I walked over and introduced myself hoping that the man would have some information on the place. Just when I was about to give up and leave, I spotted a cute golden retriever walking alongside a man who was pushing a lawnmower in the little garden next to the store. I peered in the window but could not see much through the dusty glass except for a small chalkboard sign that said “Wednesday night is half price pizza night.” There was a community bulletin board in front of the store with a few notes and ads casually pinned on. I got out of the car and walked toward the store. There was a “Sorry, we’re closed” sign casually slung on the front door, and yet the house still felt lived in somehow. It was a small, butter-yellow cottage with a red roof by the side of Main Street. The Hapgood General Store was surprisingly easy to spot. Once we saw sign for Peru, we turned left onto Main Street, passed the village cemetery, a small post office, and finally found our second destination. With our GPS turned on, we drove through the Green Mountain National Forest on the long and winding road of Route 11. Hapgood General Store was in Peru, Vermont, about 11 miles northeast of Manchester. sold her jars of baby apple sauce to out-of-town visitors. Our next stop in Vermont after Grange Hall was the Hapgood General Store where J.C. happily danced the night away with her romantic country doctor, portrayed by the very tall and subtly handsome Sam Shepard. I could almost hear the music streaming out the front door as J.C. But somehow standing in front of Grange Hall was still magical enough for me. It looked nothing like it did in the movie years ago. Today, Grange Hall housed a ballet school. In the movie, Grange Hall was the setting of the dance at the Maple Syrup Festival. Equinox Grange” in black metal lettering discreetly tacked on the front. Shortly after the turn, we arrived at our destination, a small, unassuming white building on the right with “Mt. With map in hand, we drove through historic Manchester Village on Route 7A, passed Northshire Bookstore the town’s favorite gathering spot, and made a left on Memorial Avenue. She gave us directions on how to get to Grange Hall while duly warning us that it was “not much to look at now.” The nice lady with silver hair working at the front desk knew the answer right away. Nancy walked to the nearby Equinox Resort heading straight for its concierge desk. After spending close to an hour googling for its address on our mobile phones, my friend (let’s call her Nancy Drew since she was as resourceful as Nancy herself - if not more so) decided to ask someone in town instead. We started off with Grange Hall which was almost impossible to find. Thanks to my friend’s sleuthing talent, we managed to find the addresses of two of the locations in Vermont where Baby Boom was filmed: Grange Hall in Manchester, and the Hapgood General Store in Peru (not the country). So to say that I was excited to be in Vermont, one of the main filming locations of the movie, was an understatement. Baby Boom came out in 1987 and earned favorable reviews from critics and audiences everywhere. turned her life upside down after she inherited a baby from a distant relative and moved to Vermont. The movie in question was Baby Boom, a film about a successful, career woman named J.C., charmingly played by Diane Keaton. Instead, it was my adventures while tracking down the filming locations of one of my favorite movies that topped even the New England foliage for me. But the most memorable part of the trip this year had nothing to do with the New England’s fall colors. As luck would have it, the weather was beautiful and the foliage was still at its peak. Last week, I had a chance to visit Vermont on my annual fall trip to New England.
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