Stowe Speaks
Gar Anderson Stowe Speaks Interview Transcript.

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SPEAKERS

Gar Anderson, Amanda Huhnert

01. Coming To Stowe

Amanda Huhnert  00:00

Okay, so today is Wednesday, September 5 2012. And I'm here with Gar Anderson that his home at 250 Sterling Gorge Road and Stowe. And Gar, if we could just begin today, if you could tell me when you came to Stowe and what brought you here?

 

Gar Anderson  00:17

Well, Amanda, I went to Johnson State College. And when I graduated from Johnson, after being up here for three years, I said, Boy, this is a state I never want to leave. And I was set to go into the Peace Corps, I got accepted. And I was going to, to a place over halfway around the world. And just as we were in training out in California, learning the language, the Communist Party took over the the island. And there was a female prime minister that was elected who was a communist. And they decided that to cancel the Peace Corps visit, because this goes back to the years where the US and and the you know, the there was, there was a lot of concern. And they didn't want to send us over to do a mission when you know, we weren't part of an army or anything. So. So they said, Well, we were out in training for I'd been out there for a month or so. And they said, well go head back. And we'll give you a call when we have another place to go. So I returned to Connecticut. And as soon as I got home, my mom said, Oh, they're looking for teachers down at the Negro ghetto in Bridgeport. And would you be willing to teach sixth grade. And I'm in Johnson State College where I graduated with speech, basically a Teacher's College, although I wasn't in the teachers division. I said, sure. I'll do that. So I, I took over. And just about a week after I accepted the position, I got a call from the Peace Corps saying oh, we've got a new position for you. Let's see what's tallest mountain in the world it's ever mine ever stood out. They were going to send me to Mount Everest area, which I would have loved to do. But unfortunately, I'd signed a contract to teach in this in this new ghetto area. So I I taught school and then on weekends, I drive back to Vermont because I missed it. And I'd stay in Peter Riley's house down in the village. I want to spread across now from the police station, okay. And after one year of teaching, I basically retired from the teaching service and moved to justo. And when I got up here, I decided to get a job. And they were looking for someone to paint the towers of the new gondola. They just built the the original gondola. So I said all I can do that I'm not afraid of heights and call up the towers. And we had we had this little swing we pour way up on a rope and and we swing around and repainted on the way down. So I painted all the towers. And what year is this? This would have been Let's see now 67 Okay, 1967 we can we can double check. I think that was the year the condo was built. It could have been the fall of 66 and a winter 67. But it's that period. And after the snow came really early that year, we had probably, oh gosh, three feet or four feet of snow by Thanksgiving. So we had finished the job. Separate was really happy that he got the gondola all set running by just in the nick of time. So I decided I joined the ski patrol. So I joined the ski patrol. And at that time, the you know with the Vietnam war was going on and they said well, you know, you have to, you're out of college now you've got to go and serve. So I said well, I don't really want to be drafted by the army. I'll list in the, in the airforce. So I enlisted. I wanted to become a pilot. And I got senatorial approval and, and they they accepted me and they said, Well, we have to put you on a three month hold period until your training starts out in Texas. The training was supposed to start right after Christmas. So I said Oh, that's okay. I'll continue to work on the ski patrol until then. And the week before I was supposed to go Christmas week. I actually fell on the mountain and I dislocated my cervical spine. And I, you know, they call the the Air Force and they said, Oh no, we can't have you now you can't you can't take a pilot with a dislocated cervical spine. So they gave me a a basically a deferment and then the course I was deferred from the Air Force, but the army still wanting me. So I got drafted for the army that was in the spring went in and brought in my X rays and on the way out the door they say what do you have in your hand and I say, Oh, the X rays from my neck dislocation. Watch. Let me see those. He looked at it. He takes takes my I was about to go for training. writes for F on it. And hands it to me said you're out of here. So I got a for after Furman. So right back to Stowe and this would have been 1968 now. So I got back to Stowe got back on ski patrol and, and started looking around for things to do.

 

 

02. Buying the Rusty Nail

 

Gar Anderson  00:00

That's when we bought the rusty nail, which was the Galle farm at the time. He said, We, my dad, and mom and I.

