Twin Farms – a Vermont farmhouse turned art-filled retreat

Twin Farms occupies 300 acres of meadow, pond and hardwood forest outside the village of Barnard, Vermont, built around the farmhouse that the novelist Sinclair Lewis and the journalist Dorothy Thompson once called home. The estate's 300 acres of woods, meadows and mountains fold around a private nine-acre pond and miles of trails for hiking, biking and cross-country skiing. Founder Thurston Twigg-Smith opened the first nine rooms in 1993 and grew the property over the following decades into a collection of individually designed cottages, suites and, most recently, treehouses, each hung with pieces from his own contemporary art collection. Rates are genuinely all-inclusive — meals, wine, spirits and activities are folded into the price, and the resort admits no children under fourteen. The MICHELIN Guide recognises the property with Two Keys, and it remains one of the few Relais & Châteaux addresses in New England to combine serious art, serious cooking and total seclusion in one place.

01The house

Decades later Twigg-Smith turned the same farmhouse into the heart of a resort, opening its first nine rooms in 1993 and expanding steadily to include additional cottages, the Farmhouse at Copper Hill and the Bridge House spa.

The design pedigree is unusually serious for a country inn. In 2005 the residential architect Peter Bohlin built the Aviary cottage and the four-suite Farmhouse at Copper Hill, while the interior designer Thad Hayes shaped the integration of form and comfort in the newer accommodations. Outdoors, the landscape architect Dan Kiley laid out gardens and grounds in a natural style — wooded walks, wildflower meadows and a ski hill among them — giving the whole estate the topography of a long-settled country seat rather than a built resort.

02Rooms and suites

Twin Farms now counts 28 keys spread across five settings: four rooms in the 1795 Main House, two suites in the Lodge, four suites in the Farmhouse at Copper Hill, ten freestanding cottages and eight treehouses added in 2023, which grew the property from its long-standing twenty keys. No two are alike. Aviary, Peter Bohlin's glass, stone and cedar cottage, is furnished in Midcentury Modern pieces and has its own stone hot tub; the hand-hewn hickory-and-oak Barn cottage leans into a river-rock fireplace and a rope hammock on its screened porch; Meadow conceals a Moroccan fantasy of moucharaby window screens, a tented ceiling and terracotta floors behind a plain Vermont clapboard exterior.

Insider tip

Adults-only, all-inclusive; about 90 minutes from Burlington Airport, three hours from Boston.

The eight Treehouses, designed by Michaelis Boyd — best known for its work for the Soho House Group — are cantilevered twenty feet into the forest canopy on curvilinear decks at eye level with the birds. Their wabi-sabi interiors, chosen by one of the owners, favour mushroom wood cladding prized for its knots and imperfections, paired with soft pink, lavender and celadon tones. Inside, each roughly 800-square-foot treehouse holds a floating gas fireplace, an open-plan living and dining area and a bathroom with heated floors and a soaking tub.

03Where to eat

Breakfast, lunch and dinner at Twin Farms happen under one informal rule: whatever you want, more or less whenever you want it. The all-day Dining Room, with art-lined walls and candle-lit tables, serves blueberry pancakes and housemade bacon at breakfast, lobster rolls and burgers at lunch, and dishes such as beef tenderloin, risotto and red snapper at dinner, alongside a daily tasting menu. Chef Nathan Rich, who previously cooked at the Mandarin Oriental Boston, leads a kitchen built on New England produce and seasonal, local ingredients.

Across the covered bridge, Twiggs opens daily for happy hour and dinner with a seasonally inspired à la carte menu of steaks, chops, fish and handmade pasta, much of it charred on an Argentine-style wood-fired grill using Vermont lamb and pork from nearby Rebop Farm. The reserve wine cellar, overseen by sommelier Keven Ring, holds more than 15,000 bottles and can be booked for private dinners beneath its arched brick ceiling.

04The bar

Evenings at Twin Farms tend to start with champagne and canapés beside the fireplace in the Barn Room, or with highballs and a game of croquet on the lawn if the weather allows. Twiggs' own bar opens at three each afternoon for light bites and drinks before the kitchen starts dinner service at six, and a tasting of Vermont cheeses and craft beers is as likely an order as a cocktail. Guests can just as easily have martinis delivered to a private screened porch, or a cocktail hour arranged at one of the property's outdoor picnic sites overlooking the meadow below.

05Spa and wellbeing

The Bridge House Spa offers massages and face and body treatments that can be taken in the spa itself, in a guest's own cottage, or in the Onsen, a dedicated bathing space inspired by Japanese tradition. A fully equipped Fitness Center with Technogym cardio and strength machines, a rowing machine and a dual Smith rack sits alongside complimentary classes in guided meditation, paddle-board yoga and mat pilates, plus a labyrinth walk through the grounds said to encourage balance and insight.

Most wellbeing at Twin Farms, though, happens outdoors on the estate's 300 acres: hiking and biking in summer, canoeing and fishing on the private pond, and in winter, skiing and snowshoeing on groomed private trails or skating on the pond followed by hot chocolate and s'mores around a bonfire.

06The neighbourhood

Twin Farms sits in genuinely rural Vermont, about ninety minutes from Burlington's airport, three hours from Boston and five from New York City, which makes it a drive-to retreat for most of its guests rather than a fly-in one. Just beyond the estate's gates are antique shops, the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park with its working farm, and the Simon Pearce glassblowing workshop in nearby Quechee, where visitors can watch glassware being shaped by hand. The nearby town of Woodstock, with its green and its shopfronts, makes for an easy half-day away from the estate.

07Making the most of a stay

With around 120 staff for a maximum of 56 guests, Twin Farms is built for a high ratio of attention rather than volume — staff quickly learn names and preferences, and much of the service happens quietly in the background rather than at the front desk. The resort is adults-only, with no children under 14 admitted, which shapes the pace of a stay as much as the all-inclusive rates do. A typical visit runs two to three nights, long enough to try both restaurants, book a treatment at the Bridge House Spa, and still have time for a canoe across the pond, a private ski run, or simply an afternoon with a book by the fire.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.