Woodstock, Connecticut, has a pink house, and the pink house tells you a lot. Roseland Cottage was built in 1846 for Henry Bowen, a New York merchant and publisher, in a fanciful Gothic Revival style and painted a vivid rose that has never gone out of fashion. Bowen used it as a summer base and held Fourth of July celebrations on the lawn that drew four sitting presidents over the years, among them Ulysses Grant and William McKinley. It is now a museum, and the gardens and bowling alley are as charming as the house.
The rest of the village is quieter than its reputation. Woodstock sits among rolling pasture and old stone walls in what Connecticut calls the Quiet Corner, and the town has the long green, white churches and big old maples that you picture when someone says New England. Woodstock Academy, a private school dating from the nineteenth century, adds a bit of life, and in early autumn the agricultural fair draws crowds from all over the corner for rides, livestock and cider donuts.
The riding is what makes it a stop. Route 169, a National Scenic Byway, passes through, with gently curving, well-surfaced road that rises and falls over low glacial hills, with views across farmland that looks like a painting by someone who liked cows. Traffic is light, but there is a steady stream of antique shoppers and weekend cyclists, and the speed limits are strictly enforced in the villages. Autumn colour is the high point, but a clear spring morning, with apple blossom and fresh green, runs it close.
Practical help is a few miles away. The nearest town of any size is Putnam, where you will find stations, supermarkets and the antique shops it is known for. Woodstock itself has a small store or two and a few places to eat, but the cottages and farms are the main attractions, and nothing is open late. If you are touring the corner, plan on lunch in Pomfret or Putnam and stay on the byway: the side roads are narrow, with sharp turns and sometimes a gravel patch, but they are a pleasure at a gentle pace.