This article is seventh in a 30-part series on the historic quilt sewed by the Congregational Women's Association in 1978. Each article will cover one of the 30 squares, the woman who sewed it and how each square fits into Brandon's history.

The quilt was recently hung in the Fellowship Hall of the Congregational Church by the church deacons and Reverend Sara Rossigg. The Hall is open every Sunday from 9 to 11 a.m. You can also call the church office at 802-247-6121 to arrange for someone to let you in.

Square Seven

This week's history is on square seven, High Pond Ski Area, in the second row from the top, second from the left.

Anna Livak

The needle artist was Anna Livak who was 55 at the time.

Annabelle Audrey Webster was born in 1923 in Mendon, Vt., the youngest of the five children of Herbert Webster and Nellie May Young. They lived on Woodstock Road (now Route 4). Herbert Webster worked as a farm laborer and for a silo manufacturer and was the town lister and auditor for many years. He also served as the town's representative to the state legislature.

Anna grew up in Mendon and went to the one-room Village School there until eighth grade, graduating as valedictorian of her class. She was very active in the local 4-H Club, the Sunnyside Stitchers, where she learned to sew and make clothes. She was elected president of the club when she was 15, in 1938.

She graduated from Rutland High School in 1940.

She worked as a secretary for a doctor in Rutland, then married Andy Livak in 1947 at the Presbyterian Church in Mendon. Andy was three years older and had graduated from Rutland High in 1937. They had likely met in high school or possibly in 4-H, as Andy was the vice president of the Green Mountain Boys, a 4-H club in Rutland Town where he lived.

Andrew James Livak was the son of Czechoslovakian immigrants and grew up on the family's dairy farm on Blueberry Lane in Rutland Town. When he married Anna, he was farming there with his father, Michael, and brother, George, and the couple initially moved in there. Their first four children — Andrew, Jr., Betsy, Michael and David — were born in Rutland while they lived there.

Move to Hubbardton

Andy continued to farm with his brother and became the president of the Rutland County Farm Bureau. In 1957, he turned the management over to George and moved his family to Hubbardton, where he took on the management of High Pond Farm for owner W. Douglas Burden. Burden was looking for the most qualified caretaker for the farm and Andy had the experience and connections with the Farm Bureau he wanted.

The family moved into the farmhouse on the hill overlooking the farmlands where they had dairy cattle and raised crops including corn. Andy stayed on as Farm Bureau President a while, then became county trustee for the Brandon/Hubbardton area. He also joined the Brandon Dairymen's League unit.

Ski Area

After two years, Andy also took over the management of the High Pond Ski Area that Burden had started in 1951 on his 250-acre parcel, just across the road from the Livaks' farmhouse. Evidently, Burden liked Andy's management style and saw his potential in championing the growing skiing operation.

In a 2002 Rutland Herald article, Andy was quoted:

Actually, it was 1957 when they moved there, as stated previously.

In 1962, their fifth child, Christopher, was born and now the kids' ages were 15, 12, 9, 5, and the new baby. They would all grow up on the High Pond Farm and go to Otter Valley Union High. All graduated by the time they left in 1975 except Chris, who still had five more years.

The kids all skied at High Pond for free and the boys all joined the Otter Valley Ski Team.

Anna and Andy quickly joined the Brandon Congregational Church as active members, particularly in the Couples Club. The kids went to Sunday School there and Anna joined the ladies of the Congregational Women's Association.

Andy continued managing the ski area until 1975. During his tenure, they added a number of cross country trails, improved the lifts, and worked closely with the Brandon Ski Club and Otter Valley ski programs.

Many famous skiers skied early on at High Pond and went on to become Olympic stars, including Suzy Chaffee of Rutland. Some came to carnivals at the area to give demonstrations, including Karen Huntoon-Miller, a freestyler whose photo below may have inspired Anna Livak's quilt square. Karen had learned to ski at High Pond in the mid-1950s (her parents ran the ski school there) then had returned in 1977 for Brandon's Winter Carnival at the area.

