United States Department of the Interior
National Park Service

National Register of Historic Places
Continuation Sheet

Section number 7 Page    1
 
 

Description:

 The Civilian Conservation Corps built what is now the Vermont State Ski Dorm in 1935 as a side camp, Camp S-53, for the men working on local forestry projects. The dormitory is located within Mount Mansfield State Forest, along VT Route 108, heading north from the village of Stowe and approximately 1/2 mile south of the Stowe Ski Resort entrance. The town was named after Stowe in England and settled in 1794. In 1863 it had become a major summer resort area until a fire in 1888. As painful was the Depression of the 1930s, it was the catalyst for the development of Stowe as a winter resort and ski area because of the work completed by the Civilian Conservation Corps  (CCC) as part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal Plan. The CCC completed major works in the forests around Stowe and Mt. Mansfield, including the cutting of hiking and ski trails, road construction and the construction of a dormitory.  Its purpose was to serve as a side camp for the men working in the nearby forests, including the ski trails that were being cut on Mount Mansfield. It hosted 50 men, with twenty-five men living behind the dorm in smaller camps that no longer exist. The CCC  operated until WWII and after the war the dormitory was opened for public use as the first and only State operated ski lodge in the United States. Today, it is operated by the Americorps organization and maintains a similar mission providing an inexpensive, rustic ski lodge in the winter and serving as a base for Americorps forestry projects in the summer. It retains its integrity for location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling and association.

 The State Ski Dorm is representative of CCC building styles and unique due its size. The wood shingle building is 70’ long and two stories tall, considerably larger than most CCC designed and built structures intended as institutional housing. The large side-gabled structure is simple in detail and blends with the natural wooded environment due to its simple all brown color scheme. The building highlights the solid workmanship, use of natural materials, utilitarian design and choice of setting and location typical of CCC projects. The building is strategically positioned to view the steep east slopes of Mount Mansfield and its rocky summit.  A few sympathetic alterations have been made to the building and have enabled it to retain the original feeling and association with the goals, building styles and accomplishments of the CCC in Vermont.
 

1. Ski Dorm., c.1935
 -Exterior
 The building is approached from the road via a gravel driveway crossing over a bridge covering the West Branch of the Waterbury River that runs along the road approximately 30’ from the building. The driveway forks to the left, leading to a large gravel parking lot and to the right along the front (west side) of the building. The front of the property is landscaped with a grass lawn and coniferous plantings surrounding the fieldstone patio to the main door entrance portico. A few maple and birch trees sit between the grass lawn and stream bank. The view from the lawn and entrance of the building is toward the eastern slopes of Mt. Mansfield and the trails of the Stowe Ski Resort. The tree-covered hillside behind the building is very steep and terminates directly behind the building.

 The ski dorm is a large two-story, eavesfront building that is two bays wide and six bays long and sits on a 70’ X 20 1/2’ concrete foundation. It is covered in wood shingles stained dark brown and the roof is sheathed in tan asphalt shingles. The building is generally simple in details and exterior ornament. The entry porch, one of the few areas with detailing, includes two hewn posts and cross- beams supporting the single-bay gable roofed enclosed entry porch with 6-light window insert sides leading to the main door, and a 9-light paneled aluminum door. The hewn posts appear as contemporary additions due to the joinery used. The building has been transformed since its original design in 1935 to accommodate co-ed dormitory facilities, consisting of a shed addition to the rear (east) side, an extension of the building to the south, and a later shed addition for storage on the southern end.

The fenestration includes first story paired 6-light windows with plain wood surrounds. The far northern end window is a sliding casement window. These windows have had shutters with applied diamond motif cut outs, but currently these are not on the building. Below these windows are planter boxes. Second story windows are paired casement windows. Rear windows include fixed 6-light sash in an irregular pattern.

