History
A Look Back When
â??Beauty must be a fact of life.â??
Laurance S. Rockefeller, Founder of The Woodstock Inn & Resort
A visionary conservationist ahead of his time, Laurance S. Rockefeller, grandson of John D. Rockefeller, always sought to protect and preserve the town of Woodstock. As part of his efforts he proposed the townâ??s power lines be buried underground (they still are). He created a farm museum on a farm site dating back to the 1800s. He endowed 550 acres of land to the National Park Service for a new park.
When the original 1892 The Woodstock Inn required modernization in the late 1960s, Laurance was approached about the project. He thought the Inn unsalvageable and replaced it with the current building.
Laurance Rockefeller founded many conservation organizations and played a major role in developing the national parks system we know today. He received the first Congressional Gold Medal ever awarded for conservation and historic preservation.
He believed that what people want in a resort is â??serenity, beauty, tranquility.â?? His Woodstock Inn, opened in 1969, became one of Vermontâ??s premier hotels â?" and it remains so to this day.
