‘Sound of Music’ Fans Will Love Vermont Hotel – ryan

While “The Sound of Music” took plenty of creative liberties with the von Trapp family’s story (no, they didn’t cross the Alps on foot), it was accurate that they left their homeland of Austria to escape the Nazi regime. The 1965 film (and the 1959 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical on which it was based) didn’t follow the von Trapps to America.

In real life, the family earned a living by performing as the Trapp Family Singers, which included all 10 of the von Trapp children (the seven kids in the movie, plus the additional three Maria and Captain von Trapp went on to have together after they married). They toured the US and Canada performing and eventually set up a home base in Stowe, where they ran a music camp while they weren’t performing. They called it Cor Unum, or “one heart” in Latin.

According to Sam von Trapp, the son of Maria and the Captain’s youngest child Johannes and executive vice president of the lodge, Maria was drawn to settle in Stowe because it reminded her of Austria.

In 1950, three years after her husband’s death, Maria and her children opened their 27-room home to guests.

It also wasn’t the first time Maria had opened up the family home to make some cash: Sam told visitors during the lodge’s Family History Talk — which I attended — that back in Austria, Maria had laid off servants, moved the family up to the servants’ quarters, and rented out rooms in their villa to guests after they lost their fortune in the 1930s.