What's new is the breadth and depth of shopping in this proud old town: up­ward of 50 top-brand outlet stores and another 50 or so specialty shops and artisan galleries. The region is positioning itself as a cultural center for the state with the spectacular Southern Vermont Arts Center, the Riley Rink at Hunter Park with its lengthy list of summer concerts, and two of the state's premier summer theaters, the Dorset Playhouse and the Weston Playhouse.

Manchester is also home to some of Vermont's best inns and restaurants, including one of its grandest resorts, the Equinox Resort & Spa. The white-columned, tower-topped, 183-room Equinox is as much a part of Manchester's current appeal as it was in the 1850s, the era in which the town's status as a resort was firmly established. Mrs. Abraham Lincoln and her two sons spent the summers of 1863 and '64 at the Equinox, booked again for the summer of '65, and reserved a space for the entire family the following season. The president, unfortunately, never made it.

Other presidents-Taft, Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, and Benjamin Harrison-came to stay at the Equinox, but it was Lincoln's family who adopted the village. Robert Todd Lincoln, who served as secretary of war under President Garfield, minister to Britain under Harrison, then president of the Pullman Palace Car Company, selected Manchester Village as his summer home, building Hildene, the lavish mansion that's now such an interesting place to visit. Other opulent “summer cottages” are sequestered off River Road and nearby country lanes.

Manchester Center and Village are both down in the wide Valley of Vermont, but Mount Equinox, a stray peak from New York's Taconic Range, thrusts up a full 3,800 feet from the village, rising dramatically behind its namesake hotel.

Luckily the 1930s Work Progress Administration plan to carve ski trails on Mount Equinox never panned out, and Manchester Village retains its serene, white-clapboard good looks, at least for the time being. The hotel faces the Congregational church and gold-domed Bennington Courthouse, and the few tasteful stores include a branch of Frog Hollow, Vermont's premier crafts shop. Public buildings trail off into a line of historic mansions spaced behind marble sidewalks.

Discount shopping begins 0.25 mile north in Manchester Center, a village with a different zip code and zoning. The center was “Factory Point” in the 19th century, when sawmills, marble works, and a tannery were powered by the Battenkill's flow.

Fears that the former Factory Point might become Vermont's future factory outlet capital began in the mid-1980s, with the opening of a trendy wood-and-glass shopping complex at the traffic heart of town, the junction of Rts. 7A and 11/30-known locally as “Malfunction Junction.”

The strip malls, however, haven't materialized. Instead, outlets along Rt. 7A fill old homes and house-sized compounds, blending nicely with shopping landmarks like the Orvis Retail Store, a spacious new building done in the style of a country lodge, which has been supplying the needs of fishermen and other sporting folk since 1856.

The Green Mountains rise even within Manchester town limits to 3,100 feet on the east, then roll off into heavily forested uplands punctuated by picturesque villages, all noteworthy destinations in their own right.

Click here for more information about the towns in our region.