 

Amanda Huhnert  00:08

And so how did that. But how did that transpire? Why? Well, property

 

Gar Anderson  00:13

it was a farm had a farmhouse and a large barn directly across the street from the shed at the time shed restaurant and shut it opened two years before. And I said, Well, this is a good thing I, you know, I think I'll open a boarding house for ski bums because by then, of course, I knew every week, all the, you know, schemes instructors and all the ski bombs and, and the ski patrol people. And I said, I'll just open it, it was was hard to find a place to live back then. So I, I bought the farmhouse and we paid I think $32,000 for it, you can imagine that how many

 

Amanda Huhnert  00:54

acres save as the Donald acres, two acres? And what do you remember about Donald Gale? How did you find out that that property was available?

 

Gar Anderson  01:01

Who's on the market?

 

Amanda Huhnert  01:02

So you went to a realtor bought from

 

Gar Anderson  01:05

a realtor realtor was based right where the town hall is now there used to be the the bank used to be I think it was the Union Bank is to be right in the where the town hall office was. So we got that. And I immediately, you know, fixed up the the building the farmhouse, and a bunch of this ski patrol and local bartenders and stuff, rented rooms and started living there. And then I started thinking, Well, what am I going to do with this big barn? And I said, Well, gosh, you know, what this town needs, needs a little shopping center. So I said, I'll convert the downstairs to a group of five shops. So we had the first first health food store in town. We had a lot of store. We had a guy that did metal artwork. And we had a use key shop. And we had a record store, all in the lower part of that barn. So that was the first shopping center in Stowe. So that was fine. And then I said, Well, what am I gonna do with the upstairs? And upstairs was for hay. So I cleaned the thing out. And I said, You know what this town needs? It needs a nightclub. We've got the baggy knees, but they've got one band in there that plays every single night throughout the entire

 

Amanda Huhnert  02:31

winter, which was what was the band?

 

Gar Anderson  02:33

I'd have to look at, like, yeah, I carry a number so long ago. Yeah. But so I said, you know, having a band every week would be would be really appealing. And, of course, Sister Kate had also had rock king. And those bagging ears and sister kits were the only two real entertainment spots in town. So I decided, well, I'll see if I get a liquor license. I apply for a liquor license. This was the fall that the big concert was held over in New York State. And 68. Right. Yeah, yeah. So actually was 6969 Yeah, yeah. So we, we renovated the, the upstairs and put in the stage. And basically opened just before Christmas week with a band called tracks. And of course, they were at the reunion we had a couple of weeks ago. Sure, yeah. And tracks for all Dartmouth College students. And they played the first week, Christmas week, and everybody loved them. And they kept coming back every other week for like three years, along with a bunch of other bands that we got to know. So. And of course, as from the day we opened, the place was packed. It was amazing. It we just got it was so busy. The whole thing. It was just the perfect thing to happen. So

 

Amanda Huhnert  04:06

how did you how did you? You did did you have any hospitality experience at all? And how did you kind of figure out the f&b or it was just I guess it was just beverage, right? I mean, did you serve?

 

Gar Anderson  04:16

Yeah. I had to go see had I ever worked at I might have been a waiter somewhere at some time. Who knows? But before that when I was in college, but not really. I just learned from experience. And so after the first winter, we said, Boy, we've got to enlarge this place. So we we took the connection that went between the barn and the house and put in a second bar there. So we had a bar upstairs and a barn, what we call the mezzanine level. And then we decided, well, you know, we need the whole area. So we talked to the shop owners and a couple of them had grown To the point where they wanted to open Bigger, bigger shops. So they found other places in town to move and we we ended up turning the whole area into the rusty nail at the time. I think our biggest day we had 1027 people come through the door. So it was a pretty good size. Good size. nightclub in question went very well for I owned it for three years. And then Paul spare who had bought the other Gail property, the house at Stone existence. The brick house where his his real estate is now he he called me one day and said I've got somebody that wants to buy your place if you want to sell for you was $240,000. Here's a place I paid 32,000 for. So I called my dad because my dad was pretty impressed with that. So I sold it but I kept the second mortgage. And after three years, the guys entered two sets of owners I went through the first owner, unfortunately was into the got into drugs and his wife left him and his wife had the checkbook. So he had to sell it. And he sold it to some people from down in the Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Florida area that has a nightclub that they came up and tried to run it like they're in Fort Lauderdale. Of course that doesn't work. And so you can't charge locals to come in and nightclubs and that kind of stuff. So they eventually, you know, just didn't make any money on it. So one day, after missing six months worth of mortgage payments, they just up and left. So I took the place back over and rebuild it. Peter Riley and I rebuilt the place. And actually at that time I was running a restaurant called the Chateau beyond, down across from what was done in the what's the shopping center on the mountain road. I'm trying to remember Oh, where the stove center had been. Yeah, strip center shopping center. Yeah. It was always a crazy name stuff center because it wasn't it wasn't. But yeah, so I opened a restaurant there called the Chateau Bian. And, actually, Vinnie Banano, and I had opened the sto cinema there first. And then I saw my interest of any in, in open the restaurant. So ran that for had run that for a year or two. And then when I took the nail back, I said I can't be two places at once. So I decided to move shot to be on into the rusty nail. So we had both both properties going there. How did that work? Well, it worked all right, it actually the clientele I had at the shutter beyond we're used to you know, nice quiet, you know, romantic you know, dinners and you know, really high quality food and stuff. So moving into a nightclub or the rock and roll band playing, you know, in the next room. That was a, you know, that didn't appeal to all of them but we still had because the rest of the year was so popular. We still have plenty of business. It wasn't a matter of you know, not not getting business was just changed the clientele

