North Hero Cabins

With five intact groups of early tourist cabins, North Hero is a good place to see these forerunners of motels that have largely disappeared elsewhere in the state. Wood frame with exposed rafters at the eaves and raised on concrete blocks for circulation, the small, airy structures are typical of the construction used in the interwar period for military barracks, camps, and tourist cabins built along rural highway frontage to profit from automobile traffic. The West Shore Cabins (8888 U.S. 2) show the early low-budget, ad hoc nature of these accommodations with their variety of individualized forms and the former farmhouse used as an office and manager's home. The row of nearly identical Aqua Vista cabins in North Hero village illustrates the later trend to greater uniformity and order in what became known as “motor courts.” Although groups of tourist cabins like these once stretched from Birdport to Alburg along Vermont's lakeshore highways, few remain and even fewer are still in operation.