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Leaf peepers beware: One of Vermont’s most photographed foliage spots closed to tourists [1]
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Date: 2023-09-05
Sleepy Hollow Farm in Pomfret in 2019. Photo by Anthony Quintano/CC 2.0
Amid social media-induced traffic jams, the towns of Pomfret and Woodstock plan to close roads this fall leading to a popular foliage photo op.
Pomfret’s picturesque Sleepy Hollow Farm has featured in films and magazines for years. The property’s winding driveway leads downhill past a small pond to a weathered barn and farmhouse, backed by grassland and a wooded hillside. Photographers tend to congregate on the road looking over and above the Disneyworld version of Vermont.
But town officials say that since the advent of social media, hundreds of cars and thousands of tourists now flock to the dirt road every fall.
“It’s always been a popular foliage tourist destination, attraction, whatever you want to call it,” said John Peters Jr., chair of the Pomfret Selectboard. “People post and then everybody sees it. And then everybody wants to come see it.”
Thousands of TikToks and Instagram posts — many garnering tens of thousands of likes — have tagged the location of Sleepy Hollow Farm, which is near the Woodstock town line on Cloudland Road.
A scan of those videos and photos shows tourists adorned in pumpkin spice-kitsch: flannels and big hats, earth tones and maple leaves abound. Many crank the saturation, turning the trees dayglo.
The pilgrimage to Sleepy Hollow has become so popular, a new genre of post has emerged, with people uploading videos contrasting their expectation of the property with the snapshot hungry horde they actually find congregating at the farm. Others have taken to explaining that Sleepy Hollow is private property and will be closed to tourists this fall.
Last year, in an attempt to address traffic woes, Pomfret experimented with making Cloudland Road one-way only during peak foliage. But that failed to alleviate concerns, Peters said, and cars continued to park haphazardly along the narrow road, blocking driveways and thru-traffic in the process. Despite no-trespassing signs, visitors regularly strolled onto private property, officials have said.
So this year, Pomfret and Woodstock agreed to close Cloudland Road and Barber Hill Road around Sleepy Hollow Farm from Sept. 23 to Oct. 15, with exceptions for locals, agricultural infrastructure and emergency vehicles.
A security camera and gate are two measures meant to keep trespassers out of Sleepy Hollow Farm in Pomfret. By Ethan Weinstein/VTDigger
Pomfret’s selectboard has also approved temporary signage and movable barriers to aid the traffic changes and has asked the Windsor County Sheriff’s Department to help enforce the restrictions under the town’s existing contract with the department.
Minutes from the August selectboard meeting during which Pomfret approved the measure show some residents expressing concern that the traffic restrictions favored some residents over others and set a worrying precedent. Ultimately, the board unanimously approved the decision, adding an amendment that allowed all town residents to use the roads, rather than just those who live in the affected area.
According to Peters, Pomfret won’t spend outside its approved budget to implement the fall traffic changes. A neighborhood group led by Cathy Emmons, co-owner of Cloudland Farm, a restaurant and farm on Cloudland Road, may help fund further enforcement measures, Peters said.
While the sheriff’s department will have the ability to enforce restrictions through tickets, Peters said the goal wasn’t to issue fines, adding that he wasn’t aware of any parking tickets given in no-parking zones on the road last year.
“I just hope that people aren’t going there just to check out the situation, so to speak,” Peters said.
In the future, perhaps such strict measures won’t be necessary, he said.
“Let’s reassess after the season to see what worked and what didn’t.”
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[1] Url:
https://vtdigger.org/2023/09/05/leaf-peepers-beware-one-of-vermonts-most-photographed-foliage-spots-closed-to-tourists/
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