Gerald Ford slept here

Vt. hotel keeps photo spread of former president's ski trip

By John Curran, Associated Press Writer December 27, 2006

STOWE, Vt. --Gerald Ford slept here.

And skied here. And ate here. And frolicked in the snow with an attractive blonde whose name wasn't Betty.

Long before he became a congressman, an accidental president and a "Saturday Night Live" punch line, the nation's 38th president was featured in a 1940 spread in Look magazine, a copy of which hangs in the Green Mountain Inn here.

A framed display copy of the five-page pictorial, entitled "A New York girl and her Yale boy friend spend a hilarious holiday on skis," adorns a corridor wall, across a narrow hallway from the women's room; a dog-eared original is kept separately by the inn's general manager as a keepsake.

"The Inn takes great pride in the fact that Gerald Ford was here," said Patti Clark, innkeeper of the 104-room inn, showing a copy upon request Wednesday.

Ford, who died Tuesday at 93, was a fresh-faced law student when he posed for the magazine with Phyllis Brown, of New York.

"Only five years ago, if a New Yorker had suggested `Let's go skiing for the week end,' he would have been classified as a wise guy," the story begins. "Today, he gets serious attention, for ski trains have put snow-packed hills within easy reach of the metropolis."

The ensuing pages chronicle the couple's adventure, starting aboard the New Haven Railroad's "Ski Meister," which they ride north to Stowe before taking rooms at the 19th-century inn. "Trips like this cost $25 to $30 apiece--$12 to $14 for train fare, $3.50 a day for room and board in hotel or farmhouse, $5 to $10 for incidentals," according to the text lead-in.

The pictures tell the rest of the story: "Gerry" and "Phyllis" tying their skies to a taxicab for the ride to Toll House Slope, Gerry on bended knee, tending to the bindings of her ski boots, the couple ascending the mountain on a rope tow, their sleigh ride off the mountain to the Ranch House for lunch.

After skiing past dark, they repair to a piano room at the Inn. "After a hot dinner at the Inn, they loaf, sing, drink beer, dance, talk skiing -- and so to bed," one caption reads.

The pictorial ends with the two headed home, showing Ford kissing Brown goodbye before he gets off at New Haven and she continues on to New York.

While it isn't prominently displayed, the Look magazine article still attracts plenty of attention, according to Clark. "It gets to be a bottleneck, when people see it -- especially the history buffs," she said.

On Wednesday, visitor Robert Coenen, 66, of Cheshire, England, looked it over.

"Ford was a regular sort of fellow, I guess," he said. "He took over when you were in dire straits with Nixon."