Ski is a lavishly rustic room, a ski lodge in the mountains. Pass under the tree branches spreading over the ceiling, into the base lodge, where a fire blazes in a brick and stone fireplace under the gabled roof. True to the illusion is the side room, reminiscent of the base lodge cafeteria from Mad River Glen, complete with lift ticket booth and vintage signs. The unique furniture is custom-made from ski memorabilia lovingly saved by local collectors. Original trail maps from the pioneering ski days of the Valley adorn the walls. The inviting king-size bed is in a cozy corner overlooking the brook below. In the morning, light streams into the kitchen and lodge, reflecting off the rack of old skis and the unique collection of antique bamboo poles. The luxurious bathroom has double sinks in a white marble counter, Jacuzzi tub and the antique Vermont verde marble floor of the steam shower has an inlaid compass, which points due north, in case you get lost.

Rate: $650.00 • Click here to see a room comparison chart

The last room of the Inn to be created for guests. Saving the best for last, we decided that it is appropriate to honor the early tradition of downhill skiing in the Valley. Everyone knows that downhill skiing has made a huge impact in all the snow country in the United States. But few realize that much of it started here in Vermont. The earliest lift in the U.S. was in Woodstock in the 1930s, 20 miles to the south. Warren may have been the second town in the nation to house a lift and downhill skiing, and certainly the first in the Mad River Valley. The Warren Outing Club ran a lift on the hill across the river from the village. At the time, you could see the trails from the porch of the old Inn. Look straight up from the front porch as you go out the door and see the hillside where the trails were built, now overgrown and settling back to nature. If you go into the Warren Town Clerk's office, look on the wall for the only known existing arm patch for the Outing Club. There are several Warren old-timers who can tell you hair-raising stories about the lift, the trails and the races held every time there was snow by Christmas in Warren.

Early lodging for skiers and for the lift operations was usually in barns converted or rebuilt for the purpose. Frugal Vermonters rarely passed up the opportunity to recycle old timbers from one barn to another as uses and opportunities arose. Reused timbers often have 3"x 4" notches taken out of the beams, once used for floor joists or rafters, hand-hewn marks where the trees were squared by hand and pegged joints.

To create the feeling of the traditional Vermont ski lodge we needed to create distance from the room door to the lodge itself. Our solution was to build an entire lodge within the attic of the Inn, including the exterior wall window and front door. So when you open the room door, you enter into a snowy base of a ski area in 1940. Candy Barr, artist from Warren, painted a typical scene (she also painted the mural of the three ski areas in the Tracks room three stories down.) Using photos and graphics from early Vermont ski magazines she painted a typical scene and integrated several trees cut from our forests to authenticate the image. Like walking into a diorama in the museum of Natural History, only you become part of the exhibit. The siding of the barn is the typical "budget" siding in Vermont, "Slab Boards" as they are called. The local sawmill cuts the log into one-inch slabs and cuts those in half leaving boards which, when nailed up like clapboards, leave a series of wavy edges on the bottom. The room is framed with an old barn frame, recycled and installed in the traditional fashion. The bed area is in the hayloft portion of the frame overlooking the fireplace only two steps up. The bed is a whimsical collection of toboggans, birch trees and cherry boards made by Peter Brough of East Calais. The Vermont motto of "that'll hold 'til spring" means that most farmers didn't have time to complete all the necessary work to make it through the winter. As a result they all became experts at creating solutions to problems with the materials at hand, the source of all folk art. People didn't have time to go to the city to shop, let alone pay for a new item that could be made by hand. The bedspread is made of ski parkas with long sleeves draping down the sides and the window shades are of long underwear accented with found mittens. The small houses and barns of Vermont were usually a starter shelter with additions to expand the uses as needed. Here the side of the big room is added to with simpler timbers likely at a much later date (40 years or so) to make a snack bar and breakfast area. We have used the kitchen as the ski room cafeteria and ski pass booth. The original signs are courtesy of Mad River Glen Ski Area in close-by Fayston; one of Vermont's longest running original ski mountains. Note the ski rack (holding our collection of antique skis and poles) with a lost and found box on top that houses the TV (it rises up when in use). Our collection of photographs of the valley ski legends is expanding as they become available, as well as original posters, trail maps and skiing memorabilia from the Valley. Our Ski room is the perfect way to celebrate winter wonders or a great place to retreat to on a warm summer's day.