Windridge History and Philosophy

Ted Hoehn

Co-founder, Windridge Tennis Camp, 1968

Ted grew up with a racquet in his hand as the son of Red Hoehn, the Dartmouth College tennis and squash coach. He played his first tournament at age seven and went on to be ranked number one in New England in the 13, 15, and 18-and-under divisions. After a standout college career at the University of North Carolina, playing #2 singles and #1 doubles for the Tar Heels, Ted decided tennis would be his life’s work.

At 25, Ted was the New England Men’s Singles Champion and at a crossroads: pursue the professional circuit, as tennis was just becoming “Open” and offering prize money, or follow his father into teaching. When a letter arrived from Alden Bryan in the fall of 1967 proposing a summer tennis camp, Ted didn’t hesitate. It was an offer too good to pass up, and the start of a partnership that would shape Vermont summers for generations. Read more about Ted.

Alden Bryan

Co-founder, Windridge Tennis Camp, 1968

Alden Bryan was a well-known Vermont landscape artist, businessman, and avid tennis player who played on the tennis team at Harvard. In the mid-1960s, he built the first indoor tennis club in Vermont, along with two outdoor clay courts in Jeffersonville, at the base of what was fast becoming a popular ski destination near Smugglers’ Notch.

The courts were packed in winter and quiet all summer, a problem that looked to Alden like an opportunity. When he wrote to Ted Hoehn in 1967, he was proposing more than a business partnership. He was laying the foundation for what would become one of Vermont’s most beloved summer camps.

1968: Windridge at Jeffersonville

The original Windridge was a tennis camp at the base of Smugglers’ Notch, built on Alden Bryan’s indoor club and clay courts. The first summer drew 63 campers. By its fifth year, the camp had outgrown its home entirely, growing from four courts to twenty and from six staff to more than twenty.

Windridge at Jeffersonville ran from 1968 until 1988, twenty years that established the Windridge name, the Windridge culture, and the Windridge approach to teaching tennis to young people. Everything that came after was built on this foundation.

1974: Windridge at Craftsbury Common

In 1974, a former all-girls camp on the shores of Lake Hosmer in Craftsbury Common came on the market, thirty miles northeast of Jeffersonville, with gorgeous mountain views and spectacular lake frontage. Bryan and Hoehn saw it immediately for what it was: the perfect expansion. Swimming and sailing joined the program, and fourteen clay courts were added alongside the two hard courts already there.

The property was extraordinary, with 26 buildings, including an Adirondack-style dining hall, an arts and crafts and theater building, a boathouse, an infirmary, and 20 sleeping cabins along the shoreline. It made for an idyllic setting, and Craftsbury became an instant hit. The key to its success, alongside its spectacular location, was hiring Charley Witherell as camp director. A former Jeffersonville staffer, Charley’s love of water sports, charismatic personality, and organizational skills made him the perfect person for the job. His wife, Pam, who managed the office, communications, and finances, was equally essential. They were a wonderful team.

Windridge at Craftsbury Common operated as a beloved Vermont institution through the summer of 2010, and Ted Hoehn sold the property in the spring of 2011.

1982: Windridge at Sugarbush

From 1982 to 1985, Windridge operated a third Vermont location in the Sugarbush Valley, bringing the program to one of Vermont’s most scenic regions. The Sugarbush campus offered the same tennis-focused program in a new setting and introduced a new generation of campers to the Windridge experience. It was a brief but meaningful chapter in the camp’s growth across the state.

1984: Windridge at Teela-Wooket, our home

In 1984, with both Jeffersonville and Craftsbury operating at full capacity, Windridge acquired the Teela-Wooket property in Roxbury. A former all-girls horseback riding camp, it was one of the most remarkable pieces of Vermont property a summer camp could ask for: 150 acres, nearly 100 buildings (about 70 of them sleeping cabins), a spacious dining hall, a beautiful 44-stall barn, a swimming pond, three recreation buildings, and riding rings and playing fields as far as you could see.

The vision for Teela-Wooket was something new. It would combine the horseback riding heritage the property was built around with tennis, Windridge’s signature sport, and a team sport that could bring the whole camp together. Soccer was the natural choice, as the world’s most popular sport, played by boys and girls alike. Tennis, horseback riding, and soccer became the three pillars. Electives were introduced so that friends with different interests could attend together, build their own schedules, and still spend their evenings and cabin time side by side.

In 2021, golf was added as a fourth major, and Teela-Wooket continues to evolve. But the heart of it hasn’t changed since that first summer in Roxbury: a place where serious sport and real community happen at the same time, in one of the most beautiful corners of Vermont.