Christine Thomas-Snell and Bill Snell have sold Tourterelle Restaurant and the five-acre property at 3629 Ethan Allen Highway in New Haven to Shelby Mosello and her husband, Austin Ping. The new owners do not have a hospitality background but have been working at Tourterelle since September to “understand the day-to-day and to confirm we were all in,” Mosello said. They closed the deal for $2 million — with the investment support of Mosello’s father, Mark — on November 21.
The sale includes the historic building with a six-bedroom upstairs guest suite and outbuildings such as a large, all-season event barn, which is used for about two dozen weddings a year. Thomas-Snell will work closely with the new owners for a year as part of the agreement.
The Snells moved to Vermont from Brooklyn and opened Tourterelle in 2009. Snell, a chef, ran the kitchen while Thomas-Snell managed the front of house. He stepped back from running the kitchen about eight years ago, when chef Tom Morris took over. The restaurant and inn suffered a fire in 2020, which entailed a major renovation. In 2022, the Snells divorced, leaving Thomas-Snell the on-site operator of the business.
Mosello, 30, and Ping, 31, met in 2018 working at a summer camp in New Hampshire. They lived briefly in Winooski during the pandemic before moving to Aspen, Colo., where Mosello worked as a camp director and for a nonprofit and Ping was a luxury-property manager. The couple married a year ago in Vermont and sought out a Green Mountain business to run together.
Mosello said the couple do not plan any major changes at Tourterelle. Morris will continue to lead the restaurant kitchen, serving dinner five nights a week.
This article appears in Dec 10-16 2025.
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