 

 

03. Band Memories

Amanda Huhnert  00:00

So are you able to kind of kick back up to the energy that was the same ?

 

Gar Anderson  00:04

Yeah, almost overnight. It was, as soon as I got back in and got got some real bands back and I see what I had done is I had worked with a group of nightclub owners around the state, Jack Chick air whom the bay, the wobbly barn down in Killington. And of course Bobby Roberts was managing the baggy knees and but all over Vermont, those went down to mount snow and a couple guises built place over in Jefferson boulders one and we just work together sort of as a team and Jack together, he had an airplane, and he'd fly up to the Morrisville and pick me up and we go to Boston, you know, look at the bands and go down to Rhode Island and whatnot, in his airplane, and we'd select the best bands we could find. And then we'd, you know, hire them for the the winner. And you know, we'd say, or a month, at least, you play a week at the rusty now we get the wobbly bone, and, you know, and kind of shuffle around. So we did that for a while. And some really neat things happen. The coolest thing was one of the local residents came up to me one day and said, You know, I'm, I'm going to school in Michigan, and I've got a boyfriend. It's in a band out there. And I'd really like him to come and spend a couple of weeks with us next summer. Would you be willing to to let him play it the rest of you now? And of course, summertime, we we'd only open weekends in the summertime because it was no, it's not like it is today. Summer business back then was the offseason. And so I said sure. And he said, If you we see we had apartments in the place where we put up the bands. If if you let them play there during the week in practice, and you know stature in your departments, if you have some four for the week, they'll play on the weekend for free. So that was great. The week they showed up. They were on the cover of Life magazine. What was the name of the band who hadn't really blue. And they had just performed the week before the first ever Jesus Christ Superstar concert. Jesus Christ Superstar just been released in Great Britain. And they had picked up on it immediately and played the first concert the weekend before they showed up at the rest of the nail. So here they are playing at the nail, Jesus Christ Superstar and all of a sudden, you know, they're on their front cover of Life. All of a sudden people coming out of the woodwork. You know, they just, they came in we had, that was the day we had 1027 people, including seven different bands came, we decided to bring all the nightclub owners in to listen to the bands and select who they're going to play for the next winter. Well, they came in and all the bands were hanging around. And of course they didn't care much about you know, the who's a span from Chicago, they can't be any good. After they played for five minutes, the first five minutes of Jesus Christ Superstar every single band was lined up in front of the things. And they stayed there for two and a half hours where they played the entire rock opera, good night not even stopping. It was amazing. So that was we had nights like that were just incredible, you know, really, really cool memories.

 

Amanda Huhnert  03:34

What are some of the other bands that come to mind anything can have a highlight two years?

 

03:37

Well, we had Davis brothers garage, of course they were they were another band that played couple weeks ago. They were very popular. And then we had a couple Horn bands out of Rhode Island. And one of them was had was led by the guy that played with the Beatles. They were the opening act for the Beatles when they when they first came to the United States. So I mean, they were very, very good bands. I mean, they were just phenomenal. I can give you names later. I'd have to look them up. Sure. Yep. They're all in the book. I don't know if you've read the book yet. No, no, hold times. Good times. No, yeah, I'll give you a copy. You can see it was written by Peter Watson, who is a Dartmouth grad. And he actually was the lead singer for tracks. And two years ago, he wrote this book on the history of rock and roll bands in the 1970s, late 60s and early 70s in northern New England. And all the bands are documented. It's really cool. And he in fact, there's a whole chapter in there on the rusty nail.

