Route to a Million Dollar View - Corner of Elm and School Streets

Here, where Elm and School Streets intersect, is a brick building that’s had a corner store in it for as long as anyone can remember, and that’s going back to the 1800s. On the diagonal corner is a house set on a slope with several flights of stone steps leading to its front door. It doesn’t look as old as it is, but it was built in the early 1800s and the entire area that encompasses the corner house and the Victorian next to it was once a single estate that had a croquet court on the lower part of the lawn.

If you are game for a short but steep hike, next to that Victorian house is Hillside Avenue, which leads to Cliff Street, which will take you to one of the most-photographed views of Montpelier. You may have seen it featured in some website story about us. It seems to have become the go-to photo for any story about the city, but that’s really only been in the last few years. I know the first time many of us saw this view, it was in a photo featuring a gorgeously twilit scene filled with church steeples in a town surrounded by forested hills, and we said “Oh, how beautiful! Where is it?”

Hillside Avenue and Cliff Streets are not extremely busy, but you do need to take care on the hike because there are no sidewalks. If you were to continue past the viewpoint, you’d come to a sign directing you to another of the many entrances to Hubbard Park.

Tour #4 Extended Loop Walkers Exit Here!
Back down here at this four-way intersection, we have also reached the point where you can continue the mini-loop tour or switch to Tour #4, which continues straight up Elm Street and connects to Main Street farther up. The list of stops for Tour #4 will tell you what’s in store along that route.

For those of us staying on the mini-loop, we’ll turn right here and cross the bridge over the North Branch of the Winooski River.