Halloween at Lolly Willows!

Construction continues on the cabin... It's looking just as imagined but better, very bright inside with all the windows. The shell is complete and most of the roof is on. By Thanksgiving it will have heat and be habitable, but work will continue through winter. ( Click to enlarge photos)

Not completely dressed yet: Lolly is waiting for her hip roof on the west side and a stained glass diamond-shaped window under the eave.



Click to enlarge the winter wonderland view... Jay Peak is already ski-able.



Haunted?




The old campsite needs to be dismantled before the avalanche comes
Miniatures for strength.


Pine flooring to go in last. The wood stove is ready to be fired up.



Pesky blood sucking gobblins

Pumpkin at the Pine Crest Motel.

Taxidermy human head


Jay Peak is waiting...bunny slopes?

Unorthodox Taxidermy, 1930s sculpture by Dr.Seuss

Lolly Willows cottage is coming along through blizzards

Photos from Aug 28 to 29...

Some interior shots with the ceiling now in. Soon the windows and porches will be built!

PHOTOS of the Frame Raising

The construction method of Lolly Willows is unusual. It is a modified version of a traditional French Canadian method known as "pièces sur pièces" or "pièces sur pièces avec poteaux à coulisse." Unlike the more familiar style of log cabin which was brought from Sweden, the logs are hewn square, and the weight is carried by vertical posts. It was long favored in Quebec and throughout the fur trade. For more about "pièces sur pièces," see: http://www.log-world.com/article_piece_en_piece.php or see PDF file Here (photo below) is a surviving example built in 1888 as a fur warehouse at Fort St. James, Canada: Photos from "frame raising day" with friends, neighbors and the crew of Old School Builders. Hidden beyond the green mountains, its sturdy cedar timber frame rose silhouetted against the August sky: Lolly Willows.

Frame Raising Weekend SCHEDULE

Frame Raising Schedule and Events:
Lolly Willows Weekend
--see Driving Directions

Saturday, Aug 14th @ Lolly Willows land
9am to all day--Frame raising begins, walls start to rise; by the end of the day all rafters and roof beams will be in place. There is one big tent and grassy areas for camping, and some of you are staying at the Pine Crest Motel.








Sunday, Aug 15
Morning--Old Stone House Day, Brownington. This is an amazing 1834 intact group of houses and school, with museum and garden, not touristy, a tiny local village fair. See info.














Afternoon--Bread & Puppet presents: The Decapitalization Circus & Nothing is Not Ready Pageant. Free outdoor community theater, cocktails on the grass. See info.











Points of interest:
Red Sky Trading Company, Glover Vermont. This small business features home-made snacks, coffee, jams, furniture, and vintage objects in the barn at Cheri & Doug Safford's house. Opens 9am on Sat and Sunday, get there when the donuts come out of the fryer.













Pine Crest Motel, some of you are staying here.

Parker Pie Company at the Lake Parker General Store. The only real lunch and dinner spot in town, plus it's fun.

Parson's Corner Diner, in the center of Barton at the old parsonage, great for breakfast, try the corned beef hash.

Currier's General Store, Glover Vermont. They have everything from groceries to fishing rods and an enormous and bizarre taxidermy collection and photos of hunters on the walls.

Lake Willoughby, 5 miles from Lolly Willows. Surely the most beautiful glacial lake in Vermont. Ask about the hidden cove with sandy beach at one end.














Old School Builders, custom timber frame builders in Glover, Vermont. This is the team building Lolly Willows.

Lolly Willows Frame Raising Day! Coming AUGUST 14TH

Lolly Willows Frame Raising Day is set for Saturday, AUGUST 14TH!

View location on MAP or get Driving Directions

Keith S., fully recovered and back on the project!

After a 3 month delay, our Vermont neighbor (and sawyer) Keith S. is now completely recovered from his car accident and now construction can resume with Keith's carpentry.

Animated Sketch of Lolly Willows cabin

Architect: Keone Maher Music: Feuillets Inedits by Messiaen for the ondes Martenot, a favorite instrument of Jonny Greenwood

Directions to Lolly Willows in Barton, Vermont

Lolly Willows is 55 acres of mountaintop off May Pond Road in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, about 15 minutes south of the Canadian border.

Closest Airport: Burlington International (BVT)

Closest Train: The Amtrak "Vermonter" to Waterbury, Vermont

Driving Directions

~ask us

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure-dome decree

Keone Maher, the architect/builder of Lolly Willows, is in China on a "framespotting" tour from April 5th - 17th with the Timber Framers Guild. See details about the trip.

"Pa, maybe brother Hanson would like to hear some music."

Appalachian folk song "Pretty Saro." The singer Sam Amidon lives in New York and was born in Brattleboro, Vermont. Also see his Lonesome Cowboy video.

Taking the Mystery out of the Outhouse

This video is from Action Island, a private island in Ontario's Georgian Bay, see the blog.

Lolly Willowes by Silvia Townsend Warner

The name Lolly Willows comes from the 1926 novel Lolly Willowes: Or the Loving Huntsman about a gentle eccentric spinster named Laura Willowes who leaves London for a cottage in the country, where she takes long walks, naps in ditches, gathers herbs for her "brews," and becomes familiar with Pan and the woodland faeries. Lolly Willows is that imaginary place where one goes.

Sylvia Townsend Warner, author of Lolly Willowes, pictured in 1968 with her cat Pericles. She lived in a cottage in Chaldon Village with her partner Valentine Ackland from 1930 to 1969. See: The Sylvia Townsend Warner Society. She wrote eight novels, was a Communist, a lesbian, and a scholar of Tudor Church Music. The novel Lolly Willowes was a best-seller and the first ever selection of the Book of the Month Club in 1926.