Hello there!,
My partner and I (an artist/teacher and architect, respectively) are ARDENTLY looking for a small-to-medium-sized property within an hour of Stowe that we can turn into our forever home/farmstead/art studio. We don't need much: 3-27 acres with a modest fixer-upper house and a garage or barn would let us scaffold ourselves into the life we've been working so hard to build. (More acreage would be ok - especially if it's wooded - but we certainly don't *need* it.) We don't need this land/home to already be a functional farm - we can turn it into one (but it's ok if it is already a working farm, of course). In the past, we have grown vegetables, berries, and flowers as well as raised chickens and Icelandic sheep. We're looking for a place to do that again, and to raise a family while contributing to the health and culture of our community.
We're pre-approved buyers (Northfield Bank) who are ready to "put money on the barrelhead", so to speak, but we've been having our dreams ripped from under us by out-of-state cash buyers who often don't really care about the land, about organic farming, or even about Vermont. They just want a vacation home close to skiing and boutiques; we want a *forever home* that contributes to our community.
If the amount of mortgage we're pre-approved for isn't quite enough, we're also very open to unconventional arrangements. For example: does your land have two dwellings on it, and you want to sell to us but continue to live in one dwelling throughout your twilight years? Let's discuss! I'm already a grandma at heart, I work from home, and I have experience with elder care...so something like that could be an optimal arrangement for everyone involved.
My partner works in Stowe (hence our need to be within an hour of there) but needless to say, Stowe is an epicenter of expensiveness that may forever price us out of small-farm ownership. A kindhearted, fairminded person who wants to see their organic farming legacy carried on may be the only way we can break this cycle. Surprisingly, architects do NOT make a lot of money, and artists/teachers certainly don't. Before the pandemic housing market came along, we would've been able to afford a modest little farmstead near-ish to Stowe...but now, with market-driven greed running rampant, we've watched our longtime dreams disintegrate and be co-opted by wealthy second-home buyers.
All we want in life is a little patch of good earth, a place to park a motorcycle and a walking tractor, and a modest house that we can renovate into our forever home over time. We want to be an integral part of a community by contributing healthy, delicious, nourishing food (and maybe fiber) to it and by sharing our time, abundance, and skills with our neighbors.
So, if you're a retiring or soon-to-be-relocating farmer and are open to telling us about your farm, please reach out! Our hope is to put down roots before August so we can begin fall/winter preparations and learn about the soil before winter.
Many thanks for reading. :)
Warmly,
Ms. Jack Michael
PS: email or text is preferred; phone calls are difficult due to hearing issues. Thanks for understanding!