Since the woman in the quilt square had blonde hair, it may have been Suzy Chaffee from Rutland, who also grew up skiing at High Pond.

Andy Livak became very active in the Brandon Development Association, serving as its president. He also was the chair of the Brandon Chamber of Commerce.

After the 1974-75 season, Andy finished up as High Pond manager and he and Anna bought the house at 6 Marble Street in Brandon to be closer to the community activities. They would live there the rest of their lives.

Andy soon became a selectman and would serve in that capacity for many years, including as chairman. Only son Chris was at home and still at Otter Valley Union High. Anna immersed herself in Congregational Church activities. They attended church every Sunday, always dressing up.

Andy went to work for Middlebury College until 1988, then did odd jobs and became a stone wall builder, a passion of his. Amongst others, he built the stone wall surrounding the old Farr Observatory on top of Mount Pleasant (see The Historic Brandon Quilt: Square Two).

Andy passed away at 86 in 2007 and Anna at 95 in 2018.

History of Skiing in Vermont and High Pond

Although downhill skiing in Vermont started around 1914, it was hampered by the strenuous climbing back up the ski hills. There were no ski tows or lifts back then.

Finally, in 1934, the first rope tow in the United States was installed in Woodstock, Vt. The idea was raised that January by three wealthy New York business friends — Douglas Burden, Tom Gammack, and Barklie Henry — after they spent a grueling day tramping up Gilbert's Hill in deep snow just to get a few brief moments of downhill skiing.

That evening, at the White Cupboard Inn, the trio complained bitterly to the innkeepers, Elizabeth and Robert Royce, about the exhaustion of hiking uphill. Burden mentioned a rudimentary rope-and-automobile contraption he had seen in Shawbridge, Quebec. The Royces then visited Shawbridge and obtained a rough diagram.

Burden and his two friends provided most of the initial funding of $100 each and David Dodd of Newbury, a graduate of Wentworth Institute, now an engineer and inventor, constructed the first ski tow on Gilbert's Hill.

The historic "White Cupboard Skiway" opened on January 28, 1934, changing American skiing forever.

Within a few years, there were over a hundred ski tows in New England, now run by electric motors. In 1937, Pico Peak opened and installed the first U.S. T-bar lift the next year. Pico was only a couple of miles from Anna Webster's home in Chittenden, though it's unknown whether she or Andy Livak skied there as kids.

Poma lifts and even chairlifts were built. With the conclusion of World War II and a return to prosperity for Americans, skiing's popularity soared. In the '50s and early '60s, major resorts like Mount Snow, Jay Peak, Killington and Sugarbush opened, attracting many out-of-staters.

William Douglas Burden (1898-1978)

Meanwhile, Douglas Burden, who had suggested the first rope tow and helped fund it, continued his love for Vermont and skiing. He came back from his home in Bedford Hills, N.Y., with his American Ski Club and praised the new ski tow, now equipped with an electric motor and lights for night skiing.

In late 1940, Burden bought a property overlooking Converse Bay on Lake Champlain in Charlotte, Vt., and built a very large one-story house and moved in with his wife and three young children.

Not long after, in 1942, Burden bought the High Pond Farm in Hubbardton and the surrounding 2,400 acres, six miles southwest of Brandon on Bresee Mills Road. He hired a farm manager, Arthur Schmidt, who lived there with his family. On the farm, they had a herd of purebred Ayrshire cows, one of purebred Brown Swiss, 1,000 geese and a turkey-breeding farm. In 1948, the Brandon Future Farmers club planted 9,000 red pine and spruce trees on the farm.

More on High Pond further below, but first: Who was William Douglas Burden?

Burden was born in 1898 in Troy, N.Y., the son of a rich industrialist, and grew up in Manhattan. Burden graduated from Harvard College in 1922, then earned a master's degree from Columbia University in 1926.

