About Our Historic Vermont Inn

Discover iconic Vermont hospitality with a personalized touch, conveniently located near Outer Limits Brewery, and Okemo Mountain and all the outdoor activities offered there. We are proud to be a certified “green” inn, using clean products and sustaining practices to provide distinctive B&B lodging even as we protect the environment.

Golden Stage Inn has a rich history as a Vermont bed and breakfast. In 1788, Golden Stage Inn was a stagecoach stop, offering one guestroom for men, and another for women, with a chamber pot behind a screen for the bathroom. Our Inn now boasts a total of eight rooms/suites from which to choose, all with private bathrooms. We love celebrating the Inn’s history while incorporating modern amenities such as private bathrooms, luxury mattresses, and gas fireplaces and heated floors in some of the rooms. All this mixed with our commitment to environmentalism and local foods, and then combined with our passion for hospitality means that our guests are treated to a truly unique and welcoming lodging experience at today’s Golden Stage Inn. Read the reviews, explore our website, and discover why our Vermont Bed and Breakfast is hailed as a relaxing escape to unwind and rediscover the simple pleasures of life.

Being Green is Golden!

Our overriding principle in developing our eco-friendly practices is to think before we act. Whether we’re brewing coffee or selecting new light fixtures, cleaning toilets or maintaining the landscaping, we carefully consider the environmental and socio-economic impact of each decision along the way.

This intentionality leads to some fairly recurring practices:

We locally source our meat, fresh produce, and syrup as much as is feasible. Our eggs, honey, and seasonal produce come from our own backyard.
We invite guests to participate in an optional Linens Re-use program: laundering towels and sheets only between guests, unless specifically requested during a guest’s stay.
We partner with independently-owned local businesses as often as possible. (And in Vermont, it’s possible most of the time!) We find that small, local businesses typically have conscientious attitudes as well. And we love supporting our neighbors who in turn support their neighbors… it’s what builds a community.
When appliances need replacements, we purchase the highest-efficiency products we can afford. As bulbs need replacing, we switch out any old-style bulbs to LED. Sensors and timers help reduce our electric use.
We seek organic and Fair Trade products when practical. (As of 2015, we are excited to have Mocha Joe’s as our coffee source!)
We offer BeeKind skin and hair care products, featuring all natural ingredients, reduced packaging, and BeeKind’s corporate donation to honeybee research.
We select cleaning products carefully, finding the most environmentally-friendly product for each specific need. We make many of our cleaning products ourselves.
We donate all leftover soap, shampoo and body gel to the Clean the World project where the soaps are treated and then sent to areas that need them.
We recycle plastics, paper and metal and provide our guests with the opportunity to do so as well. We compost paper, coffee grounds, and whatever food leftovers the chickens can’t eat.
We reduce our consumerism by following the Yankee maxim whenever we can: “Use it up. Wear it out. Make it do. Do without.” Don’t let the saying’s cuteness fool you – its impact packs a punch!

The Innkeepers and Staff

Since their dating days, more than 30 years ago, Michael and Julie-Lynn dreamed of running a bed and breakfast in Vermont. Their first date was a day trip skiing at Okemo Mountain in Ludlow VT. Years later, they got married at a Vermont bed and breakfast, and they always vacationed in Vermont every chance they could get. But traditional life responsibilities kept them from realizing their dream for many years. Michael successfully pursued a career as a CPA while Julie stayed home with the kids and earned her degree to teach high school English.

After Michael’s first two children (Brigid and Mike) were grown and independent, but before their two younger daughters (Sam and Sadie) entered high school, Mike and Julie saw their chance to make their move to Vermont. Two years of searching for just the right Vermont inn brought them to Golden Stage Inn in Proctorsville, Vermont. Although always missing their families and friends of Massachusetts, the entire Wood family is thrilled with their new Vermont life.

Melissa is the Manager of Housekeeping at Golden Stage Inn and has been with the Inn since the Spring of 2012. Kaili has been with Golden Stage Inn since the spring of 2019. To call either of these women “housekeepers” would be to grossly under-describe what they do around the Inn. Both Melissa and Kaili are as likely to be found with a power drill or a kitchen-aid mixer as they are a vacuum or mop. Both are residents of the area, so they’re wonderful resources on Anything Local. Their commitment and enthusiasm are evident whenever you encounter them.

The pandemic hit us hard, but happily tourism has rebounded and we have been able to hire a few more staff. Claire and Julie B offer housekeeping and dinner service, and Ilona performs culinary magic in the kitchen nearly every single day. When you are here as a guest, you will experience the remarkable impact of this team and their enthusiasm and commitment.

Together, we (the owners and staff) look forward to offering you Vermont lodging that exceeds your expectations.

Animals Around the Inn

In 2019, we adopted a “Sato” puppy — that’s cool lingo for a Puerto Rican street dog. Maizy is gentle and kind and loves belly rubs, but she’s not the best rule follower and therefore does not have unfettered access to the inn. You’ll also have the opportunity to visit our two sheep, ten chickens, and two or three honeybee hives. The sheep are pretty skittish (well, maybe “sheepish” would be a better word!), but can typically be won over with a handful of grain. Both Shadow and Trixie came to us as adorable little lambs in 2014 and 2018 respectively. We first got chickens in 2011, and now have many breeds including Araucanas (the “Easter Egg Chicken”), Rhode Island Reds, Barred Rocks, and Golden Lace Wyandottes. While sometimes our chickens are very free-range (they may greet you when you walk the grounds), sometimes the recent presence of a fox requires that we leave them in their coop pen.

Honeybee Hives at Golden Stage

Julie started beekeeping in 2006, before moving to Vermont. We now have up to three hives on the Inn’s grounds. (Don’t like bees? Don’t worry. They’re rather tucked away and you won’t need to BEE with them at all if you don’t want to!) Each hive is really an amazing community. With more than 50,000 bees per hive, each bee knows its job and they all work together with the one shared goal of providing for and protecting the hive.
Typically harvesting more than 100 pounds of honey every fall, we use our honey at nearly every breakfast and we also sell it in the Inn’s gift cupboard.

Tour the Inside of a Beehive

If you visit during the summer (and if the weather cooperates), we are happy to schedule you a tour of the inside of a honeybee hive. See their honeycomb and how they store pollen and nectar, learn the jobs of the worker bees, drones, and queen, and sneak a taste of fresh from the comb.
We have extra bee suits with veils and gloves, so it’s quite safe. So that we can schedule accordingly, please let us know in advance if you’re interested in this truly amazing experience. (With a 2-night stay, the cost of a hive tour is $50.)

History of the Inn

Built in 1788 as a stagecoach stop, the Inn provided decades of hospitality to travelers before becoming a private residence in the early/mid-1800s. It was the Universalist minister Reverend Warren Skinner who purchased the Inn and built the spacious common rooms and the attached barn. He raised his family here at the property and this is how the Vermont country home became the summer spot for his descendants, Broadway actor Otis Skinner and Otis’s daughter, actor and author Cornelia Otis Skinner. Also it was during Rev. Skinner’s tenure at the Inn that this property was reportedly a stop on the Underground Railroad, providing hospitality in the most important of ways.

The property then transferred to the Pollard family for several decades. Many Pollard descendants still live in town. (We were honored by a visit from Mr. Pollard in 2013; he was born and raised in this house more than 90 years ago!)

Since the 1970s, as we’ve become a more mobile society, the property ownerships have become shorter in their duration. The building opened again as a place for Vermont lodging in the 1980s, and we purchased the Inn in December 2010, becoming (if our calculations are correct) the seventh innkeepers of Golden Stage Inn.