The last living von Trapp child still helps run the family resort in the mountains of New England – a little piece of Austria inspired by The Sound of Music.

In the rolling meadows and snow-dusted peaks of Stowe, Vermont, 86-year-old Johannes von Trapp child still helps run the lodge his mother, Maria von Trapp, founded 75 years ago after the family fled Nazi-occupied Salzburg.

As his daughter Kristina von Trapp Frame recalls, Maria spotted a dilapidated farmhouse with a "For Sale" sign in 1942. "We can't replicate the views, but we can fix the house," Kristina says her grandmother told the family. That view, stretching across Vermont's Green Mountains, reminded them of the Austrian Alps they'd left behind.

This year, the von Trapp Family Lodge & Resort celebrates its 75th anniversary – and the last living von Trapp child still lives part-time on the property. Johannes splits his days between the Green Mountains and his cattle ranch in New Mexico, while Kristina and her husband manage the sprawling 2,600-acre estate. Guests can hike through wildflower fields dotted with Highland cows, sip maple syrup made in the lodge's sugar shack or sample Austrian-style lagers brewed on site. In winter, skiers glide along the trails of North America's first commercial cross-country ski centre, which Johannes established in 1968.

The von Trapps immigrated to the US in 1942 – five years before Maria's husband Georg passed away – and purchased the Stowe farmhouse with their meagre earnings from their family's famous singing group, the Trapp Family Singers. By 1950, Maria had converted the farmhouse into a 27-room lodge, which Johannes took over in 1969, expanding the property after a fire in 1983.

Maria infused the lodge with gemütlichkeit – that uniquely Austrian spirit of warmth, friendliness and good cheer. In fact, the main building, with its steeply pitched roofs, flower-box balconies and endless mountain views, feels more Austrian than New England. Inside, visitors linger over coffee and strudel at the Austrian-themed Kaffeehaus, or settle in at the von Trapp Brewing Bierhall, where sausages and Bavarian pretzels pair with the family's Jubilee Grüner Veltliner, produced to mark the anniversary.

Despite its fame, little at the resort hints that this family inspired one of the most-watched musicals of all time, based on the 1949 autobiography of Maria von Trapp. Because Disney holds the rights, no official imagery from The Sound of Music can be found here. Instead, the family honours its real legacy: the story of the Trapp Family Singers, who toured internationally for two decades.

"I call the movie my sci-fi parallel universe family," says Kristina. "It helps people realise how different the movie was from my family's life. It was filmed in different locations than where my family lived and the children had different names and sang different songs."

Still, she loves meeting nostalgic Sound of Music fans at the Vermont lodge. "Someone once told me how their family member passed away and........

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