He became associated with the Museum of Natural History in New York City, leading expeditions to various tropical islands, the Far East, and the Arctic. His most famous expedition, when he was 28, was to Island of Komodo in the Dutch East Indies in 1926. Along with his first wife, Catherine, and their party, he went looking for the Komodo dragon, which the New York Times called a "fierce direct descendant of the dinosaur." Burden was the first "white man" to find and trap the giant lizards, which weighed 350 pounds and were approximately 10 feet long.

Of the three Komodo dragons they captured, two were given to the Bronx Zoo but died soon thereafter and were mounted in the new Hall of Reptiles and Amphibians at the museum.

Even the Rutland News carried the story in 1926:

King Kong

Burden brought back films with the three captured Komodo dragons and then wrote a book about the expedition, "The Dragon Lizards of Komodo." All this caught the eye and imagination of his close friend Merian Cooper, especially the chapter "The King of Komodo."

The movie "King Kong" came out in 1933 and was a smash success.

Marineland

In 1938, Burden was one of the founders of Marineland in St. Augustine, Florida, a large aquarium and motion picture studio, and he would continue to run it when he moved to Charlotte. He also became the curator at the Museum of Natural History, but his traveling days were over. Now he focused on High Pond Farm.

High Pond Ski Area

Doug Burden continued to ski with his three children as they grew up. His son, William Douglas Burden Jr., went on to become captain of the Middlebury College ski team from 1951 to 1955.

In the winter of 1949, as a first step before the ski area was developed, Burden opened a skating rink on the big pond across from the farmhouse.

Burden bought a state-of-the-art ice shaver, erected a warming hut, provided parking and cleared the ice for a hockey rink and recreational skating. Lights were put up for night skating.

The Brandon Recreation Council provided free buses each weekend at no charge.

Burden then bought all the buildings in a Canadian fishing village constructed of hand-cut logs for $50, disassembled them, trucked them to Hubbardton, then had them reassembled for the ski area. In his words:

The reassembled buildings became the restaurant, the lift house, part of Burden's house on the hill above the pond (1615 High Pond Road), a cabin on the road and a number of warming huts.

True to his word, the new High Pond Ski Area opened in December of 1950 with a new platter-pull ski lift rising 300 feet. The Boston Globe carried the announcement:

The ad in the Globe misstated the location as Charlotte:

The next season's opening was covered by the Rutland Herald:

The Brandon Recreation Council now provided free buses to both the skating rink and ski area.

Truman Bissette was now the manager of High Pond Farm and the Ski Area. He lived with his family in the farmhouse as the Livaks would after them.

There were now six trails:

In 1956, more improvements were made:

Young people from Brandon were attracted:

The Brandon community pitched in:

As covered previously, in 1957, Andy Livak took over as manager of the farm and ski area. Under his management, the area thrived. He was not only a good manager, but a great publicist and had great connections and rapport with the Brandon Recreation Council, Chamber of Commerce, a newly formed Brandon Ski Club and with Otter Valley High officials.

In 1963, the area had the following dimensions:

Many Brandon and area kids learned to ski there, including this author and most of his friends.

John Tower, who learned to ski there (1963-1967), recalled that a school bus would pick kids up in Brandon and another in Pittsford and drop them off at the area for Saturday recreational skiing. "We could ski and buy lunch for $5," he said. He recalled it was a very popular area, noting, "there were lots of kids and it could get pretty crowded."

Loud music was broadcast from the restaurant including the Beatles, as kids from 5 to 15 tucked the Chute and took breaks for hot chocolate and a grilled hot dog in the restaurant.

"We're not the Biggest ... but one of the Best!"

This was High Pond's slogan, adopted early on, to separate it from the much bigger major ski areas like Pico, Killington and Mount Stowe. Its mascot was a goose on skis as shown in the ad below that Andy placed in 1967 and continued to use:

In this great drawing, all the buildings in the area can be seen, as well as the farmhouse on the far left where the Livaks lived and the old barn across from them. In the right foreground is Burden's house (1615 High Pond Road, no longer there) and in the left foreground on the road is a cabin that is still there. Missing are the two short rope tows for tots between the restaurant and the base building. Walker Pond is shown with two skaters and the warming hut. Not mentioned were a 30-meter ski jump and the 15 miles of cross-country ski trails opened in 1967.

