Although long a private dwelling, the two-story, wood-frame former Eagle Tavern is the most stylish eighteenth-century tavern and inn extant in Vermont (the claims of many other inns actually dating from after 1800 notwithstanding). Originally a pre-Revolutionary tavern, reputedly a meeting place of the Green Mountain Boys, about 1790 the tavern was remodeled into its present enlarged form. It has a broad hipped roof that shelters a monumental portico on two sides supported by twelve irregularly spaced slender columns, each originally made from a single spruce log. Facing the green, the main entrance has a wide doorway framed by fluted pilasters, sidelights, and a broad pediment with dentil course, in keeping with other local vernacular Georgian designs. Despite much rearranging and twentieth-century “restoration,” the second-floor ballroom remains intact.
House (Eagle Tavern)
Photograph by Curtis B. Johnson, C. B. Johnson Photography
House (Eagle Tavern)
c. 1790. The Green at VT 140, East Poultney village