 He named the property Twin Farms and used it as a vacation house during the 1930s and 1940s with his wife Dorothy Thompson.In 1941, German playwright Carl Zuckmayer, a refugee from Nazi Germany whom Dorothy Thompson had helped to get into the US, rented Backwoods Farm, with its farmhouse from 1783 nowadays owned by Hannah Kahn and a total , from Joseph Ward (of Maynes & Ward hardware store on Main Street in Woodstock, Vermont) for 50 dollars a month.Zuckmayer worked this property as a farmer until 1946 and wrote the play "Des Teufels General" (The Devil's General) there.