Farm Motor Inn and Country Club

village of Morrisville, Morristown, Lamoille County, Vermont

“Farm Motor Inn and Country Club, Stowe Rd., Morrisville 05661. 888-3525. Groomed trails on open and wooded farmland. Beginner to intermediate, equiptment rentals and sales. Entertainment and dinner, cocktail lounge. Accommodations available at site. Brochure available." -Vermont Ski Guide, 1976

Location: 3266 Laporte Road, Morrisville, Vt. 05661

Alternate names: Farm Resort

Directory listings: 1974-1977

Known operators:

Today: known as Ryder Brook Golf Club; trails are part of the Catamount network

History

From Morristown Two Times by Anna L. Mower and Robert L. Hagerman, Morristown Historical Society, 1982:

Farm Motor Inn and Country Club/The Farm Resort

How To Keep 'Em Down On The Farm: Make It A Golf Course." Such was the headline for a story in a national golf publication in early 1972 which described the dramatic new use which a Morristown family had made if its long-established farm.

That farm was the LaPorte Dairy of Mandoza and Edna Couture, 280 acres along the LaPorte Road three miles south of Morrisville (T40). About 1956 the Coutures began taking in guests at their farm home. In 1962 they expanded they overnight accommodations by converting their chickenhouse to a motel with both single rooms and efficiency apartments. They named it the Farm Motel. Then in 1963 the Coutures sold off all their Holstein cows but continued raising and selling hay. Several years later they set about converting pasture, hay meadow and former cornfields to recreational instead of agricultural use.

Completed in 1971 was a beautiful 18-hole, par-3 golf course. Concurrently, the Coutures' classing big red barn was converted to a restaurant and lounge, and a pro shop for the golf course. Subsequently added were a swimming pool and tennis courts.

The Coutures called the complex the Farm Motor Inn and Country Club. Guests were attracted by the various recreational facilities and especially the golf course (the latter was also open to the general public, both on a club membership basis and for a daily greens fee). In the wintertime the resort facility catered to winter sports enthusiasts: alpine and cross-country skiers, snowshoers, ice skaters, and snowmobilers.

Playing a major role in the enterprise with the senior Coutures were their two sons: Norman, who was superintendent of the golf course, and Henri, who with his wife, Ann Marie, managed the motel, restaurant, and related facilities. Tragedy struck the family, however, in 1972 when Mandoza died from injuries suffered in an automobile accident.

The first of several major changes in the facility itself and its ownership and management can in 1975. That year the Coutures leaded the premises to another part and in 1977 sold them to Farm Resort, Inc. The principal stockholder of that was Richard T. Willis of Richmond. A major change in the facility under Willis came in 1978 when the golf course was changed into a regulation 9-hole course.

But Willis encountered serious difficulties. They finally ended in June 1980 with foreclosure of his mortgage and reversion of the property to Edna Couture (who in 1977 had been remarried, to Leo Gagner of Jeffersonville). Operating only the golf course itself, Mrs. Gagner has since had the property on the market.

Today, the Farm Motor Inn and Country Club is now the Ryder Brook Golf Club. The cross country trails at Ryder Brook are part of the Catamount Trail association Network Section 24.

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See the full listing of directory entries for The Farm Motor Inn and Country Club here.

Read a description of the Catamount Trail section 24 here or view map here.