The Barnard General Store Reopens

Town Rallies Around 180-Year-Old Barnard General Store, Helps It Reopen After A Year (VIDEO)... one year after [closing its doors last May due to financial troubles], Barnard's love for its general store and community center has brought the business back to life.
read the article and/or view the video here: Barnard General Store Reopens

A writeup about us was featured in both
Rhode Island Roads Magazine and Jaunting Magazine.

Our weekend getaways sometimes take us well away from civilization, to where the air is clear and the sounds of the cities are left far behind. When our romantic weekend getaway took us to Central Vermont, we discovered the village of Barnard and the warm welcome of the Fan House bed and breakfast.
read the full article at riroads.com here: A weekend getaway to the Fan House, in Barnard VT.
...or read it here at jaunting.com: A weekend getaway to the Fan House, in Barnard VT.

Here's what the blog Champagne Living has to say about us.

For New England Charm - The Fan House, a bed and breakfast accommodation in an 1840 country house in Barnard, VT offers a "Cheese Fondue & Fireplace Too" 10th anniversary lodging package Jan. 2 through end March 2013. Located in Central Vermont just minutes from premier ski resorts, lakes, the Appalachian Trail, art galleries and boutiques, and The Chateauguay, there are miles of unspoiled snowshoeing wilderness just across a creek bordering the property.
read the full blog entry here: So you want to be a ski bunny.

Forbes features Woodstock!

Vermont gets my vote for the state with the most food sophistication per capita. (No offense to the good people of North Dakota or Alaska, but I wouldn't expect to find a small-town market there selling all-organic meats, 100 percent natural almond ...
read the full article at "Tasting Vermont: The Best Eating And Drinking In The Heart Of The State".

Silver Lake in Barnard is a hidden gem, a three-minute walk from The Fan House.
read the full article at A Trip to Barnard And Its Lake

Take a look at the Fan House in Time Out New York's 101 Getaways issue!
read the full article at Time Out New York Summer 2010

Here's what Rhode Island Monthly writes about The Fan House:

When owner Sara Widness emigrated from New York City, she brough a concierge touch polished by a public relations career working with clients such as the Orient Express and the city of Rio de Janeiro. Her chic style transformed an 1840's three-bedroom villa into a guesthouse that is upscale (300-plus Anichini bed linens and Bulgari bath amenities) yet affordable. The victorian kitchen has polished wide-plank pine floors and a turn-of-the-century woodstove. Guests gather fireside in the living room to read an chat while classical music plays. With claw-foot tubs and antique tapestries, the home's historical character is evident. Barnard is minutes from recreation-rich Quechee and the artisan Mecca of Woodstock. If that's not enough, moosetracking, guided showshoeing, ice skating and in-room massages can be arranged. The details: 802-234-6704, thefanhouse.com. Rooms start at $160.

Free Night Promotion at the Fan House B and B in Vermont
read the full article at Uptake Lodging

Silver Lake (featured below) is a three-minute walk from The Fan House.
Read the article in Boston magazine's June 2009 issue by clicking the images.

EXPLORE ONE OF OUR 100 DESTINATIONS - #29 BARNARD, VERMONT
from the New York Post

The Fan House really is more like a second home than a B&B (and was home to Barnard's first lady lawyer!)

Here's what Fodor's New England writes about The Fan House:

Do you have an elusive dream, one that hankers for an authentic home in the heart of a very small, quaint Vermont town? Take the one-minute walk from the perfect general store in Barnard to this 1840 white colonial: and here it is. The three rooms put together by Sara Widness — who happens to be an expert on luxury travel — are cozy, comfortable, and avoid romantic clichés. The rooms are simply adorned with tapestries, antique rugs, claw-foot tubs, comfy sofas, and old bed frames guarding soft linens and a mountain of pillows. The living room hearth, the old wood stove in the kitchen, and the library nook create a real sense of home.

Staying Inn - Experience New England the old-fashioned way.
By Natalia De Cuba Romero
from the magazine Destination Weddings & Honeymoons Oct 2008.

THE FAN HOUSE BARNARD, VERMONT
A renovated 168-year-old house, this three-room European-style villa still has its original floorboards (some nearly 1½ feet wide), heirloom tapestries and cottage woodwork. No room at the inn? Three-suite Avonlea Hill, a farmhouse with a wraparound porch, is just a few miles away and also part of the family. Snowshoe and cross-country ski in the winter; swim and canoe in Silver Lake in the summer; and trail moose and bear on guided nature tours year-round. From $160 per night, including breakfast.