 

Amanda Huhnert  04:48

Now if you've always been a music lover, or is that something that just kind of went along with

 

Gar Anderson  04:53

Well, I mean that you know what it's like to be, you know, in college, you of course you'd like rock and roll, you know, back in those days that was That's what was happening. That was the main thing. You know, that's before we had computers. So we weren't spending our time on computers day in and day out we had gotten in party. Well, it's such

 

Amanda Huhnert  05:11

a pivotal time you think socially what was going on, you know, during the time from the time you open to Yeah, during your ownership.

 

Gar Anderson  05:18

Yeah. Yeah, it was. It was really, really interesting time. So

 

04. Selling the Nail _ Other Ventures

 

Gar Anderson  00:00

And then a couple years after the second ownership, Paul called me again one day and said, I've got another guy wants to buy it. So I ended up selling it again.

 

Amanda Huhnert  00:09

So why did you sell it? I mean, I mean, I

 

Gar Anderson  00:11

just, I, what I enjoy more than anything is new projects is not that I didn't enjoy running the rest of the I certainly did enjoyed every second of it, and all the people, the bands used to love it, because every time they come, you know, we treat them like kings and queens and we'd host them and you know, do barbecues for them and, and they were just they just love coming to the nail in and so we basically had our selection of any band we wanted so, but I you know, I wanted to move on and do new things and you know, Vinnie, and I had the movie theater and then Chateau Briron and then I opened a Chinese restaurant called Austo and then I bought Sister Kates and converted that to a commercial condominiums, first commercial condominium in Stowe. And that's when after I did that in got McCarthy's restaurant to  move in there. Then Vinny decided he would he wanted more more screens you see was just a single screen at the old movie theater. So I sold him some property and we built the triple screen cinema and had it ever since. So,

 

Amanda Huhnert  01:45

what are the  go back a little bit I want to kind of go back to some of the things you just mentioned and more detail but I'm just had a couple of questions left about about the Nail before we move on. When you said we So did you have a manager who was kind of your right hand person or who was

 

Gar Anderson  02:02

Vic Harris  was the right hand person as was Vin Banano he was a bartender for me and Cap Cannowith with no cap. Yes, of course they all work there. And then there were there were some others too. That you know are not in town any longer but those are the three there. Sure. Still well known

 

 

05. Nail Memories _ Association Management

 

Amanda Huhnert  00:00

Anyway, now what about any regular guests, you know, any characters that were kind of fixtures at the at the rusty nail during those years?

 

Gar Anderson  00:08

Well, the, the regular guests of course were the you know, with the bands, I mean they they were the they were the attractions that people came to see. We we were definitely geared towards the ski bum, population in town. All the ski patrol all the ski instructors, and back then we used to have plenty of them from they would come from Austria. And fact half the new Catholic instructors were from that area. And they all love the rusty nail. And of course, what we would do is we give them nickel drafts, and we never charged the local anything to get in. So we had a doorman that would that knew all the locals, so all locals would come in for free and all the tourists would get charged a buck, you know, or two bucks depending on the day. So and the reason for that is course they would, they would tell all their people they were instructing or helping up at the mountain the best place to go at night, you know, go to the rusty nail. So I mean, sure you you get you sell them things for cheaper than what you in fact, today, you can't even do that anymore. The law doesn't allow you to sell beer for less than what you pay for it. But back then it was wasn't a big deal. And it was just, you know, just brought a lot of people together. In fact, we used to have take photos around town, and we'd have a slideshow during the bands and a mission would show photographs of all the locals in town from the previous week. Unfortunately, all that stuff was lost in a fire when I when the house burned. My house has burned your house or the the bar when the bar. It actually was a house. You know, the bar never burned. When you're talking about that Britain building. Yeah. Well, you're talking about the sto the Stowe Playhouse burned  ? ,Thats after it moved. Yeah, Bobby Roberts actually had had moved into Marvin Gammerov who own this Stowe Playhouse at the time. And he had talked to Bobby into moving rusty nail down there, which he did. And then of course it burned. But in the meantime, Bobby is sold the got a good price to sell the rusty nail property. They tore it they took down the barn and actually shipped it out to California. It's in California Now.

 

Amanda Huhnert  02:41

I didn't realize that. Yeah. What is it doing there?

