07/07/2026
One hundred years. That feels pretty remarkable.
As our country celebrates 250 years this year, it’s incredible to think that Highland Lodge has quietly been part of that story for more than a third of it. Through the Great Depression, world wars, changing generations, and an ever-evolving Greensboro, these old walls have continued to welcome people home.
In 1926, this little corner of Caspian Lake began as Highland Lodge Estates—an ambitious vision for a lakeside retreat, complete with plans for hundreds of cottages tucked into the hillsides. Then came the Great Depression, and like so many grand ideas of the era, the dream had to evolve.
It did.
In 1954, Highland Lodge as we know it today was born, and over the decades it has worn many hats: summer camp for families, cross-country ski destination, wedding venue, neighborhood gathering place, and home-away-from-home for generations who have returned to these porches, these trails, and this lake year after year.
Every chapter has been written by people who cared deeply for this place.
David and Carol Smith laid the foundation for much of what Highland Lodge would become, stewarding the property with decades of care and dedication. The next generation of children, Wilhelmina and David Smith, carried that legacy forward and, in many ways, shaped the Highland Lodge that guests know and love today. With a deep reverence for its history and an eye toward its future, they preserved the lodge’s character while thoughtfully strengthening its place in the community, ensuring it remained not just a destination, but a living tradition. Following a brief chapter under Alex Smith and his wife { SHOUT OUT TO ALEX FOR THE AWESOME HISTORIC PHOTOS DESPITE THE TIME DIFFERENCE IN JAPAN }, Highland Lodge entered its next act in 2016 under its current ownership.
Wallace Stegner perhaps captured Greensboro best when he wrote that “Greensboro’s special qualities would not be so special if the integrity of local character and customs had not met and fused with an equal integrity in its Summer visitors.” For a century, Highland Lodge has been one small part of that partnership. Every season, our guests don’t simply stay with us—they fill the restaurants, wander the galleries at the Highland Center for the Arts, spend afternoons at the Country Club, cheer beneath the big top at Circus Smirkus, browse Willey’s Store and our local shops, hire local guides and tradespeople, and support our farms, artists, and nonprofits. In doing so, they help sustain the vibrant community that has welcomed them back year after year. It’s a relationship built not just on tourism, but on stewardship, investment, and a shared love of this little corner of Vermont.
One hundred years doesn’t happen by accident. Highland Lodge has endured the Great Depression, world wars, a global pandemic, historic floods that washed away homes and parts of our region, as well as a changing climate that continues to shorten our winters and intensify our summers—reshaping the very seasons our business has relied upon for generations. Yet through every challenge, this place has continued to adapt, evolve, and welcome guests back year after year.
Since 2016, our goal hasn’t been to reinvent Highland Lodge. It’s been to honor it and carry it forward.
Chad and I often remind ourselves that we’re simply caretakers of a story much bigger than us. It’s a privilege to help write one small chapter in a place that has meant so much to so many over the last century. Some days here are magical. Others are downright exhausting. We’re learning, in real time, what it means to operate in a hospitality industry that looks nothing like it did even a decade ago. As restaurants around us navigate an increasingly difficult landscape, the old romance of hospitality has given way to one of the most demanding industries imaginable, requiring constant reinvention simply to keep the doors open. And we do it with the support of our kicka** team and awesome group of owners who believe in the vision.
We continue to adapt while remaining committed to the things that matter most to us: supporting local farms, showcasing Vermont makers and producers, creating meaningful jobs, gathering our community around the table, and welcoming guests with the same warmth Highland Lodge has offered for generations. Somehow, through it all, we find ourselves falling in love with this place even on the hardest days. Highland Lodge has become so much more than a business to us. It’s a responsibility, a privilege, and one of the greatest joys of our lives.
To everyone who has ever stayed here, worked here, celebrated here, fallen in love here, skied here, paddled here, laughed here, or simply watched the sunset over Caspian Lake from the porch—thank you for being part of Highland Lodge’s first 100 years.
Here’s to the next hundred.
Cheers,
Elsa ( and Chad )
