About the Innkeeper
Shari Brown can also be an elusive and humble creature so we are taking a moment to highlight all she does up at the Inn! As an innkeeper, Shari wears many hats. Not one to talk about herself, we resorted to asking staff for some creative titles for her. This is what we came up with:
Heart and Soul of the Inn
Titan of the Hill
Queen of the Kitchen
Magic Maker
Secret Chef
Did you know, Shari’s first experience at Blueberry Hill Inn was as a guest. She came back to work here in 1986 where she was thrown right into the kitchen as a cook and she has been drawn to and stayed involved in the kitchen magic ever since. When she first arrived, she came as a self proclaimed “24-year-old hippie who wanted to change the world”, or at least this small pocket of it.
Since her beginnings, she has always wanted to highlight place, support local farmers, and share the most hyper-local and freshest ingredients with visitors. She was pushing for local long before “local” and “farm-to-table” were trendy and she was advocating for composting way before it was law.
In 2016 she formally took over the winter season’s chef duties, then in 2019 she took over the entirety of it. Four seasons of Shari. Hence, Queen of the Kitchen. Needless to say she was delighted to have the autonomy over how and where the kitchen got their ingredients. Shari would spend a whole day driving to farms around the county and surrounding areas to find the best food and flavors to highlight for her meals. Eggs from here, pork from here, carrots from there, etc. It was a ton of work, but vital to the way she wanted to cook. Just this past Summer, Shari started using the ACORN Food Hub as a centralized place to find her farm-fresh ingredients. It has been a game changer and time-saver!
When asked to describe her cooking style and philosophy Shari said, the freshest foods stand for themselves and need little embellishment.
If you are curious about her favorite dish to make, I’m afraid that is a tough one. It’s rather a moving target since she has a penchant for variety and exploring new flavors and ideas. Most recently she has been leaning into Italian cuisines and can be found making pasta like ravioli and gnocchi. Recently Shari was describing some of her favorite events Blueberry Hill Inn has hosted over the years and the one that stood out is the annual New Years Farmhouse Dinner. This was a spectacle of an event for years involving an all out feast for the body and soul followed by a midnight ski. The community it brought together within the magic of the Vermont mountains, love, laughter, warming food and drink. It sounds like a dream of an event!
Shari has been excited to create something akin to this with slightly more frequency and to offer a space for the community to gather and appreciate good food. This is where the Saturday Farmhouse Dinners have come in. Not a typical restaurant concept, these events offer a prix fixe three-course dinner that is a chef’s choice menu making it a delightfully fun and adventurous evening.
History
Blueberry Hill Inn, nestled in the heart of the Green Mountain National Forest, has a long history of unmatched hospitality, dining, and recreation. The original house was built in 1813 and has had several additions over time. The 200+ blueberry bushes were planted in the 1940s. Elsie & John Masterton ran The Blueberry Hill Inn as an inn, restaurant, & Alpine ski area in the 50’s & 60’s. Tony Clark purchased the property from their estate in 1967 and reopened the inn in 1971, also establishing the Blueberry Hill Ski Center (now known as Blueberry Hill Outdoor Center) to focus on developing the ski trails, utilizing both private & public lands. In 1986, the inn was expanded on the back side for four new rooms with views of the spring-fed pond. Shari Brown came as a guest that summer and returned a few months later as an employee, beginning to develop the gardens that following spring. When Tony passed away in March of 2022, Shari took on the Inn and Outdoor Center operations with the ongoing support of their daughter Britta and son Oliver. Family-owned and operated since 1971, traditions of bringing people together around the table, and enjoying the outdoors continue.