 

Gar Anderson  02:45

Well, I I actually don't know what they build out of it. I assume it was another restaurant or bar. Yeah.

 

Amanda Huhnert  02:53

So what are their types? I heard about the mud drag or something. Are there are there other events that you held? It was that under your ownership

 

Gar Anderson  02:59

role? The mud drive actually was Bobby Roberts thing. Okay. Yeah, he was he did that. That was his thing. Okay. But I was more into association management back then. Yeah, we had our group of nightclub owners. And back then they had a law in Vermont where you had to close your restaurant at 11 o'clock. On Sunday night, you couldn't serve liquor after 11 o'clock. And of course, on a three day weekend, people wouldn't come. They didn't come out to dance until nine or 10 o'clock, and then we'd be shutting down an hour later. So that was just a very big concern for all the skiers. And so I went down and lobbied in the legislature and put all the figures together on what it would create for tax revenue. And we only wanted to have an extended to midnight. They extended it to two in the morning. They basically said, Well, it's two in the morning every other day. Why don't we just make it universal? And I certainly didn't impose that. So I did that. And then then the restaurant Hotel Restaurant Association said, you know, we've got to move our they were done in Rutland. We've got to move our association up to failure with the State Capitol. And we need someone to run it would you run it for us? So I took over as the first one actually wasn't the first speaker was the first in Montpelier executive officer of the Vermont Hotel and Restaurant Association. And I ran that for, oh, probably seven or eight years. I can give you my resume that has all these dates documented. I

 

Amanda Huhnert  04:52

thought actually, I was able to find it online. Yeah, okay, good. So I have some of the dates

 

Gar Anderson  04:57

and so on. I did that until the the fellow that was executive officer of the realtor Association, which was the largest association in the state. He he resigned because he got cancer. And they asked me if I would transfer from the hotel and restaurant association to the to the realtor Association, which I did. And then I worked with the realtor association for a dozen years. And then the national sociation realtor said, We want you to work for us, we should go around the country and teach people how to run associations. And so I did that. So I've been with them for the last 13 years. So I've been sort of in association management now for about 25 years.

 

Amanda Huhnert  05:53

Interesting. I was trying to piece it all together by looking at your resume, how you ended up getting that make sense. Now.

 

Gar Anderson  05:58

It all came from the practical experience of actually being in the business, you know, because, you know, I know how people think I know how they run their businesses.

 

 

06. Verner Reed _ Acquisition of Sterling Falls Gorge

Gar Anderson  00:00

See, while all this was going on, I was also building houses. This is the fifth house I'd built. And for more the first houses that I know if you've seen the tower house, if you go down before you take the right hand turn to go back to Stowe, if you go straight for just another night, even a quarter of a mile, just a few 100 yards, you'll see there's a big tower house on the right hand side to take the

 

Amanda Huhnert  00:27

bridge to get to a covered bridge. I always wondered what the story is.

 

Gar Anderson  00:32

Okay. In fact, I don't know if you know, Dapper Dan Donza. . He and I bought the property that runs along that side of the brook. And he owns the property that's done at the end, we just kind of split into three different chunks. And I bought the middle piece. That's what I wanted. And, and they said, Well, how would you you can't even get access to it, you know? And I said, Oh, yes, I can. So we back in the days where this was before they had zoning permits in Morrisville. Today, you probably couldn't do that. You could probably couldn't it was too close to the river, you know, but it's never created any problem with the river. It's high above it, you know, and it's built on the rock ledges. And so yeah, so that was my first house and then Peter Reilly started his strong image development. And I built two houses in there. And one of them was actually they were both right next to Bernard Reed from the read on the water wheelhouse. Verna read was a multi millionaire. And he's the guy that was the straw man for for Tom Watson. When Tom Watson bought this strongly Valley, see Tom Watson, Chairman of IBM was actually was Father core started at the end was very into love Vermont, love ski areas. And he brought Madonna mountain ski area, which was smuggler's notch ski or evac at the time. And we named it the Madonna mountain. And actually at that cod wasn't there. You could see the chairlift on it just to the right of the one that's all cloudy right now. And so he bought that, and his idea was to run chairlifts, down in the strolling Valley, down here from his chair list. And then back up there. And with these peaks here, the other side of Spruce Peak. Thanks, Bruce is right on the other side of that, sure. So he wanted to connect Sterling and Smokey was not ski or his Madonna mountain. And but apparently set brush didn't think much of the idea. And at the time, they had just passed act 250. And they told Tom that he really only it would take probably 10 years to get a permit. And Tom wrote me a letter fact I think I've got it here somewhere I can show to. He said, you know, and I'm already in my 60s and I don't have 10 years to work on permits. So I'm just going to sit on the land and fire. What he did. He acquired Sterling valley from the shore family, but he got Werner reed to be straw man. Because he said if if I went to the Shaw's and said Tom Watson wants to buy that property, I'll probably cost me twice as much. So we got Verner Reed, who everybody knew Vernon was very wealthy, but they also knew that he was just he lived up here. And he was a he did a lot of artwork and love to he built a beautiful waterwheel and he made silver jewelry and kind of stuff was kind of cool. He also took garbage and, and cut wood and he was just he just loved living off the land. And so he he said ditto Werner Yeah, he said I'll buy it for so he bought it. I think they paid $220,000 for 20 150 acres.

