Vermont commune vibes from photographer Peter Simon. Simon (brother of Carly and son of the founder of Simon & Schuster) started Tree Frog Commune in 1970 with Harry Saxman, after they bought an 80-acre farm down the road from Total Loss Farm for $62,500. It was located in Guilford, VT, just over the Massachusetts line, and had a looser “gentleman farmer” vibe than the more hard-core communes further north.
Tree Frog Commune only lasted a few years. After he sold the farm, Simon bought a shack in Gay Head (now Aquinnah) on Martha’s Vineyard, and was married to his wife Ronni on the Gay Head cliffs in a ceremony officiated by Ram Dass.
Hard to get an exact count but Vermont had probably around 200 communes at one point, making it one of the highest per-capita concentrations of communes in the country, with names like New Morning, Wooden Shoe, Toad Hall, Mullein Hill and Pie in the Sky.
