Newfane, VT

Blending the Old and the Newfane

Modern bustle has spared the villages of Williamsville and South Newfane—part of Newfane, Vt. (pop. 1,560). Separated by a covered bridge over the Rock River, the side-by-side villages belong to a gentler era, where birds sing in the hills, children flock to summer swimming holes, barns and white houses dot the countryside, and neighbors stop at the general store to chat.

Nothing suggests many of these people are artisans, but they are. Instead of watching for the milk truck, they await the parcel van that carries their paintings, pots, and furniture to galleries all over the country. But on the third weekend in July, more than a dozen studios and homes open for an annual tour.

Many of the artisans of South Newfane and Williamsville—refugees from busier places—came to Vermont in the 1960s. Relative newcomers, in many ways they’ve helped the town re-forge a link to its past.

Until the middle of the last century, these villages were largely self-contained. People farmed or worked in small mills along the river. Artisans lived here, too: A photographer chronicling life in the early 1900s featured a local furniture maker whose advice on restorations was sought by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. From the beginning, the area has attracted individualists seeking to exercise their wits and skill. “There’s always been talent here,” says third-generation resident Chris Mariano.

But when the water-powered mills became obsolete, some left in search of jobs. By the 1960s, many of those remaining drove to work in larger towns.

Then the artists came, and a new generation of villagers began working out of their homes—some drawn by the availability of houses with barns that could become studios, others by the region’s beauty. Some looked for a good place to raise children.

Not everyone embraced the new arrivals, especially at first—but Vermont winters breed respect for those hardy enough to weather them, and some native always seemed ready to haul a newcomer’s car out of a snowbank or offer advice on making maple syrup or planting peas.

Many of the newcomers longed for the close community life older residents recalled—events and traditions that seemed to have fallen by the way. Then, in the ’80s, Dan DeWalt, a Pennsylvania-born cabinetmaker who designs furniture and restores antiques, organized neighbors to spruce up South Newfane’s one-room schoolhouse. The building had served as a community hall after the abandonment of one-room schools but had gone unused for years. Soon people were gathering again for potluck suppers, sugar-on-snow eats (made with maple syrup), dances, and other homemade entertainment.

Christine Gray, who took tap-dance lessons in the schoolhouse as a child, performed in talent shows some of the newcomers organized. “It brings me back to my childhood,” she says.

On the weekend of the Rock River Artists Tour, the schoolhouse becomes a gallery, where visitors—as many as 500—preview artists’ work, then pick up maps and wander the back roads to look in on their studios.

Visitors peek into Bruce Marshall’s sculpture gardens and the restored 18th-century home of painter Roger Sandes and collage artist Mary Welsh. They watch Richard Foye’s raku urns (pottery based on a traditional Japanese technique of rapid cooling to create varied textures of finish) emerge from outdoor kilns. They visit the riverside studio of Christine Triebert, a former Boston graphic designer who began an arts photography career with hand-tinted note card images of local landscapes, or peer into the attic workshop of Deidre Scherer and her fabric-and-thread portraits—many based on neighbors’ faces.

Alice Freeman sets chairs and a pitcher of lemonade outside the farmhouse, where she hand-decorates furniture. Visitors may linger, admiring her gardens. “People say, ‘This must be a happy place to work.’” Freeman’s smile leaves no doubt about the answer.

Blacksmith Fred Homer is a licensed wild animal rehabilitator. A visit to his forge may include an encounter with an injured hawk or some other animal recuperating in his barn.

Homer, who moved to Newfane from New Jersey in 1968, volunteers in local schools and served six years on the town’s planning commission—not altogether surprising in a town where a potter has chaired the board of selectmen and the constable is a famous mystery writer.

“After all these years, Homer says, “I don’t think of myself as a newcomer anymore.”

Susan Keese writes from her home in southern Vermont.

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