POULTNEY — Town officials in Poultney expected to meet today with the new owner of the Green Mountain College campus, entrepreneur Raj Peter Bhakta, to learn more about his plans for the complex.
Bhakta bought the campus at auction on Tuesday for $4.8 million.
Bhakta, who founded the Shoreham whiskey company WhistlePig, plans to use the campus for agriculture, said Sarah Pelkey, Poultney’s economic development director. Pelkey said Bhakta’s wife, Danhee Kim, told her Wednesday that the couple’s sustainable agriculture project would involve food and medicine at the former four-year liberal arts college.
The campus includes 155 acres and several historic buildings.
Pelkey was hired to help Poultney recover from the closing of Green Mountain College in June 2019. The college stopped making payments on a $20 million USDA loan that year.
The property had been appraised at $20 million in 2016, according to Maltz Auction, which handled the sale. Leading up to the auction, the seller had accepted an offer of $3 million subject to receiving higher bids on auction day.
Pelkey attended the auction — though non-bidders had to watch on a screen in a separate room — and said there were three to four physical bidders there, and one who bid online. She hadn’t heard before the auction that Bhakta might be interested, but she said the state had been working with a few parties and the town for about a year. There had also been offers to the lienholder, the USDA, which were not accepted, Pelkey said.
Bhakta founded WhistlePig in 2007 and left the high-end whiskey maker for good in 2019, funding a new company, Bhakta Farms, in Shoreham. The company’s website lists addresses in France, Vermont and Florida.
According to Maltz, the Green Mountain College campus includes dorms, classrooms, administrative offices, a cafeteria, a 400-seat auditorium, a gymnasium and pool, fine arts studios and galleries, a working farm, guest residents and a wood-fueled biomass heating system.
The closure of the 185-year-old college hit Poultney hard, Pelkey said. Inside Higher Ed reported there were 492 undergraduates when it closed. The town estimated that the local area lost $6 million in pay and benefits, as well as jobs and educational and cultural experiences for locals.
“It’s a town that doesn’t have a lot of other institutions in terms of business or large-scale operations that can kind of help the town hold their own,” she said. “There are a few businesses here, but people are driving to Rutland or into New York or Fair Haven for work.”
The community would like to see the campus used for education again, Pelkey said.
“The Green Mountain College alums who are very active and interested and involved in the town and surrounding area would also love to see that happen,” she said. “If they are talking about a sustainable ag enterprise that is related to food or medicine, that is brilliant in whatever capacity it unfolds. I don’t really see where that could be a bad fit for any place in Vermont.”
