sugar House. Rich, smooth, and swirled high, it has been nearly twenty years in the perfecting — and the family behind it will tell you, straight out, that it is Vermont's best. One taste on a summer afternoon, with the lake glittering across Route 100, and you will understand why so many visitors plan their whole drive around it.

The Sugar House sits at 820 Route 100 North in Ludlow, its red roof visible from the road, steps from the water's edge. It is open seven days a week, 9 AM to 6 PM, and the creemee window serves 363 days a year. In a state that takes its soft-serve seriously, that kind of year-round commitment says everything.

But the creemee is only the sweetest part of a much deeper story. Green Mountain Sugar House has been family owned since 1955, and the sugarhouse itself — built in 1967 by David and Marjorie Harlow — still stands at the heart of the operation. Back then it was grit as much as art: metal buckets on the trees, crews hauling sap through snow and mud on sleds, wood-fired evaporators billowing steam into the cold March air.

Today the operation has entered its third generation, with Jamie and Josh Rose carrying the tradition forward alongside Ann and Doug. The tools have changed — the heart has not. Their sugar bush in the hills of Reading holds roughly 13,000 taps, connected by an extensive tubing network with vacuum monitoring that gently encourages sap flow while protecting tree health. Tank trucks haul the sap to the Sugarhouse, where it lands in a 16,000-gallon storage silo, ready for transformation.

Stewardship runs through every step. Their forestry practices align with both Audubon Bird Friendly and Organic certification standards. All of the sap goes through reverse osmosis first, which removes up to 90 percent of the water before boiling even begins — concentrating the sugars while cutting the time, fuel, and labor of the boil dramatically. Then comes the evaporator, the heart of the Sugarhouse, where concentrated sap is finished to about 220 degrees — the density Vermont law demands — and the natural Maillard reaction turns clear sap into the golden-brown, full-flavored syrup that has won their awards. A final pass through the filter press leaves it brilliantly clear.

What does not go into a jug goes into everything else. The country store is a proper Vermont provisions stop: maple syrup in every size from glass bottles to traditional jugs, maple candy, maple cream, and maple-sugar-coated nuts, plus local cheese, charcuterie, snacks, penny candy, Vermont-made gifts, clothing, and even beer and wine. Whether you are arriving in the valley or heading home, it is the kind of shop where you walk in for a creemee and walk out with a bag.

If you are skiing Okemo, it is minutes away — an easy detour that has become a ritual for plenty of valley regulars. Go in sugaring season and you may catch the evaporator running. Go in October and the hillside behind the red roof does the decorating. Go any day at all, and the creemee window is open.

Green Mountain Sugar House is featured on Green Mountain Guide as one of the valley's essential stops. Find them at gmsh.com or call 800-643-9338 — and do not skip the maple creemee.