The Platter Pull lift had been replaced in 1963 with a new Doppelmayr T-bar.

Photos of the ski area from this timeframe:

During the Livaks' tenure, there were always events going on for area families. One of the most popular was the Lollipop Races, usually short 10-gate slalom races on one of the trails. The papers carried the names of the winners, usually in two classes — seniors and juniors — as in the clipping below from 1962:

In addition to the two Livak brothers — Andy and Mike — those most often in the top five included brothers Mike & Pete Breen, brothers Brian & Ricky Rivers, sisters Lucinda, Heather & Laurie Masterton, Gary Unger, Gail Benware, Mike Lewis, Bonnie Blittersdorf, Jeff Peck and Holly Breen.

In 1975, the Livaks left and Dennis McPadden took over as manager of the ski area. He leased the area from Burden.

McPadden advertised in the 1976 and 1977 seasons:

Despite the appeal of low rates and the family atmosphere, High Pond suffered financially from competition with the bigger areas and especially from rising insurance rates.

In 1978, Burden closed High Pond at the same time a number of other small areas were forced to close because of high insurance rates.

Death of Douglas Burden

Only a few months after making the statement above about reopening, W. Douglas Burden died of pancreatic cancer at age 80 at his home in Charlotte on November 14, 1978. He was buried in Grandview Cemetery in Charlotte beside his third wife, Jeanne.

Burden's son Chris inherited the High Pond property.

High Pond would remain closed until 1982. That year, Chris and Nancy Burden decided to reopen. From a Vermont Life article entitled "High Spirits and High Hopes at High Pond" in the Winter of 1983 issue:

The Burdens hired John and Sherry Armitage, both of whom had grown up on High Pond Road and skied there as kids, to manage the area. The Armitages jumped right in, doing their best to reignite the idyllic family atmosphere, focusing on a children's learning program.

A volunteer ski patrol team was set up with even Chris Livak coming back to join it. He brought his father back, too. Andy was thrilled:

The Armitages got the Brandon Chamber of Commerce to run buses to the area on the weekends again and proposed to the Otter Valley School Board free skiing for the alpine and nordic ski teams. Unfortunately, OV was in a budget crunch and had already cut the alpine team the year before. Now they went further to cut the nordic team.

Despite the adversity and continued competition from bigger areas, the Armitages were able to keep High Pond open for three seasons. However, after a Winter Carnival on February 16th, the area faltered and finally closed again after the 1984-85 season.

Although the ski area was closed, they allowed cross-country skiers for a few years. In 1999, Chris Burden sold High Pond to Kristian Srb of Southampton, N.Y., for $920,000. There were three parcels — 233 acres in Hubbardton including the farmhouse, barn, ski area and Walker Pond, 39 acres along High Pond Road in Sudbury and 36 acres also along High Pond Road in Brandon, for a total of 308 acres.

Kristian Srb (1999-2016)

Kristian Srb was 44 when he bought the High Pond property in 1999. He would own it for the next seventeen years. He was born in 1955 in Munich, Germany the son of a German businessman who owned the Munich-based knitwear manufacturing company SRB (which was named after him). Kristian's mother, who was Swedish, worked as a designer managing the SRB knitwear factory.

Kristian Srb says they had already looked at more than a dozen properties in 1999 when the realtor finally took them out to High Pond. The road was bumpy and there wasn't much along the way until they drove up the last hill and the sun came out lighting up the reds, oranges and yellows of the beautiful fall foliage as they arrived. They were then invited in by Chris Burden and his family and hit it off "like old friends." They knew then that they had to buy the property, which they did within three months.

The Srb family lived in Southampton, N.Y., but used the property for summer and winter vacations. Kristian, now 71, says: "We had snowmobiles and four wheelers for kids and friends. We really enjoyed the short time we could spend up in Vermont."

