Our Project

The Foote Farm Project is about conservation in its truest sense, saving what is of value. It is about two cousins' effort to conserve a Vermont farm of 330 acres that has been owned by our family for over two hundred years. The project is about creating home sites that represent the best Vermont has to offer, the sale of which will allow us to improve and conserve the open farmland for its agricultural use, preserve the farm's culturally significant homestead, and to maintain the land's beauty for everyone. We mean The Foote Farm Project to be a model for the growth of Vermont.

Foote Farm - Residential Sites is a planned residential development located in Cornwall Vermont, 10 miles from Lake Champlain and five minutes from Middlebury College. The sites are carved into the farm's woodland, invisible from the main road, each secluded from its neighbors. Every site is unique, offering its own natural landscape and its own feeling of Vermont. Each home-site is fully prepared to accommodate the construction of a house built in a classic architectural form, with ready access to utilities and a state of the art septic system.

For many, The Foote Farm offers a way back to Vermont. To others it is an introduction to what we feel is the best of Vermont. A carefully planned and controlled residential environment, a wooded, rural setting minutes from Middlebury College - The Foote Farm is a unique opportunity for those who are returning to an area they know well, as well as for those discovering for the first time the value of life in Vermont. To retain the quality of life we enjoy here, the development of Vermont real estate must be enacted with the greatest care. We encourage those interested in Vermont life to contact us.

What we're trying to preserve:

The Land's Use: In guaranteeing that the farmland surrounding the home-sites will remain in agricultural use we are encouraging farmers to think and act creatively with land they know will be available in the long term. To preserve the Vermont family farm our farmers have to diversify in order to thrive. Successful dairy farms are of a scale that will continue to grow in size and to decrease in number. The Foote Farm Project provides the assurance that the land that has historically been used for farming will remain in agricultural use. Given that assurance we believe small independent farmers will be encouraged to look beyond traditional dairy farming for their livelihood and embark on new agricultural ventures, such as organic farming. Keeping our land open is a necessity if we are to conserve the character of Vermont, but to accomplish this we need to work together to make our agricultural land economically viable. We believe our plan has merit, and want to be part of this cooperative effort.

The Land's Visual Character: The Foote Farm Project aims to preserve the beauty of its land. It's our belief that Vermont loses its character when it is developed in the easiest and least expensive way possible: breaking up open agricultural land to build homes spaced out close to roadsides, thus significantly and forever changing Vermont. It's our intent to provide the most desirable building sites we can: quiet, invisible from the roadside, insulated from neighbors, and surrounded by the beauty of the quiet woods. The lots are far more difficult to develop in this manner, but they are of infinitely greater value.

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