Bread Loaf Campus – Treman Cottage // c.1890

This is the last building to be featured on the Bread Loaf Campus! For more early history and context of the complex, check out the post on the Bread Loaf Inn. By 1900, owner Joseph Battell’s enterprise exceeded the capacity of the original inn, and cottages were added to accommodate more guests visiting his new permanent home in the mountains of Ripton, Vermont. Special friends who summered regularly at Bread Loaf purchased lots with water and sewage rights, and with Battell’s assistance, built their own family cottages to spend their summers. This is Treman Cottage, a shingled beauty which appears to have been built for a friend (though I am not sure who), and has since become the faculty cottage on the campus. As we wrap up this series, here is an interesting fact about the mountain campus: All buildings here that are painted the ochre color were built during Mr. Battell’s lifetime (by 1915), with later buildings painted white.

Bread Loaf Campus – Bridgman & Cornwall Cottages // 1881

Welcome back to the Bread Loaf Campus! For more early history and context of the complex, check out the post on the Bread Loaf Inn. By 1900, owner Joseph Battell’s enterprise exceeded the capacity of the original inn, and cottages were added to accommodate more guests visiting his new permanent home in the mountains of Ripton, Vermont. Special friends who summered regularly at Bread Loaf purchased lots with water and sewage rights, and with Battell’s assistance, built their own family cottages to spend their summers. The first two, Bridgman and Cornwall, were constructed across the street from the Inn around 1881 and are near-identical, modest vernacular cape houses with full-length front porches. The original owners were Charles William and Ellen Campbell Bridgman and Henry Bedinger Cornwall respectively. Both cottages have since been donated to Middlebury College and are important preserved pieces of its Bread Loaf campus.

Bread Loaf Campus – Maple Cottage // c.1900

Welcome back to the Bread Loaf Campus! For more early history and context of the complex, check out the post on the Bread Loaf Inn. By 1900, owner Joseph Battell’s enterprise exceeded the capacity of the original inn, and cottages were added to accommodate more guests visiting his new permanent home in the mountains of Ripton, Vermont. Located adjacent to the Mansard-roofed Birch Cottage, one of the most visually striking buildings in the campus is Maple Cottage, which reads more porch than cottage, but it’s 100% perfect. It was the last cottage built by Battell for his family and friends to stay at when visiting. They must have loved evenings on the three-floors of porches looking out over the Green Mountains.

Bread Loaf Campus – Birch Cottage // c.1900

Welcome back to the Bread Loaf Campus! For more early history and context of the complex, check out the post on the Bread Loaf Inn. By 1900, owner Joseph Battell’s enterprise exceeded the capacity of the original inn, and cottages were added to accommodate more guests visiting his new permanent home in the mountains of Ripton, Vermont. An early cottage built by Battell is this late-Mansard structure, named Birch Cottage. The structure clearly took cues from the Bread Loaf Inn, built over a decade earlier, and originally had two floors of porches wrapping around the entire structure.