Craftsbury Inn (Scott House)

During the second quarter of the nineteenth century, Craftsbury village, or South Craftsbury, developed around a mill site on the Black River, on the road to Craftsbury Common several miles up the hill to the north. Among the successful merchants whose stores soon put the common out of business was Amasa Scott, who sold general merchandise in a shop on the main street. He erected this imposing wood-frame Greek Revival house that has a Georgian plan and a roof that extends to shelter monumental porticos on its south eaves-entrance side and its gable end facing the street. The box columns and matching corner and entrance pilasters are enlivened in a vernacular manner with narrower vertical face boards spaced to create a paneled appearance and bold incised corners. A hipped square cupola with corner pilasters that matched cupolas on a shop one door south and on the town hall two doors north have all since been removed; Scott constructed and donated the town hall c. 1860. After Scott's time, his house had many uses before it was restored as an inn during the second half of the twentieth century.