The Grandview Farm, also known as the Marion Tavern, is one of Burlington’s principle architectural landmarks and is the Town’s best surviving example of a 19^th century connected farm complex.  Its highly-visible downtown location, along with its scale and complexity preserves at least one 18^th century building as well as a 17^th century building, all in an arrangement of connected houses and barns conceived around 1840. 

 Along with its architectural history, Grandview Farm upholds important associations with Burlington’s 300-year identity as a model and progressive farming community between 1640 to1940.  The Grandview Farm maintains strong associations with Burlington’s prominent Marion and McIntire families.  The Marion family acquired the property in 1840 and expanded the home to accommodate a new source of income, a stage tavern and halfway house for the center district of stagecoaches, which is credited with playing a key role in the development of Lowell as America’s model mill town.   

By 1870, Charles McIntire (1835-1908) redeveloped the property as his showpiece home, where he ran a large dairy farm. In the mid 1950’s, Mary Bernice McIntire Sleeper, the granddaughter of Charles McIntire, owned Grandview Farm.  She and her husband, Gove Sleeper, managed a farm called The Cedars: Egg and Poultry.  The McIntire’s are credited with giving the Grandview property its name, due to the farm’s altitude and the “grand view” of the White Mountains and other vistas to the west and south.  

By 1979, the property of Grandview Farm was acquired by Mr. and Mrs. Hubert Ruping.

The property has been approved for development, but because of its historical significance, the Town of Burlington and the Ruping Company have taken steps to preserve the site by partnering with an additional developer, the Gutierrez Company, to create a unique preservation solution that would protect the integrity of the farm and allow the restoration of the farmhouse.    

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