 

Amanda Huhnert  04:00

Yeah, what year would this have been?

 

Gar Anderson  04:03

Again, I can check here but it would have been in his 70s I believe. Yeah. And so as soon as he bought it course, he transferred it over Verona. I think he had it for, you know, maybe a day or maybe a few hours. And Werner said, Oh, let me pay you some let me give you some for doing that. And, and Werner laughed at him and said, Tom, he said, I don't need. I don't need any money. So I'm as wealthy as you are. He said, however, there's a piece of property right on the corner of your land that has a beautiful Gorge in it that I would love to own. And Werner said, I mean, Tom said, you told me what it is, and I'll give it to you. So he gave Tom Watson gave Werner Sterling falls gorge. He thought it was 28 acres of the time. They said plus or minus Dennis Vernon knew it was more. So Verna got that. And that was like his favorite spot. Keep in mind that there was there were no roads up here of just deal trails, you could drive it with a maybe a four wheel drive Jeep, but there were no power lines or any of that. So he on that, and then when he was working with the dump, this goes back in the days, we you know, where the dump is in town, right? Temporarily behind the bag in the shopping center. But back in those days, you you go in and you dump your your garbage to her. And once a week they burn it. And they burn all the garbage, right? They're in town and all of a smoke would go over to the village. And Vern started writing letters to the editor in the story Porter, about how terrible that was. And of course that upset the Selectmen. So they started countering that. And then Virna got upset and said I don't need this any longer. I'm leaving. So Werner sold everything he did owned in town, except for strong falls gorge, sold his house down below and everything. And he moved to Maine and we're an island off the coast of Maine. And that's where he lived for the rest of his life. And he had owned a jewelry store down across from the Stoke Community Church. That building that was renovated here. Used to be the restaurant Swiss pot downstairs. It used to be the butler house shop. And he's struggling a run a jewelry store down here. So, so Werner left and we had been good friends. And a year or two after he left. I got a phone call. Cigars. Yeah. How you doing burn? Gosh, worthy. Yeah. Means in Maine. Oh, great. He said, You like that land I have up and strolling, don't you? And I said, You bet I do that gorgeous, beautiful. And he said, How'd you like to own that? I said, Oh, I'd love to say do you have $15,000? And I said, well, not right now in cash right now. He said, Yeah. 5000. I said, Yeah, send me the check for 5000. And when you have when you get the rest, send it to me, and I'll send you the deed. So there are no handshakes or anything. It's just a personal conversation over the telephone. And I send them the money. And then over the next six months or so I got on the balance. He sent me the deed. And he when he sent me the deed, where it said plus or minus 30 Something acres or 28 acres, said I think you'll be pleased when you have the survey. Sure enough, it was 4044 acres I think. So setting up

 

Amanda Huhnert  07:42

that land, this is in the 70s. Again, late 70s or something Okay,

 

Gar Anderson  07:45

yeah, we're sitting on it. This would have been your late 70s, probably, or maybe the early 80s to the late 70s. Again, yeah, I can document all this stuff for you. If I can just go through and pull up my deeds. And so far. Yeah, I'm just curious. But sorry, I didn't write. I ended up with the gorge. But I decided, well, you know, I want to preserve the gorge. So I want to set up a land trust for the gorge and nuts. So land trusts just started, or their trust in John McVicker who was the lawyer started it said I can do the same for you. So he set up a second 501 C three for the strong thought scored. So we actually the stolen trust happened and then maybe a few months later, you know ours or maybe your later ours was formed

 

Amanda Huhnert  08:35

Sterling falls gorge natural carry trust trust. Yep,

 

Gar Anderson  08:39

Incorporated. And so we got that set up. And then after I preserve the land, then I got an act 250 permit to put in a couple housing lots, we actually put an eight lots. So we had to sort of have enough money to put the power line up here in the road, because there was you had to had to rebuild the road.

