EAST HARDWICK – Wanting to create energy-efficient housing at an affordable price and give new life to an historic building, Erich Stephens, the owner of 64 Main Street, initially worked with the Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development to obtain state tax credits for the project. The tax credits were available as a consequence of East Hardwick’s designation as a Village Center, an effort undertaken by the East Hardwick Neighborhood Organization and the town of Hardwick. The project was also supported by Rural Edge, the Division for Historic Preservation and Efficiency Vermont.
Stephens was committed to using local talent in the project. Much of the work was done by people and companies in East Hardwick and Hardwick, with others in nearby towns playing a part in the complex project.
Initial designs were developed by architect Patrick Kane of East Hardwick, then Ray Boutin of Wolcott did the construction drawings.
More East Hardwick residents contributed, with Christopher Bright doing carpentry on the project. Richard and Savanna Clark worked on it too.
Hardwick Engineer Patrick Larson, of Larsen Applied Earth Science designed the septic system, of which Stephens said, “the septic was important to the project happening at all, so Patrick was a key person in the overall success.”
Hardwick residents Jack and Jeremy Kaufmann did the plumbing.
The excavation was done by Jeffrey Perry of Hardwick’s Brian Perry & Sons Construction.
Another Hardwick company, Dailey Painting, did the painting. Their motto is “We like to take run down homes and turn them into beautiful pieces of art.”
Stephens couldn’t find a local electrician but did find David Wyman in nearby Jeffersonville.
Matt Sharpe, senior engineering consultant at Efficiency Vermont, who worked closely with the 64 Main Street Project, provided the following statement. “Efficiency Vermont is proud to be among the partners involved with rehabbing a historic East Hardwick building into efficient housing. Enabling these new East Hardwick apartments to be all-electric will provide affordable, year-round comfort for residents, and came about through a great collaboration between Efficiency Vermont, 3E Thermal, and the project manager and owner, Erich Stephens. Helping property owners update their buildings to save energy and keep energy bills low are all part of Efficiency Vermont’s efforts to ensure everyone can share the benefits of clean technology.”
Stephens also partnered with Rural Edge, the non-profit housing organization serving the Northeast Kingdom, which provided a grant of $150,000 to assist with the renovations. Along with developing, owning, and operating almost 800 residential rental units across the Northeast Kingdom, RuralEdge operates a Homeownership Center, which administers the Vermont Housing Improvement Program (VHIP), assisting private landlords in bringing vacant units back on-line by providing grants for unit rehabilitation and construction. To date, RuralEdge has funded 99 privately-owned units across the Northeast Kingdom since the inception of VHIP in 2022.
Wendy Moran, the director of Homeownership, said “RuralEdge understands the importance of quality rental units in small communities like East Hardwick. By partnering with landlords like Stephens, we can leverage resources and assist local property owners in making costly capital investments in their buildings while enhancing the overall community. We are so impressed with the renovations completed [by Stephens] and encourage other interested landlords to reach out to us if they would like to pursue similar projects.”
In all, it took planning, a respect for the historic architecture of the village, local contractors, state programs and lots of sweat equity to create three new apartments while preserving the historic village house in East Hardwick.
ed. note: A further rewrite on August 12 at 12:30 p.m. replaced the second paragraph with paragraphs two through nine to incorporate additional information the author received from Erich Stephens emphasizing the efforts he made to use local help.
ed. note: This story was corrected August 7 at roughly 10 p.m.to indicate Tom Dailey’s company Dailey Painting did the painting, rather than Dailey himself.
