DEERFIELD VALLEY — The Hermitage Club can no longer do business, according to an order from the Vermont Department of Taxes.
“Please take notice that Hermitage Club LLC failed to post the bond required by the Vermont Commissioner of Taxes … and may not conduct business at this location,” read public notices taped Monday to the front doors of the company’s clubhouse at its private ski resort on Haystack Mountain and other buildings it owns in the Deerfield Valley.
Hermitage spokeswoman Meridith Dennes told the Reformer that a partial payment of $112,000 had been made to the Department of Taxes on Friday for unpaid rooms, meals and sales taxes.
“We are all working towards the goal of getting the club open this weekend,” she said on Monday. “We have come to an agreement with the state.”
Photographs of the notice were sent to the Reformer. Below the notice at the clubhouse, a message from The Hermitage said the company was not able to make a required “progress payment today.”
Staff members were escorted from the Club House by police, employees told the Reformer. But Dennes disputed that.
“We are just trying to work with the state on some issues,” she told the Reformer. “We have a payment forthcoming. We have a very good relationship with the state.”
Tax Commissioner Kaj Samsom could not be reached earlier in the day. He told Vermont Public Radio that the state had run out of other options in dealing with Hermitage.
“If they are digging a hole deeper with every transaction then sometimes we get to a point where the best option, or the only option, is to cease them from doing business,” Samsom said.
Earlier this year, Berkshire Bank filed a complaint against Hermitage for failing to make mortgage payments and pay taxes on properties in Dover and Wilmington.
The bank is seeking foreclosure on properties including the Hermitage Inn, Snow Goose Inn, Horizon Inn, the Chamonix Townhouse Village and the Hermitage golf course. All told, Berkshire claimed the resort had failed to make payments on $17.1 million in loans.