Kristian had a friend named Bob Bjorklund who was mechanically inclined and got the 1962 Doppelmayr T-bar lift running again and cleared three trails (the Chute, Sugar Run and the Race), so the Srb family and friends could ski when there was enough snow. The snow-making equipment no longer worked, so sometimes they had to go to Killington or Pico.

The Srb family lived in the house at 1615 High Pond Road that Doug Burden had built located off a long driveway above the pond. In the old farmhouse at 1374 High Pond Road where the Livaks and other managers had lived, the year-round caretakers now lived.

Coliene Moore

In fact, Coliene Moore and her husband, John Landrigan, were hired as caretakers back in 1983 by Chris Burden and continued on with the Srbs. Coliene was 26 and John was 30.

Bob Bjorklund had actually started working for them back in 1984, clearing and mowing fields.

From Coliene's recent obituary:

"Four years later [1987], their son Dane was born. Coliene knew and understood that this environment, with its pristine ponds and lakes, brooks, forests, meadows and even an actual ski slope in their backyard was the perfect environment to raise her son. She was right. Dane thrived in this environment and she always put him first, supporting his many endeavors like cross-country track, martial arts, skiing, and nature."

Coliene was a talented artist who made her living crafting unique handwrought jewelry as a silversmith and goldsmith. In 1999, she was one of 12 artists who founded the Brandon Art Guild (BAG). She was a key member most of the rest of her life, assuming the role as head director for a few years and selling unique creations to many Brandonites and others.

Toward the end of Kristian Srb's ownership, the ski area buildings sat there unused, the lift stopped and the trails slowly grew over with trees.

The 2,200 acres surrounding Srb's land was now run by the Vermont Land Conservancy (Doug Burden had donated it back in 1965). Hikers were allowed, as were environmental scientists. In 2014, it was opened up for deer hunting by permission. The Audubon Society also had a youth camp there for many years.

On July 27, 2016, Kristian Srb sold the 308-acre High Pond property to Dartley Investments, LLC for $1,100,000. They loved it and didn't want to sell, but it was getting hard to justify.

Amongst the Heavens

A month before the deeds were signed, a large auction of many items on the property was held there.

The ad writer added an appropriate phrase describing High Pond: "The property is amongst the heavens." I'm sure the Burdens, the Livaks, the Srbs, Coliene and Dane Moore, the Dartleys and anyone lucky enough to live there or ski there would all agree!

Auctioned items included a long list of furniture and personal items, as well as an SUV, two ATVs and a snowmobile. One notable item was a "High Pond Farm sign."

The Dartleys Buy High Pond

On the coldest day of the year in February of 2016, Nancy and Peter Dartley, who had been married for 48 years, came to see the High Pond property for the first time.

"And that's the day we decided to buy it," Nancy said. "We fell in love with it."

The Dartleys, who live in Manhattan, have been escaping to Vermont for more than 40 years and bought a house in Ludlow in 1981. Their son Christopher, an avid snowboarder and arborist who was looking for a farm, was the one who found the High Pond property and urged his parents to have a look.

Peter Dartley, then 71, is the former managing director of the now-defunct Pequot Capital Management, Inc., one of the world's largest hedge funds in the 1990s. He and his wife also operate the Dartley Charitable Trust based in Wilton, Conn., an arts, culture and humanities non-profit that held $4.32 million.

The Dartleys bought the 300-acre property from Kristian Srb for $1.1 million on July 27, 2016. Word got out soon about their purchase and plans to restore all the ski area buildings, install a new Leitner-Poma T-bar, and reopen the area.

Most of the excitement was around speculation that the ski area was going to be reopened to the public. But that was never the Dartleys' plan.

"We have no expertise and no one in the family has an interest in doing that," he says. "It's also prohibitively expensive for insurance purposes.".

The McKernon Group of Brandon was hired to do the construction and they did an authentic restoration of the Terminal Building, Alpine Restaurant and other buildings.

Once the locals and the ski community learned it was a private area, most were disappointed they couldn't ski there. But, they were happy to see it restored pretty much to its original look, amongst the heavens.