 

Amanda Huhnert  09:02

Yeah. So there was there been a mill here? Of course it shut down. 1920. So after that, it was just basically you just took out logging roads to get up here that time. Yeah,

 

Gar Anderson  09:10

exactly. I mean, you could probably get it and most people would use it just for cross country skiing. But you could probably get up on a floral drives. Small Jeep if you tried, but that was it. I mean, you you couldn't driver the car. So after I got that lined up and got the active 50 permit. The town said, you know, well, we've got this is merc pipe by the way, who was chairman and Conservation Commission. Okay. He said you've got that beautiful gorge. He said, I think we the town should get a lot next to it, just to give it more protection. So that was the first ever conservation purchase in the town of Stowe. These town of Stoke purchased one of the building hots right next to the gorge. It's the one on this if you Going down my driveway, you'll see a house directly ahead of you. That's right on the property line. And the town owns a lot between there and the gorge

 

Amanda Huhnert  10:09

out. I was thinking that would be that where the parking lot is, but that must be separate. No, that's

 

Gar Anderson  10:13

the parking lot is actually on the town road. Okay, town highway. That's that road maple Lane used to be called maple lane, Mr. Run right straight through here. And all the way over to where maple remained currently is. That was the main access to Stoney Valley back in the old days. But of course, it hasn't been used as a road for many, many years. And we decided to get it converted to a trail. So a few years ago, we had a converted to a trail and select board approve them.

 

Amanda Huhnert  10:43

Okay, so and then and I was reading recently about some of the culvert work that you did up there because of the

 

Gar Anderson  10:49

Oh, yeah. See, this is kind of an interesting situation. I should give you the background and I told you how runner read was a straw man for Tom Watson. And what happened is after Tom decided he wasn't going to expand the ski area, he ended up actually selling it back. He I had contacted him about purchasing Sterling Valley. And back then my thought was, well, you know, it's a beautiful area to preserve, maybe we just just sell a few lots to pay for it and then turning into a conservation area. So we corresponded and I've got a lot of electricity right here, in this pile here. And he said to me, he said, Gari. Oh, by the way, we were neighbors, because I owned this is after I own Vernors Lynn, and Verna had recommended to Tom that he talked to me. So Tom had some things that he was concerned about people being on his land, and there was an old bridge down there that he didn't want people to, you know, get hurt on. So I would go around, I did a little jobs for him, I took out the old bridge and, and put in the power lines and that kind of stuff. So he was pretty happy with what I was doing up here. And he actually sold me a little piece of land because there was a little square of land where the existing single lane bridges that I owned on one side, but not the other. So I had to get another half an acre from him. So we traded off. I think I traded. He gave me one acre for four acres over here. So anyway, we put that together. And then he said, I want I'll take a million dollars for it. Cash, he said, I don't want to finance it. He said, anytime you get a million dollars to send it to me, I'll send you the deed. Sounds like Werner right. I said, Well, Tom, I said, you know, really, what I'd like to do is, is pay something and allow me to go out No, no, he didn't want to publicize that he was selling. And I didn't want to publicize he was selling it either, because I knew the developers would be all over. So what I did was we kind of just kept correspondence going in this one for over a decade. And Tom passed away. But I knew his kids really well, because they used to party at the rusty nail. And we used to go up to the house up on Spruce Peak afterwards and have parties that late night parties, okay, like early morning party. So I knew the kids. So I went to Tom Amidon in town, and I said to him, you know, here's, I think I gave him a check for 20 or $30,000. And I said, Give this to the kids and tell them, it's theirs. They never have to give it back to me. But I'd like three months to go out and raise the balance of the million dollars that their dad promised to sell to me for and have them sign an agreement. Because I knew once an agreement was signed, then I'd have three months to go out and raise the money. And they did it. Because they knew me. And you know, they were happy to get the money up front. So they sign the agreement. And then we immediately I went to the Vermont Land Trust. And I asked son to basically take take control and help raise the put this together. And I said well I'm going to do is I'm going to go out and get three of our neighbors. Myself, John Steele and a guy named Max Bazerman, who was a professor for University of Illinois, in the Chicago area. And I got them each to put in $50,000 to donate and in turn, they would get 50 acres of land around their property, but only after the conservation easement was put on it. No guaranteeing public access trails, whatever and no buildings ever can be done. So I raised 150. And then the Freeman foundation matched it. So that got us about a third of the way there. And then the Vermont, conservation, Vermont Land Trust went to the state to the housing Conservation Trust Fund. And they put in $350,000. So that guy is two thirds of the way. And by then we were down to a couple of weeks before the 30 day, 90 days was up. And I went to the Select Board and I said, Listen, we've got two thirds of the money here. We need another three, I think was like 320,000. Would you be willing to call a special town meeting because we have to have a bite given the date? Or else we can lose it? And they said, Absolutely, they voted. They had a special town meeting just to vote on this. And I don't know what the vote was. But I think it was almost unanimous. I mean, people said, Are you kidding me? We'll get all that land for, you know, for $300,000. So and then we so that's that's how it happened. We got the money a couple days in advance, paid them got the deed. And it went to the Vermont Land Trust for two hours. They put on the conservation easement. And then it was distributed to five parties. The State of Vermont got everything about 2500 feet, which is just basically the very top of those mountains.

