Sudbury, VT 05733(Rutland County)

The property is located in Sudbury (population 580), in a rural area of west-central Vermont, where scattered homes are situated along the town roads interspersed with small farms. The property's location offers abundant access to water resources, with many lakes and ponds nearby, including Beebe Pond, Echo Lake, Lake Hortonia, Hinkom Pond, and Sunset Lake. The property's eastern boundary is just short of Otter Creek, which is the longest river entirely contained within the borders of Vermont and runs for roughly 112 miles, flowing into Lake Champlain.

The hamlet of Sudbury is located at the junctions of Routes 73 and 30 (3.3 miles from the property). The largest nearby village is Brandon which is a 4.5-Mile drive to the east. Brandon has a vibrant main street with various inns, shops, restaurants, and a community of fine homes. Burlington is a 70-minute drive to the north. Rutland, Vermont's second-largest city, is a 30-minute drive to the south, with Killington Ski Resort a 45-minute drive away, and Boston is a 3.25-Hour drive to the southeast.

Access

The property benefits from +/-1,595' of paved frontage along Route 73, east to west travel corridor that runs from Rochester in the east, traverses over the Green Mountain Range at Brandon Gap and ends to the west at the Ticonderoga, NY ferry crossing.

An established, gated driveway exists along Route 73, which leads to an internal access road that runs nearly 2,085'. This road is drivable for passenger cars and ends at a meadow near the center of the property where the camp is located.

Well-used woods trails run throughout the property, including a trail leading to Bald Hill's top.

Site Description

The property's terrain is generally quite variable and undulating, with many short hillsides, valleys, and hilltop peaks. Two hilltops exist on the land. Miller Hill (elevation 653') is located just to the right, entering the land along the internal access road. The more prominent Bald Hill (elevation 713') sits near the center of the land and has a classic level top with moderate to steep slopes leading to the peak on all sides (essentially a round, circular hill). A woods trail winds its way to the peak while passing various rock outcrops.

Site evidence of old stone walls, stone piles, and wire fencing indicates that nearly the entire property was once cleared for pasture. It also appears that the northwestern section of the land was once used as a sugarbush. The low point of the property (elevation of 360') is along the eastern end of the land. It exists as a forested wetland, geographically part of the adjacent Brandon Swamp Wildlife Management Area.

The entire property is forested, with the exception of a meadow at the center of the land and another meadow at the property's western end. Over the last many decades, the land has been used for long-term forest management and recreation, which combined has created many easily usable trails that run through most areas of the land.

Timber

The seller has owned the property since 1972 and has conducted sustainable forest management activities during their ownership tenure. The forest resource is quite variable with many species and age classes. All forest stands are fully stocked and characterized by hardwood areas, softwood areas, and units of mixed species. The hardwoods are primarily maple, oak, ash, black birch, basswood, and hickory, while the softwood areas are dominated by white pine, cedar, and hemlock. The white cedar is largely clustered on the north and eastern upper slopes of Bald Hill, representing a fine example of a cedar stand of mixed species with an average age of +/-60 years. Stand 2 is sugar maple stand with oak and other minor species. The property's forest management plan delineates 10 forest stands and offers good details about the stocking, species composition, estimated age classes, history of use, and future prescribed silvicultural activities. Much of the forest is scheduled to be thinned in the coming years. The plan date is 2016 and none of the prescribed forest activities have been conducted to date. A copy of the forest management plan is available upon request.

House/Buildings

A hunting camp exists on the land, located adjacent to the meadow at the property's center. The camp is currently leased on an annual basis (details of the lease are available upon request).

While the meadow near the camp offers an attractive, private location to build a future home, many other possible sites exist, including gently sloping terrain just west of Bald Hill and on the southern shoulder of Bald Hill within a sugar maple stand. In addition, electric power exists along the land's road frontage.