Mountain Top Resort: A Century of Vermont Story Above the Chittenden Reservoir

Drive the winding road up out of Chittenden and the trees break all at once, and there it is: the Mountain Top Resort, spread across the hillside above the 740-acre Chittenden Reservoir like something from a storybook. The main lodge's post-and-beam timbers frame a wall of glass, and through it the Green Mountains stack into the distance. It is one of the great first views in Vermont hospitality, and it has been stopping visitors cold for the better part of a century.

The resort's roots are humbler than the panorama suggests. The inn began as the centerpiece of the Long family's 19th-century turnip farm, a working property on the mountain above the reservoir. Its transformation into a retreat started in the 1940s, when William Barstow purchased the sprawling estate as a grand romantic gift for his wife, Francoise. What began as a labor of love on a turnip farm gradually became a summer haven, at one point a retreat for New York socialites escaping the city heat.

The inn's most glittering era came under the stewardship of William and Margery Wolfe, when it gained national acclaim and famously hosted President Eisenhower and his entourage. But the Wolfes' more lasting legacy may be on the snow: in 1964 they used the rugged terrain to establish a cross-country ski center, one of the first in the country. Today it remains the oldest operating Nordic center in the United States, with a 60-kilometer trail system winding through meadows and hardwoods, a claim few American resorts can touch.

Disaster struck in 1977, when fire claimed much of the original structure. After two years of deliberation, the owners chose not to modernize but to rebuild in traditional post-and-beam fashion, and the result is the lodge guests see today: great Douglas fir beams spanning warm public rooms, and a signature glass silo staircase that funnels the reservoir and mountain views straight into the building. The fire, in a strange way, produced a more beautiful inn than the one it destroyed.

In the early 2000s a dedicated group of investors stepped in and shepherded the property's evolution from a quiet country inn into Vermont's premier mountain destination. The resort now spans some 700 lakefront acres shaped by land, seasons, and the generations of families who return for its natural beauty and its Vermont traditions. Stays come in three flavors: lodge rooms in the main building with fireplace suites and reservoir views, standalone cabins built for two with seasonal wood-burning fireplaces, and private guest houses for families and groups with full kitchens and shared living space. Families get a thoughtful touch in the lodge's family room layout, with a queen bed for the parents and a bunk bed for the kids, no sharing required and better sleep for everyone.

Winter is the resort's signature season, and the Nordic Center is its crown jewel. Cross-country skiers glide the groomed 60 kilometers past frozen beaver ponds and hardwood ridges; the winter calendar has included snowshoeing, ice skating, sleigh rides, and a kid-friendly paintball biathlon, plus candlelit wellness programming in the deep season. A marketing note from the resort puts the Nordic operation in its 61st year, a run of continuity no other American ski touring center matches. The resort has also leaned into winter wellness, hosting a candlelit retreat weekend in the deep season built around yoga, meditation, and vision-board workshops. And the timing keeps improving for skiers: with the Nordic Center in its 61st year of operations, the oldest in the country, the resort has marked the milestone with discounted season passes, a fitting deal for a trail system six decades in the making. Killington and Pico sit within easy driving distance for downhillers who want both.

Summer moves the whole operation outdoors. The reservoir fills with kayaks and canoes, the trail system opens to hikers and mountain bikers, and the long light of July evenings lands across the terrace fire pit. On-site dining runs on locally sourced cuisine in the main dining room and tavern, where the kitchen's classics, steaks, pork chops, duck cassoulet, roasted chicken, reflect a farm-to-table tradition older than the term. Weddings and gatherings have become a specialty; as the resort puts it, up on this mountain, the setting does most of the hosting.

Getting there is part of the charm. Mountain Top Resort sits at 195 Mountain Top Road in Chittenden, roughly an hour and a half south of Burlington International Airport and about thirty minutes northwest of Killington. The last stretch of road climbs into genuine wilderness, and guests arrive to Wi-Fi, a fitness center, hot tub and sauna, and year-round trail access folded into the stay. The resort's remoteness is the point: this is a place designed to let the mountain set the pace.

Chittenden itself is classic central Vermont, a tiny town of farms and forest roads pressed between the Green Mountain ridges, with the reservoir as its hidden gem. The area rewards slow exploration, from the back roads around the lake to the nearby mountain towns. For guests who want a day trip, the Ben and Jerry's and Vermont Teddy Bear factories are within reach, and the drive south into Killington country puts the state's biggest alpine terrain at your disposal.

Few Vermont resorts carry a story like this one: a turnip farm, a romantic gift, a presidential visit, the birthplace of American Nordic skiing, a fire, a resurrection in timber and glass. Mountain Top Resort is not the biggest or the flashiest stay in the state, but it may be the most layered. Come for the view, as the resort says, and stay for the story. You will find both waiting at the top of the mountain.