Goddard Buyers Envision 'Bustling, Busy Campus Again'

The prospective buyers of Goddard College, the small liberal arts institution in Plainfield that closed its doors earlier this month, hope to maintain the historic buildings and restore the gardens so that the space can be used for conventions and other public gatherings.

The Greatwood Project, as the buyers are known, expects to close on the 131-acre campus at the end of October, project member Lucinda Garthwaite said on Monday. The group needs more money to close the $3.2 million deal, but Garthwaite said she doesn't know exactly how much more is needed.

There is strong community interest in the future of the land and buildings, and alumni and locals have peppered the potential buyers with queries since the group’s involvement was announced several weeks ago. Garthwaite said she planned to answer two of them at a community meeting on Tuesday.

“The big questions coming from Plainfield are, ‘Do you plan to help us with housing? And do you plan to pay property taxes?’ Garthwaite said. “The answer is ‘yes.’”
The Greatwood Project is part of a Vermont nonprofit called Collective Well Foundation and is seeking its own nonprofit status, according to member Kris Gruen. Its founders include Chris Pratt, a former Goddard forestry instructor who lives in East Montpelier and whose family name is on the college’s Eliot Pratt Center, a building that includes the campus library; Garthwaite; part-time Vermont residents Susan and Brian Benninghoff; and Leesa Stewart, the former Goddard CFO who now works as CFO at the Vermont Food Bank.

A document about the project on Collective Well's website describes a plan for sustainable and energy-efficient housing that will yield revenues for the community.

"Designed to foster connection and collaboration, the residences will incorporate intergenerational living, with generous community spaces for education, recreation, and collaboration," it says. But Garthwaite acknowledged that construction expense has made it difficult for even seasoned developers to build homes in central Vermont.

In recent days, the Greatwood Project has sketched out plans for alumni that would see the college’s popular Haybarn theater and manor house back in use once again.

“Our vision is for a bustling, busy campus again — filled with day-to-day living, work, creativity, learning and play that honors the legacy of the property as a college and a farm, its critical role in the central Vermont community, and its transformative impact on thousands and thousands of lives,” Garthwaite wrote in a message she posted last week in the alumni Facebook group. She added that woodworkers, an outdoor program for young adults, a musician, artists, a childcare operator, nonprofits, a restaurant, and other small businesses have gotten in touch about renting space on campus.

The campus already has tenants in place, including a school for herbal medicine, a middle school and the radio station WGDR. Garthwaite emphasized that it will be years before group members know whether they have the money and community support for their plans to reach fruition.

Their goal is to help restore Plainfield, an economically depressed town that in July suffered a devastating flood.

“Our intention is to bring money into the town and to bring visitors into the town by creating a space for cultural events such as concerts, housing, and space for businesses," Garthwaite said.
Goddard College started in 1938 as an experimental institution based on the idea that the best way to drive creativity, knowledge and innovation was to give students control over their education. The school’s enrollment peaked at 1,900 in the early 1970s, according to the college, and it drew writers, musicians and other creative thinkers who settled in Vermont.

By the time Goddard announced in April that it was closing, only 220 people were enrolled. It officially closed on September 14. The property, which touches Plainfield, East Montpelier and Marshfield, includes 10 administrative and academic buildings, 12 dormitories, and two maintenance buildings, said Lisa Larivee, a clerk to Goddard’s board of trustees.

Some of the buildings on the century-old campus, part of an estate once called Greatwood, are in advanced disrepair. But many of the iconic structures are in good enough shape to use immediately, Garthwaite said. The farm was built around 1910 and was known for its Shropshire sheep and shorthorn cattle, according to the Cultural Landscape Foundation.

“If we wanted to open a conference center now, we could,” Garthwaite said. “People would just have to be happy living in the dorms and sharing bathrooms.”

The Greatwood Project is still raising money for the purchase price and for the estimated $100,000 per year it costs to maintain the campus, which has a woodlot and a wood-fired boiler, said Garthwaite, who lives in Plainfield and runs a nonprofit she founded called the Institute for Liberatory Innovation. She plans to speak about the plans at a town flood recovery meeting on Tuesday.

Garthwaite worked at Goddard as director of undergraduate programs, academic dean, and dean of community life. She said she recognizes that for many people, there is a life-transforming energy to the place.

“I believe them that there’s an energy about the place that is different and important,” Garthwaite said. “What happened over there since 1938 has transformed lives and the culture of central Vermont.”