Beauty and restraint in Newfane

The Windham County Court House, in Newfane, Vt.— Photo by Daderot

The Windham County Court House, in Newfane, Vt.

— Photo by Daderot

“The glory of Newfane  {Vermont} is  in the architecture. The inn, the Grange Hall, the church, are all excellent and beautifully related to each other.  And in the center is the {Windham County} court house, a superbly proportioned reminder of a {Christopher} Wren church….Lesser communities would have one inhabitant who would proclaim his personality by painting his house yellow with green trim. With us, none does. The beauty of Newfane comes also from the beauty of its citizens.’’

-- From “Small That Is indeed Beautiful,’’ an essay by the late economist and writer John Kenneth Galbraith in Arthur Griffin’s New England: The Four Seasons (1980). Mr. Galbraith, a Harvard professor, summered in Newfane.