Our story

It starts
at the pond.

Fifty years on a Vermont hillside — a builder, a gardener, and the pond they made a life around.

Our story

A builder, a gardener, and a pond.

Blake Traendly came to Vermont in 1972 and met Aletta. What followed was a fifty year collaboration. He worked in wood, she worked in soil, and this place is what the two of them made of a brook, a hillside, and a stand of spruce.

Blake raised the house and the shop board by board, and out of that shop came custom homes and furniture for half the valley. His best friend Tim Matson, the premiere pond architect in this corner of Vermont, helped him shape the pond. At its edge Blake built a sauna, one of his original pieces of work.

Aletta grew everything around it. The beds that ring the pond and follow the lawn down from the porch are forty years of her hands: lupines, poppies, bee balm, blueberries for whoever gets there first. Blake built the buildings. Aletta made them a place you want to stay.

Together they raised three boys and two girls here, on Miller Pond Road in Strafford. The pond up the road gives the brook its water, the brook fills the family pond, and the company takes its name from that whole path down. Every barrel is still built in his shop and fired beside her gardens before it ships.

We are the Traendly family. Welcome to Miller Pond.

Come sit by the pond

The builder

Black and white photograph of a young Blake Traendly standing proudly beside the tall gambrel-roofed house he built — Blake at the house he built

A faded color photograph from the early 1970s of friends raising the shop's timber frame in a Vermont field, a green pickup truck behind them — Raising the shop, early 1970s

The gardener

Aletta smiling among tall green vines and leaves in her garden — Aletta in her gardens

A bed crowded with daisies, bee balm, and orange blooms in full June sun — Forty years of beds, in June

Together

A warm faded photograph of Blake and Aletta laughing on their wedding day, spruce trees and guests behind them — Blake and Aletta, the wedding day

Black and white photograph of the gambrel-roofed house standing on posts among young spruce trees — The house by the brook

The land

The brook running clear over stones beside the house, thick green summer banks on both sides — The brook by the house

Purple lupines and orange poppies blooming thickly in the gardens — Lupines and poppies, June

Blake's shop today, weathered board walls and a rusted metal roof in full summer sun, Aletta's gardens and a young tree on the lawn out front — The shop today

Still here

Two family members grinning behind an enormous woodpile on a sunny fall day — Stacking season at the shop

Aletta with her five grown children gathered on the deck in front of the gardens — All five, home on the deck

The camera roll

One more walk around.

The wooden dock reaching into the still green pond, woodsmoke drifting on the far bank and a dog watching from the grass — The dock, midsummer

Blake's shop in full summer, weathered boards and a rusted metal roof rising behind a thick bank of lupines and flowering gardens — The shop in summer

Splitting firewood barefoot beside the pond, Adirondack chairs and the red shed behind — Splitting by the pond

The green hollow in high summer, garden beds running down toward a bench under the hillside — High summer in the hollow

A glass of columbine, zinnias, and Queen Anne's lace cut from the gardens, set on the porch rail — From the beds, June

The gray cat sitting watch among primroses and iris leaves — The groundskeeper

A little girl with a big basket picking blueberries, the dog supervising behind her — Blueberry duty

The gardens and lawn in low golden evening light in August — August, seven o'clock

The clay chiminea standing by the pond, the red shed reflected in the water — Evenings by the water

Looking out from the weathered dock boards across the green pond, the far bank mirrored in the still water — Out from the dock

Miller Pond itself under a deep blue September sky, evergreens mirrored in the glassy water — Miller Pond, up the road

The pond edge going gold and orange in early fall — The pond going gold

Three family members carrying splits under the apple tree on a bright fall day — Wood day, all hands

A long woodpile rising beside the shop's metal roof, the dog inspecting the spill of splits — The stack going up

A kid grinning flat on her back in a pile of fall leaves — Leaf pile season

The shop with its metal roof catching low sun through bare November branches — The shop, stick season

The historic white Town House of Strafford, Vermont, steeple against a deep blue sky on its leafy hill — The Town House in Strafford, our town

Mud season from the porch rail, bare trees, a patch of old snow, and the red shed — Mud season from the porch

Long evening light striping the lawn under the maples in early June — Long light, early June

The dark wood shop with its rusted metal roof beside the gravel drive — Up the drive