Goddard College Announces the Sale of Its Campus to a Local Nonprofit

Goddard College plans to sell its Plainfield campus to a group called the Greatwood Project, which plans to use the former estate for education and housing, administrators said.

The group, named after the early 20th century estate where the college started in 1938, is made up of philanthropists as well as former employees and alumni of the tiny liberal arts school. The sale is expected to close at the end of October, said Kris Gruen, a spokesperson for the Greatwood Project.

The property includes about 130 acres in Plainfield, East Montpelier and Marshfield. It has 10 administrative and academic buildings, 12 dormitories, and two maintenance buildings, said Lisa Larivee, a clerk to Goddard’s board of trustees. The purchase price is $3.4 million, Gruen said.

The disposition of the campus has been a matter of intense interest locally and among alumni and staff since the trustees announced in the spring that Goddard would close at the end of the summer. The college community urged trustees to continue Goddard’s legacy by choosing a buyer that would use it for educational purposes. Several groups formed to discuss ways of buying the campus.

The Greatwood Project aims to preserve Goddard’s educational and communitarian ethos, said Gruen, a Worcester-based musician who graduated from Goddard in 1997 and directed the college radio station, WGDR, from 2010 to 2021. He said he’s confident its goals align with the passions of the larger Goddard community, which has been looking for ways to honor the school’s experience-based learning model.

“Our intentions around this purchase are really aligned with the folks who have the deepest, richest relationships with Goddard and the physical grounds,” Gruen said in an interview on Thursday. He added that Greatwood’s eight founding board members share the passions that alumni and students have shown for Goddard’s culture — and for its campus.

“We feel the place does matter and that it holds the magic of the pedagogical model and the learning experience,” he said. “We want to make sure that stays in the ground and water there.”

Local residents have also been eyeing Goddard as a place to create housing since the school’s demise was announced. That interest surged when Plainfield and other towns were hit by catastrophic flooding on July 10, displacing many people from their homes. The surging Great Brook destroyed houses along the brook and an eight-unit apartment building that was known as the Heartbreak Hotel.

Some of the displaced residents have been staying nearby in Goddard’s dorms, which the administration has also been renting out to people working at the nearby Cabot Creamery.

Gruen said he and his partners in the Greatwood Project expect the housing issue to be considered during the planning process when the sale is final — along with other needs in the community.

“Members of the Greatwood group are restoration experts, and the Greatwood group in general is really interested in equitable housing and economically viable housing,” he said. “We see the campus as promising.”

Cooperation Vermont, a local group that also has been trying to buy the campus, released a skeptical response on Thursday.

“This is the latest in a series of announcements from Goddard that they have accepted another bid, so we will see,” wrote Michelle Eddleman McCormick, director of Cooperation Vermont and the Cooperation Vermont Community Land Trust, a local group with goals for the campus that also include educational programs and housing.

Gruen said the Greatwood Project welcomes input from Cooperation Vermont and other groups that have formed this year, including Save Goddard College and Remake Goddard. “We want to build an inclusive and transparent process for receiving and integrating community concerns, ideas, offers for collaboration and partnerships,” he said.

The Greatwood Project is part of a Vermont nonprofit called Collective Well Foundation and is seeking its own nonprofit status, Gruen said. 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.

Gruen said Pratt, along with part-time Vermont residents Susan and Brian Benninghoff, put up the money for the sale. Another founding member named in a press release from Goddard on Thursday is Leesa Stewart, the former Goddard CFO who now works as CFO at the Vermont Food Bank.