WOODSTOCK — The Land Use Review Board has denied the Woodstock Resort Corp.’s permit to demolish two historic homes it owns on South Street.
The decision — issued by the Springfield, Vt.-based Land Use Review Board’s District 3 Environmental Commission on Monday — found that the proposed demolition “would have an undue adverse impact with respect to these Buildings, the Inn tract, and the Woodstock Village Historic District.”
The decision came after months of testimony and pushback from residents who wanted to see the Woodstock Resort Corp., which operates the luxury Woodstock Inn & Resort in Woodstock Village, preserve the buildings at 14 and 16 South St. Both houses are part of the Woodstock Village Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Beach House, located at 14 South St., was built around 1905, and the neighboring structure at 16 South St. was built around 1840.
Last fall, the Village Development Review Board approved a zoning permit allowing the Woodstock Resort Corp. to demolish the buildings. At the time, Inn representatives told town officials last fall they planned to use the land as a green space if the buildings were demolished.
The houses were previously used for employee housing and have been vacant for more than 20 years.
It would cost an estimated $2.8 million to renovate 14 South St. and about $3.2 million to renovate 16 South St., Benjamin Pauly, director of property operations and design at the Woodstock Inn & Resort, wrote in an August 2025 letter to the Environmental Commission.
“Both structures would require complete gut rehabs,” Pauly wrote, noting that the roofs, windows, electric and plumbing systems would need to be replaced, among other issues.
The Woodstock Inn sought the commission’s approval of an amendment to its 2009 approval of the construction of the inn’s spa. The spa project involved demolishing one historic structure and moving a second one. As part of that approval, the commission stipulated that the inn “shall maintain for future use” 16 South St., and 14 South St. South Street is also known as Route 106, a state highway.
The Land Use Review Board stipulated that, in addition to maintenance work, the inn would have to inspect each building annually for “deterioration and damage” and “address and repair in a routinely timely and appropriate manner” any issues discovered during the inspections.
The 2009 decision also said that the inn would have to “submit future plans for demolition, relocation or rehabilitation of either building” to the District 3 Environmental Commission.
“We are proposing that the substantial change to the condition of project construction in terms of unforeseeable skyrocketing construction costs since covid due to economic uncertainty, building supply costs, staffing shortages, demand for building trades, and tariffs justifies the modification of the permit’s terms as it causes the project to not be prudent, feasible, or financially viable,” Pauly wrote last August in the letter to the Commission.
In Monday’s denial, the three-member District 3 Environmental Commission cited Act 230 Rule 34(E). “The key question in Rule 34(E) is whether a condition was imposed in a previous permit to resolve an issue critical to the issuance of that permit,” the Commission wrote.
As part of its approval for the spa permit, the commission decided 14 and 16 South St. “needed to be preserved and added this condition to protect them from neglect or demolition,” the commissioners wrote. “Put another way, but for the preservation of the Buildings,” the original permit for the spa would not have been issued.
Two of the current commissioners — Roderick Maclay and Suzanne Butterfield — were also on the District 3 Environmental Commission in 2009 when the spa permit was issued.
The commissioners further disputed claims that the inn made in regard to “changes in facts, law or regulation beyond the permittee’s control.”
“Market forces fluctuate, and if mere unforeseeable market factors were enough to outweigh the finality of permit conditions, then no critical permit condition would be safe,” the commissioners wrote.
They also disputed the amount of money the inn would have to spend to renovate the buildings and “that more affordable options likely exist” to make the homes usable.
“We also note that although we agree that the Applicant made the minimum repairs to the Buildings since 2009, there was nothing stopping the Applicant from making other repairs that would have paid off with savings now had it simply elected to do so,” the commissioners wrote. “Again, this is not intended to be a criticism. It is rather an acknowledgment that the Applicant’s own decisions since 2009 contributed to the increase in costs it may incur to rehabilitate the Buildings now.”
Neither Facey Goss & McPhee, a law firm representing the inn, nor Pauly, returned requests for comment by deadline Tuesday.
The commission’s decision was welcome news to Robert Pear, a High Street resident who lives near the two buildings on South Street.
“It was totally not the result I was expecting. I was super surprised,” Pear said during a Tuesday morning phone interview while he was out for a walk. “The way these things normally go, especially in Woodstock, it usually favors the inn because it is such a powerful and important part of the community.”
Pear, a retired contractor, bought his historic home in 2000, renovated it and moved there permanently in 2007. He’d like to see the inn preserve the two homes. He was granted “party status” in the permit request, in part, because he lives near the inn.
“14 South St., if I were younger and that house was on the market, I’d buy that house and renovate it in a heartbeat,” Pear said. “A heartbeat.”
Woodstock Village resident Wendy Wright Marrinan, who was also granted “party status” as part of the hearing, said she was pleased the two homes are an important part of Woodstock’s history.
People, organizations and agencies are granted party status from the district commission if they can show they are affected by the project. As part of the hearing, 16 were granted party status, including the Woodstock Resort Corp. and their legal council.
“It describes a life that happened before, it describes how the village evolved,” Marrinan, who is also a member of the Village Historic Preservation Commission, said in a Tuesday phone interview. “They’re visible from the center of the village, on the green. They establish the original streetscape.”
She would like to see the two homes renovated and put back into use.
“If the inn does not find the buildings as such are useful to them, they can reconsider the possibility of different owners taking care of them,” she said. Last summer, the inn offered to sell the homes for $1 each, provided the buyers move them to a different property.
The Woodstock Inn has 30 days from the date the decision was issued to file an appeal to the Environmental Division of the Superior Court, Peter Gill, executive director of Vermont’s Land Use Review Board, wrote in an email.
The Inn could also request that the District 3 Environmental Commission reconsider its decision within 15 days of the decision.