Simple Pleasures of Vermont
By Jen Murphy, Assistant Features Editor
from the blog Mouthing Off (Food & Wine Magazine)

My mom has a big birthday coming up this month so a memorable gift was in order. When I was in college in Boston the two of us would spend a weekend each winter in Vermont. We hadn't been in years so I treated her this past three-day weekend with a stay at the Fan House, a precious B&B in Barnard, Vermont. Whenever I go to Vermont I'm reminded how the simplest things in life can sometimes be the most satisfying. Some highlights of our trip:

1) Out of all of the amazing dishes Sara Widness, the gracious owner of the Fan House, cooked for breakfast each morning, my favorite was also the least complicated: a baked Granny Smith apple with a scoop of vanilla yogurt. I forgot how good a baked apple tastes in the winter. It inspired me to come home and try a few twists on such an easy, healthy dish.

2) A day cross-country skiing in two-feet of fresh snow on the trails of Mount Tom and the Woodstock Inn & Resort ski center erased any remaining NYC stress I had brought with me.

3) Two years ago my mom and I attended Live Well New York, an expo featuring healthy-lifestyle products and organic foods. We picked up a sample of Vermont Morning organic hot cereal and absolutely loved it but were never able to find it again. I spied it on a shelf at the Village Butcher in Woodstock. I think the find made my mom's birthday. She bought two huge pound-and-a-half bags to last her the rest of the winter.

4) I could spend hours browsing the aisles of Gillingham's general store in Woodstock. Their hermit cookies are sinfully good.

5) The paper-thin-crusted, Tuscan-style pizza at Pane e Salute, a 22-seat, husband-and-wife-run restaurant and wine bar in Woodstock, is some of the best I've ever tasted and their roast chicken with fennel pollen is equally delicious. The impressive, all-Italian wine list is far from simple - it's totally unexpected for a tiny Vermont restaurant.

USA Today has a great article about Woodstock by Larry Olmsted.

'Life on Vacation: Live like a Rockefeller in quaint Woodstock' June 6, 2008

Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel has a nice page on Barnard and the Fan House.

Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel Online March 21, 2006

A new story by Suna Kanga about Vermont and the Fan House on:  travellady.com

'Autumn Chase', an article by David Butwin in United Airlines' Hemispheres Magazine:

Most of the New England hotels that answer the "Where's a cushy, cozy, romantic inn?" question are priced upwards of $300 a night for the most basic rooms. But in the bucolic town of Barnard, Vermont, the three-room 1840s Fan House, so named for the fans carved in the wood frames over each window, offers a shockingly high standard of hospitality (handmade lamps by Simon Pearce, Anichini bed linens, Gobelin tapestries on the wall, Bulgari bath amenities) for just over a hundred dollars a night. Hiking, ice skating, snowshoeing, and massages in your room (particularly nice in the fireplace suite) can all be arranged, and the shops and restaurants of Woodstock and the artisan studios of Simon Pearce, Charles Shackleton, and Miranda Thomas are all within a 30-minute drive, tops. You'll return to a fire roaring in the living room and a mug of hot apple cider prepared by owner Sara Widness, who used to work in New York handling public relations for upscale travel clients like the Orient-Express and who seems to know instinctively when to welcome you and when to leave you alone. With the money you save on lodging, splurge on dinner just down the street at the Barnard Inn Restaurant (802-234-9961), noted for its local lamb with a Zinfandel reduction—and its rave review in the Boston Globe. Rooms start at $130 including breakfast (802-234-6704 or thefanhouse.com). newyorkmetro.com
New York Magazine Winter 2006

When you get there, you'll find that everything about the little bed-and-breakfast is as seamless as the directions.
SKI Magazine December 2003

For an excellent dinner, head to the Barnard Inn restaurant. For breakfast, you only have to go down to the dining room for the Fan House special, a cheese soufflé.
NEW YORK POST February 4, 2003

From the outside, the Fan House looks like a modest Vermont home. But once inside, guests are in for a pleasant surprise. The inn's centerpiece is a Victorian kitchen. The kitchen, complete with polished, 18-inch wood-plank floors and a turn-of-the-century wood stove, leads to a farmhouse dining room and living room, where guests congregate around the fireplace to read, listen to classical music or just chat. The decor throughout is elegant, complete with heirloom tapestries and art Widness has collected on her travels around the world.
BOSTON HERALD July 10, 2003

Best Places To Stay ... the new Fan House with pine floors, brushed-steel bedsteads and Provencal fabrics.
TRAVEL & LEISURE April 2003

Relax after a day of bird watching at The Fan House, Barnard, Vermont.
BEST FARES November/December 2003