As a Quechee Lakes Landowners’ Association (QLLA) Trustee since 2015, Norman Watts’ impression of the state of QLLA governance is important. His response to my inquiry about it was, “I am very confident that the ship is being sailed well. The skipper is competent and very concerned about the members. It’s a good crew.” This statement is quite an apt analogy from someone who has also been an avid sailor most of his life.

Norman’s initial impression of Quechee Lakes when he moved here in 2000 was not always as positive. One of the reasons why he ran for the trustee position was to “encourage and support the momentum QLLA had demonstrated over the past five to six years, so we don’t drift into a stall like when we first relocated to Quechee Lakes.… Read More

What’s better than driving up on a Thursday or Friday evening and arriving in Quechee, says Chris Bunnell one sunny summer morning as he and his wife, Liz, and three sons were about to embark on an adventure to the top of Killington via the gondola for lunch. Chris certainly knew what he was doing when he bought his home on Wheelock Road. His parents Mary and Paul “PD” live right next door. Since his parents bought their vacation home in 2006, Chris, Liz, and siblings have enjoyed many good times in Quechee, and visited as often as they could.

The senior Bunnells moved to Quechee full-time after selling their home in Massachusetts this year.… Read More

Scots like to compete, explains Lezlie Webster, founder of Scottish Arts and organizer of the Quechee Highland Games, formerly known as the Quechee Scottish Festival. This year’s Games will be on Saturday, August 26 at the Quechee Polo Field on Dewey’s Mills Road. Hardcore aficionados should know that solo pipers begin playing for judges at 8am, athletic competitions start at 9, with massed bands playing and parading at noon.

The event will include food provided by Salt Hill Pub – it’s a great opportunity to munch meat pies and stock up on shortbread – and musical entertainment by two different bands, not even counting the bagpiping.… Read More

The old Maxham place is Vermont-speak for ‘the farm formerly owned by the Maxham family.’ The farm now owned by Tim Shine and his family has a new name – River Highlands Farm – as well as a unique name for their barn. Tim and his daughter Molly explain why.

Traffic whips right along on Quechee Main Street between the Quechee Club and the Taftsville Bridge. But, at about halfway, there’s a landmark that does more than its share to slow people down. An old farmhouse sits right next to a large barn and a red milk house. It’s the barn that people are looking for.… Read More

Christopher and Andrew Emerson have quite the connection to Quechee. The brothers grew up on Long Island, NY, with their parents Michael (Mike) and Elizabeth Emerson. They skied in Quechee competitively, were accepted into impressive military academies, and continued to both excel in college and ski competitively. I had the opportunity to speak with Elizabeth about her sons as well as her Quechee experience.

Before Elizabeth and Mike met, Mike’s parents had retired to Quechee. While both found it a beautiful place to visit, the commute was five-plus hours in the best of times, and it made it difficult. That changed when the family came for a visit when Christopher was 11 and Andrew was 5.… Read More

Juanita Zerda, Tony Carlin, and their two boys, Liam, 11, and Juan, 9, have their home base in Winchester, MA, but own a second home here in Quechee. Like many Quechee homeowners, they were drawn here after visiting with a friend and seeing all that Quechee has to offer.

Although this time it was not a friend who owned a house up here, which is often the story, but instead a friend who had been here for a corporate retreat and remembered how much they liked it here. After visiting a few times, Juanita and Tony rented a house the following winter and decided to purchase a home.… Read More

As any Quechee resident or frequent visitor knows, a lot can change in thirteen years. Rickety two-person chairlifts give way to faster, sleeker, more flashy-named quads. Sometimes roadside alpacas appear. Restaurants come and go, as do people. But since she first stepped foot in Quechee over fifteen years ago, Taylor McKenna has been a witness to all these changes. Taylor, a resident of Sudbury, Massachusetts, has been a Quechee mainstay in the winter and the summer, on the slopes and off.

In the winter of 2000, Taylor first put on tiny ski boots and clicked them into tiny skis at Ascutney Mountain in Brownsville, VT.… Read More

Audrey and Ted Raycroft are Quechee, Vermont homeowners who, for most of the year, reside in Sherborn, Massachusetts, as do the co-owners of their Quechee home, Suzanne and Adam Craig. When Raycroft began looking for a house, she did not set out intending to share with a friend; that happened by a little twist of Vermont fate. As time goes by, however, she has found it is a wonderful way to have a second home and, often, increases the fun of trips to Vermont.

There is an extended network of families and individuals from Sherborn, who own homes in and around the Quechee area.… Read More

A skier, swimmer, and a dedicated honors student, Victoria Carlson of Wenham, Massachusetts, does it all! Carlson’s ties to Quechee precede her. Her grandparents, Deb and Dick Carlson, built a house at the top of the Quechee Ski Hill in the early 1970s. Her great-grandmother, Ann Williams, named the road the house is on, Williams Lane. Her father, David, and his brother, Dan, learned to ski on the Quechee Ski Hill as kids. So, when David and his wife, Carol Harlow-Carlson, had Victoria it was only natural that she would spend a great deal of time in Vermont!

Carlson’s love of skiing started with lessons at age 3 with the Quechee Ski Bees.… Read More

Quechee is blessed with an outstanding collection of capable, energetic people who turn their talents to the support of many worthy causes, both local and larger. Notable in this group is Diane Ames, full of vigor and wide smiles. She’s raised three successful sons (and is working her magic on three grandchildren), accumulated an impressive résumé and greased the wheels of the world with extensive volunteering. With good reason she has been called “a volunteer extraordinaire!”

Roots in volunteering

Diane was born and brought up in Washington, D.C. She can remember air raid sirens, and the blackout shades and ration books of World War II.… Read More