Waybury Inn in East Middlebury Vermont Part 1

I previously mentioned that there were two things that I had to do in Vermont.  One of those things was to visit Will Knight and to buy a piece of art work from him.  Well, I did that.  The other thing that was a total must while in Vermont was to spend some time at the Waybury Inn in East Middlebury Vermont.

Why did I have to visit this Inn you may ask.  Well, when I was growing up in western Kentucky, I loved watching the Newhart Show.  Do you remember it?  It was easily one of the funniest shows ever made.... and it was just weird too!  The show starred Bob Newhart as an author who, along with his wife played by Mary Frann, moves to Vermont to run a historic Inn.

Well, when they get to the small Vermont town, things are kind of weird.  Newhart's character becomes friends with a pathological liar, a somewhat slow handyman, an egotistical TV producer, and the inn's maid is a spoiled rich girl worth millions.  Oh, and three backwoods brothers named Larry Darryl and Darryl become breakout stars.  Like I said the show was funny, but it was weird too.  Take away the laugh track, and the shows might almost have a Twilight Zone feel to them.  Bob Newhart, the one normal guy in town, is surrounded by exaggerated characters that simply don't make sense.

The show was so brilliant.  Bob Newhart's always deadpan straight guy worked so perfectly on this series.

Over the years I have googled the show and bits of information on it.  I don't know when I found it out, but I did find a cool fact- the exterior shots of the Inn were filmed at the Waybury Inn in Vermont!


So, the Waybury Inn has been at the top of my list for some time.  As a fan of Newhart, this was one of those sites I have really wanted to visit for a while.

Its funny, when I watched the show, I always envisioned that the Inn was up on a hill, with a long drive somewhere very secluded.

Well, the Waybury Inn is close to other homes and it is close to a road.  It is on a nice little property, with a beautiful garden, but it wasn't as secluded as the Inn on the show seemed to me.  For the record, my wife disagreed with me.  She said she figured it was in a small town area, but not out in the middle of nowhere like I imagined.

We ended up spending two nights here.  AND this was a place that I wanted to spend some time just relaxing.  I wanted to enjoy all of that Newhart goodness.

We had a very nice, cozy room.  The Inn was a perfect, New England type of place.  Just being here was calming.

There are two very cool relics still at the Inn from its days on TV.


The Stratford Inn sign (that's what the Inn was called on Newhart) is proudly on display.  The Minute Man Café sign is also up in the area where we ate breakfast.  We set by it each morning.

Obviously the inside of the Inn doesn't resemble the TV Inn at all, but the interior was still very comfortable and nice.

There is a perfect downtown area nearby in Middlebury.  We found several cute little shops selling local products.  We had a nice cup of coffee at Carol's Hungry Mind Café, and we simply loved this area....