Hartford Village
“I know it was difficult at times, from securing permits and funding, working with the railroad, the demolition of buildings, the renovation of historic properties, but the results are worth it,” Scott said.
The project adds to the housing portfolio owned and administered by Twin Pines Housing Trust, which Executive Director Andrew Winter said now manages more than 400 units throughout the Upper Valley.
Winter said the demand for affordable housing continues to outstrip availability in Windsor County, where 9.1 percent of its 55,000 residents live in poverty.
Hillcrest Manor’s cupola, one of several distinctive features on the 137-year-old building, holds one of nine on-site units that provide housing for income-qualified residents.
Jeff Downing, a maintenance worker with Kendal at Hanover, and Andrew Duhamel, who works in the kitchen of the Lebanon Food Co-op, have been roommates in Hillcrest Manor for the past couple of years. Each pays a third of their income — about $370 — in rent.
During a tour, they showed off the historical woodwork and energy-efficient windows with obvious pride. Before the renovation, they said, the radiator heating system left Duhamel’s bedroom freezing and Downing’s sweltering.
Being displaced to another Twin Pines building from October 2016 to February during the work was difficult, but “it was worth it,” Duhamel said.
“Absolutely,” Downing agreed.
The larger project included work at two buildings on South Main Street, another on Christian Street and a complex on Hathaway Road in Quechee. The funds were cobbled together from a variety of sources, including $5.5 million in federal housing tax credit equity through Housing Vermont’s Green Mountain Housing Equity Fund.
According to historical records, in 1800, Capt. Josiah “Si” Tilden, who fought in the Battle of Bennington, bought the property from his father and cleared the land to build a house.
While the carpenters were building the 18-room, two-story mansion, Tilden’s wife, Elizabeth Tracy, watched as a wooden beam fell and hurt a squirrel, which she took as a bad omen. A few weeks after declaring she would never live in the house, she died.
Tilden remarried, and over the next 50 years, he raised a large family, operated a tavern and “became known as an authority on the weather,” according to a 1953 Valley News article. The house was the first structure used for formal town meetings; an adjacent barn served as the first school in the village.
After Tilden’s death, the property was acquired by Alfred Watson, who edited The Dartmouth, the school’s newspaper, before graduating from Dartmouth College in 1883. Under Watson’s stewardship, the home was praised by Gov. Allen Fletcher, of Proctorsville, Vt., who served in that office from 1912 to 1915. Fletcher said the home’s gardens were equal to any he had seen in his world travels.
While living in the house, Watson amassed a hodgepodge of credits and achievements — an avid stamp collector, he served as president of the Reservoir Ice Co., founded the Vermont Gateway Auto Co. and was a correspondent for the Boston Globe and The Associated Press.
Watson was on the school board and was town moderator for 40-plus years, and he completed five terms in the Vermont Statehouse. When Watson’s 1950 death left the house vacant, the Valley News declared it the end of an era.
“Today, it stands empty and deserted, a monument of a way of life now rapidly passing,” the article’s author wrote. “Of sturdy construction, its years of usefulness are far from over, but the economics of 20th-century living preclude its use as a single-family dwelling.”
Watson willed the property to civic groups with instructions that it be operated as a senior “convalescent home.” Those civic groups promptly placed the property up for auction and it wasn’t until 1960 that it became senior citizen housing.
Winter said the property still was providing low-income housing to seniors when Twin Pines first acquired it in 1995, and speakers on Wednesday indicated the renovation project will ensure the building’s future will be as vibrant as its past.
“The folks who are moving into these 35 homes, we’re celebrating today,” said Nancy Owens, president of Housing Vermont. “But those homes, the residents will be celebrating there, they’ll be celebrating birthdays and milestones and births and graduations. But because of our stewardship effort, and our perpetual affordability and commitment to our residents, there will be families and people in those homes for generations.”
“The Legislature deserves a lot of credit for their support passing my administration’s proposals for a $35 million housing bond,” Scott said, “because this will leverage another $65 million, making it the largest single investment in housing the state of Vermont has ever seen.”
Matt Hongoltz-Hetling can be reached at mhonghet@vnews.com or 603-727-3211.