 In 1945 an addition was built to the right of the entrance porch (southern end). During this addition the cornice trim along the entire building was boxed in, creating a vented soffit and corner boards added to the exterior, flush with the shingle siding. This addition included a one-story shed roof projection at the south end of the building for wood storage and basement stairwell entrance. A one-story shed roofed rear ell projection constructed 1995 with board and batten siding at the northeast corner of the dormitory serves as an apartment. All three sides of the shed addition have contemporary aluminum, paired one-over- one-sash windows.  On the north wall of the building a protruding shingled cover has been built to hide the mechanical stacks from the kitchen.

 The south gable end has two small shed additions, one for wood storage and the other for a basement stairwell entrance. Around the backside of the wood storage shed is a 4’ wide wooden fire exit stairway leading to a second story steel fire door. Both shed additions are sheathed and trimmed in the same fashion as the main building. An 8’ wide red brick chimney with vertically stacked bricks below the top course protrudes from the roof between the original portion of the building and the 1945 addition.

 The north gable end has a ground-floor steel entrance door with 9-lights offset to the left. Directly to the right of the lower entrance door is a steep wooden fire exit stairway leading to a second-story steel fire door. A red brick chimney extends along the exterior north gable wall. A decorative course of vertically stacked bricks directly below the top course adds detail to the 2’X2’ chimneystack.
 

Interior-
 The main entrance to the dormitory on the west side is an entry hall with the 5’ wooden stairs leading to the second story bunk-rooms, a doorway to the left leading to the dining room, kitchen and office, and a doorway to the right leading to the living room. The kitchen is at the far northern end of the building, and the office is entranced through the dining hall. The rear-shed addition is accessed through the back of the office. The stairway leading to the second story terminates in a small hallway, with a women’s bathroom directly to the left prior to entering the men’s bathroom. A men’s bathroom is located in the northeast corner of the building, accessed through the men’s bunkroom. The women’s bunkroom is slightly smaller and occupies the portion of the building to the right of the stairway landing. The building contains a full basement. The portion from the original building is accessed from the door at the north gable end and internally from a kitchen stairwell. A stairway in the center of the building leads down to the basement, including the portion from the 1945 addition that sits below the living room. This southern portion of the basement has an entrance stairwell from the exterior through the aforementioned shed addition.
 

The interior has been relatively unaltered since original construction and is very simple in detail and rustic in design elements. The original kitchen, dining hall, and office use a variety of wooden sheathing on the walls and ceiling.  The dining hall is constructed of maple strip flooring, vertical tongue and groove boards with chair rail, and a tongue and groove ceiling. The kitchen retains its original wooden strip flooring and boarded ceiling but has contemporary industrial cookware, appliances, and formica counters. The office to the rear of the dining has sheet rocked walls above the chair rail, which caps the vertical tongue and groove boards. A drop ceiling has been added.  The living room addition built during 1945 also retains its original design with an 8’ wide interior fireplace wall of red brick, tongue and groove walls, hardwood floors, and plank ceilings.  In the middle of the room are two posts boxed with boards. This room currently hosts a collection of CCC memorabilia, including tools used by the CCC, historic trail maps, and photos.

 The second floor stair landing terminates the 5’ wide wooden staircase and splits the men’s bunkroom to the left and the women’s bunk room to the right. The floor of the landing is fir strip flooring, and the walls are horizontal shiplap boards. In the landing is one of the few remaining pieces of furniture constructed during the CCC era, an Adirondack style settee bench. The walls and ceilings of the bunk rooms are constructed of  horizontal shiplap boards.

2. Related Structures: ( Garage c.1940)

 About 100’ north of the main dormitory building, at the far end of the parking lot is a vernacular style, 1-story garage. The gable front, 1X3 bay structure is about 20 1/2’ X 30’ and rests on a concrete foundation. The structure is stick-framed with wood shingle siding stained dark brown and a sheet-metal roof. The rafter tails have been left exposed. The south gable end has a vertical board, hinged double door. At the southwest corner of the building is a paneled front entrance door.  All doors have plain wood surrounds with no detailing.