This link has been bookmarked by 1 people . It was first bookmarked on 14 Dec 2007, by Matt Kramer.
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14 Dec 07
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A Village Where Even New Yorkers Slow Down EVEN the shadows of clouds plod up the mountains near Manchester Center in southwestern Vermont. A great place to ski is also a great place to slow down. Take a hayride, amble through a crafts fair, build a snowman, sip hot chocolate.
Norman and Alice Grafstein, of Huntington, N.Y., have enjoyed these simple pleasures since they bought a house on three acres near Manchester Center five years ago. Even better, Mr. Grafstein said, their three grandchildren can join them as they step back in time.
“It’s like a rollback to the way life used to be in and around New York,” said Mr. Grafstein, the president of a home-décor manufacturer.
Manchester Center, the hub of a region referred to as “Manchester and the Mountains,” which includes Manchester Village to the south, also has upscale shopping, fine restaurants and an arts center. Two ski areas, Bromley and Stratton, are nearby. And foliage season is breathtaking, even to the local residents.
Vivian Thomas, an agent for ReMax Star Properties, moved there from New Jersey 30 years ago but still carries around a camera in case she encounters another irresistible panorama. “I feel like I live in a postcard,” she said.
A postcard view from a second home does not come cheaply, though. A property that sold for $350,000 five years ago, Ms. Thomas said, would now go for $850,000. Because of that climb in price, she said, the real-estate market has been flat lately.
Those who have bought second homes in the region say they are not concerned. To them, a weekend in Manchester Center, about 200 miles northeast of New York City, represents two blissful days away from neck-tightening urban tension.
“I always say I need one sunset and one sunrise there, and I’m ready to get back to the nonsense in the metropolitan area,” said Don Wanamaker, an environmental consultant from Rockland County, N.Y., who bought a four-bedroom condominium in Manchester Center last year.
The Scene
Main Street, which is also State Route 7A, is lined with shops and cafes at the center of town and is a pleasant stroll. Heading south, toward the elegant Equinox Resort and Spa in Manchester Village, businesses give way to handsome wood-frame houses. (Along the way, try a burger or steak at Mulligan’s of Manchester, a pub on Route 7A whose walls are cluttered with New York sports memorabilia.)
Depot Street, or Route 11-30, runs east-west, and is home to the Manchester Designer Outlets. The two-block string of upscale stores settled in gray, barnlike buildings includes Coach, Polo Ralph Lauren, J. Crew and, of course, Ben & Jerry’s.
The outlet stores, Ms. Thomas said, become roaming grounds for the leaf peepers in the fall. Some visitors get their fill of foliage quickly and need something else to do, like go shopping.
“The town is very conscious of not having a strip-mall look,” Ms. Thomas said.
There is plenty to do besides shop: cycling, golfing, hiking the nearby Appalachian Trail. The Batten Kill, south of Mount Equinox, is an eye-catching spot for fishing, canoeing and kayaking. Five companies provide horse-drawn wagon rides through the mountains.
Some people, though, get to their second homes and just stay put. Chris DiFeo is a Chevrolet dealer who lives in Spring Lake, N.J., about four hours away, with his wife, Kiernan, and their three small children.
Except to go skiing, the DiFeos rarely wander far outside their four-bedroom, 160-year-old Cape Cod in Dorset, about nine miles northwest of Manchester Center. Sometimes, they go canoeing, or to a local farm so the kids can see how cheese is made.
“When we bought the house, we stretched to get it,” Mr. DiFeo said of the house, which he paid $400,000 for three years ago. “But we wanted to be up in Southern Vermont, and we wanted the kids to enjoy it as much as we did.”
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