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“Alpstettin”

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1958, Bart M. Jacob. Alpine Loop off Handle Rd.
  • (Photograph by Curtis B. Johnson, C. B. Johnson Photography)

In the early 1950s, Bart M. Jacob began logging in the Dover area on land he had recently acquired. After the nearby Mount Snow ski area opened in 1954, Jacob decided to use his cutover land to develop rental housing. Inspired by photographs of custom A-frame vacation houses in the West, Jacob built twenty modest A-frames on a loop drive and named his development “Alpstettin.” Continuing the Alps theme popular for architecture near ski areas, the houses had recessed “yodeling porches” on the second floor, trimmed with faux-Bavarian cutout balustrades. Jacob built the houses with prefabricated trusses and wall panels. In 1961 he patented the first modular A-frame design and began selling construction kits. After a mention in Time Magazine (December 8, 1961), Jacob's business took off, and he sold thousands of kits in several styles distinguished mostly by their porch balustrades. Plywood manufacturers followed Jacob into the modular business, and soon Vermont and other vacation havens were populated with hundreds of A-frame ski and summer dwellings. Another intact group of ski-related rental A-frames can be seen in Stockbridge off VT 100, one mile west of VT 107.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Glenn M. Andres and Curtis B. Johnson
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Data

What's Nearby

Winchester-Lyman House
The Vermont House
Crafts Inn (Childs' Tavern)
West Wardsboro Baptist Church
White House Inn (Beaver Meadow Farm)

Citation

Glenn M. Andres and Curtis B. Johnson, "“Alpstettin”", [Dover, Vermont], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/VT-01-WH26.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of Vermont

Buildings of Vermont, Glenn M. Andres and Curtis B. Johnson. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2013, 409-410.

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