Middlebury’s Snowbowl Restores its Original Base Lodge

In 1938, four years after the first trails were cut at Middlebury College’s Snowbowl in Hancock, volunteers teamed up with the Civilian Conservation Corps to build a log cabin that became the downhill ski area’s first base lodge. Named for Richard Hubbard, an alumni member of that construction crew who became the school’s first Alpine ski coach, it served as the lodge until 1962 — when the modernist Neil Starr Shelter, with its triangular footprint and soaring, three-story wall of windows, filled that role. Modest Hubbard Cabin went on to house a rotating cast of people, organizations and wildlife before, ever so slowly, starting to sink. It stood on a wetland, Snowbowl general manager Kim Essensa said, “literally in a swamp.” Its roof sagged. A two-foot hump rose in the middle of the floor. Gaping holes appeared between logs; the doors and windows wouldn’t shut. When Essensa was hired in 2024, one of the first decisions she was asked to make was what to do with Hubbard Cabin.

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