Many ski resorts in the East have little more than a mountain, certainly not a charming town with a lengthy history. Stowe, however, began as a resort after the Civil War, when travelers would take the train to Waterbury, ride the trolley to Stowe, and then hire a horse-drawn carriage to bring them to the Mount Mansfield House. Atop the barren summit of Vermont's highest peak, urbanites could enjoy the views and fill their lungs with the crisp mountain air. To this day, the charm of visiting Stowe is that you can leave the mountain behind and stroll down Main Street (Route 100), past the requisite white steeple around into a village that dates back 240 years.

Perhaps no other ski area has changed more than Stowe in the past five years. After improving the trails and lifts on adjacent Spruce Peak in 2005 and 2006, Stowe Mountain Resort built houses and townhomes near the base. A golf course made its debut in 2007. That same year, a new chairlift called Over Easy connected the base lodge of Spruce Peak with the gondola at Stowe, eliminating the need for buses to run skiers back and forth between the two mountains.

Most impressive of all is the latest addition, the 139-room Stowe Mountain Lodge. This upscale resort has the feel of a Western ski lodge, especially when you enter the lobby with its two-story-high ceiling, native wood and stone embellishments, and leather couches. Stowe went overboard to use as much indigenous materials as possible, so there's real Vermont birch twisting around the columns and the marble on stairs leading to the bar comes from Lake Champlain. Come here for a weekend with the kids and you'll quickly realize it's the most luxurious ski-in, ski-out resort in the East, one that you'll want to return to during the summer and fall.

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