Robert Frost Stone House Museum
{{short description|Historic house and museum in South Shaftsbury, Vermont}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=January 2025}}
Image:Robert_Frost_Stone_House_Museum_Shaftsbury_2006.jpg
The Robert Frost Stone House Museum is an 18th-century historic house in South Shaftsbury, Vermont. Built in 1769, the Dutch Colonial farmhouse was purchased by the American poet Robert Frost (1878–1968) in 1920. Here, Frost wrote the poem Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening and other poems in his Pulitzer Prize-winning collection, New Hampshire (1923). Frost and his family lived in the house between 1920 and 1929. He gifted the house to his son, and daughter-in-law in 1923, and the property remained in the Frost family until the 1960s. In 2002, the non-profit organization, the Friends of Robert Frost purchased the home in a state of disrepair and restored the house, opening it to the public. In 2017, the group gifted the house and surrounding property to Bennington College. The museum is open to the public and also used for literary and community events.
The Frost years
Frost purchased the Peleg Cole farm, also known as the Half Stone House, for his family in 1920 with the goal of becoming an apple farmer.{{cite web |last1=Weiss-Tisman |first1=Howard |title=Bennington College To Acquire Robert Frost's Shaftsbury Home |url=https://www.vermontpublic.org/vpr-news/2017-09-25/bennington-college-to-acquire-robert-frosts-shaftsbury-home#stream/0 |website=Vermont Public.org |access-date=23 January 2025}} The property when Frost was in residence, included 80 acres and a large apple orchard.{{cite journal |last1=James |first1=Jordan |title=Robert Frost Stone House Museum |journal=The Robert Frost Review |date=2018 |issue=Fall |pages=26–28 }} At the time, Frost shared in a letter to a friend, "I have moved a good part of the way to a stone cottage on a hill at South Shaftsbury in southern Vermont on the New York side near the historic town of Bennington where if I have any money left after repairing the roof in the spring I mean to plant a new Garden of Eden with a thousand apple trees of some unforbidden variety.", according to Jay Parini, author of Robert Frost A Life.
While living here, Frost wrote many of his poems in his Pulitzer Prize-winning volume of poetry, New Hampshire (1923), including Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. In December of 1923, he gifted the house to his son Carole and daughter-in-law Lillian LaBatt. Frost then purchased a second farm in the area, The Gully and later moved to the Gully farm. He was living at the stone house when he received his first Pulitzer Prize in 1924. The Frost family owned the house until the 1960s.{{cite web |title=Stone House |url=https://libraryguides.bennington.edu/frost/stonehouse |website=Bennington College Crossett Library |access-date=24 January 2025}}
Description and history
The museum is located at 121 Historic Route 7A, Shaftsbury, Vermont. The Dutch Colonial style house was built in the 1760s and was constructed with local stone and timber. The property was originally 80 acres and included a large apple orchard. The historic site now consists of seven acres, tumbled stone walls, two barns, and a few surviving apple trees.{{cite web |title=Robert Frost Stone House Museum |url=https://www.bennington.edu/robert-frost-stone-house-museum |website=Bennington College |access-date=23 January 2025}} The house was in disrepair when acquired by the non-profit organization, Friends of Robert Frost, in 2002. The group restored the house and grounds, opened the property to the public and managed the site for 15 years. Bennington College was gifted the property in 2017.{{cite journal |last1=James |first1=Jordan |title=Robert Frost Stone House Museum |journal=The Robert Frost Review |date=2018 |issue=Fall |pages=26–28 }}
The house is situated near Bennington College campus, and is a few miles from Frost's grave at the Old First Church cemetery in Old Bennington. The college has held classes, readings, workshops and outdoor events at the museum. “This was a very important property for him and an important time in his life,” according to Megan Mayhew Bergman, director of the Robert Frost Stone House Museum at Bennington College. "He hit his prime as a poet here".{{cite web |last1=Rathke |first1=Lisa|title=‘Miles to go before I sleep': Robert Frost museum reopens |url=https://apnews.com/article/b7b5494a28ea4bcb9c120f7da559c8da |website=Associated Press|access-date=23 January 2025}}{{cite web |last1=Malone |first1=Tyler |title=The road taken by Robert Frost through New England |url=https://www.latimes.com/books/la-ca-jc-robert-frost-20180629-story.html |website=Los Angeles Times |access-date=23 January 2025}}
See also
References
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