First floor room w/private bath available April 1st. $605/mo. including heat and electric. Call Alexis at 413-256-8815 for more information.

Bit of History:

The original farmhouse built in 1777, the traditional cape structure at the left of the photo, was purchased by Peter King in 1840 and extensively remodeled. The same year the sturdy barn behind the house was framed from trees felled on the property and notched together without a single nail. Some of the granite steps and walkways from that time are still in use today. As the extended King family prospered, large tracts of adjoining land and additional houses were built over the 1800's. Peter King again enlarged his own house in 1860, adding the right third of the house and a porch on the far side that unfortunately no longer exists. There are pictures of the family and the house archived in the historical conservation collection at the Jones Library. Flat Hills Road used to be known as King Street until about 1900, and the five oldest houses on the street where all built by members of the King family.

In and Around the Farmhouse

View from upstairs window

Dining room:

View from dining room window, looking south out through the porch:

 View from dining room window, looking north:

This 200-year-old barn was built with felled trees from the original homestead, logs trimmed and notched without a single nail to fasten the framework.

Sugar maple and apple trees planted by the King family over 200 years ago.

Stillpoint, the name of the farm, is from the poem Burnt Norton poem by T.S. Eliot:

 ...At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

...After the kingfisher's wing
Has answered light to light, and is silent, the light is still
At the still point of the turning world.

The 'stillpoint' is the meeting of opposites held in perfect balance, a wonderful evocation of the importance of place in a choatic world. And when the 'dance' referred to in the poem  is performed with a horse we call it 'dressage'--though come to think of it maybe the hunter-jumpers and the reining champs with a philosophical bent would invoke a stillpoint concept at the heart of their riding disciplines as well.

But the name Stillpoint Farm is also a bit of an inside joke, a reference to a source of income (and dubious reputation) for the North Amherst branch of the King family. In the early 1900's they distilled hard cider using an industrial-sized press housed in a mill powered by a dam built at the base of pastureland that had once been an extensive apple orchard. The old stone foundation ebedded with remnants of rusty machinary crest the top of the rise before the descent into the wetlands just beyond the far treeline (a potential 'tiger trap' for the unaware out for a midnight stroll, though in the 20 years we've lived here nobody's fallen in so far, as far as we know anyway). The five acres at the back of the farm, including Cider Mill Pond and the surrounding terrain--including the tiger trap--were purchased as conservation land by the town of Amherst in 1989, thereby connecting other nearby town-owned parcels, enabling access to several well-used trails. A new small wooden bridge coming off the southwest corner of the farm allows us to cross a stream to higher ground, circumvent the swampy lowlands to the south that used to prevent us from riding that set of trails in mud season.

View from the 371 property looking out onto the adjacent farm, #381 Flat Hills Rd., where the Connolly family lives:

The Connolly family's house was built in 1990 on a flag lot, well back from the road (so we can let the dogs out) and to the northeast of the original farmhouse. The indoor riding arena was built in 1992. The outdoor arena, built in 1998, is barely visible just beyond the fenceline centered at the base of the far treeline at the center of the photo.

A remnant of the original cowpath that used to encircle more than 200 acres of apple orchards and pastureland now serves as a link between the upper and lower barns.