 

Amanda Huhnert  16:27

Why is that? What was what was because see they contribute a country but why that area in particular how divided because of

 

Gar Anderson  16:35

the they own the nominees for State Forest. And that abuts the Nahmias was a force. So that's why they wanted that part. That makes sense. That's their big gun controlling mountaintops. So they they control the mountaintop. Although they've been very cooperative. We in fact, I just got permission from them to to rebuild the trail that Peter Rushville many years ago that runs along the ridge free to do that this fall. Really. Yeah. So anyway, so they got what that section, the three landowners, including myself got the 350 acre parcels, and then the town got everything else. So the town got probably, almost Well, close to 2000 of all the acres. No, not 2000, probably 1700 acres or so. Oh, that's so cool. Oh my gosh. Oh, wow. Yeah. And that book that was written recently about strolling history that that is incorrect. What they say there, what do they have wrong? Park so they say that the land trust caught it. And that's really not okay. Then later on sold it to the landowner? Well, that wasn't it was all part of one deal. We all got together, we drew up the conservation easements. And it was, it was a big partnership deal. It was, you know, working with the Vermont land trust back then was phenomenal. What we're able to do, it was, you know, these, this was the early day of land conservation in Vermont. And it just, it just worked out extremely well. And we had all the political connections to make it work so sure, huh. So that's kind of how the Sterling Dollar got preserved. And, and we, we wrote into the conservation easement, that we would have permission to restore any of the old logging trails and turn them into non vehicle trails, for cross country skiing, snowshoeing, mountain biking, all that kind of stuff. So in the deed, in everyone's day, we have permission to use all the old trails. And that, of course, affects the state too, because they had just, they had to sign a conservation easement as well. So when I told them or restoring the the upper trail, they really couldn't say no. So that that's, so that's how we basically have the whole valley preserved here. And we're in the process now, you probably you've seen one of those maps that we give away. Yes. And we're in the process now of building all those trails. And we're just joining forces now we're the Moorestown Conservation Commission. We're going to connect our trails to the trails over in Beaver Meadow.

 

Amanda Huhnert  19:15

So your your your the Sterling falls gorge Natural Area trust is still still totally separate from Solange trust. Absolutely. Totally different. We you're talking about your Yeah,

 

Gar Anderson  19:28

yeah. I mean, we, we support the stolen interests very much. I mean, we love what they do. And, you know, they're supportive of us and we're just and we, we are careful not to we don't want to compete, you know, right. So that's why I try to be very quiet about strong falls gorge trust, except for the people that are up here.

 

 

07. Energy Zones - Sterling Valley

So what have you learned about the I mean, just from being up here? I mean, so immersed in this whole, you know, this land project, what have you learned about the Sterling Valley area that's been particularly interesting to you? Well, there's something that we're going to be releasing shortly. That is rather amazing. We currently have a couple people studying, including one of the fellows that writes for the National Geographic magazine in Vermont life. But we have learned over the years, and I've actually had people that I've met out in the woods, who told me that when they come to strongly Valley, they just have so much more energy. We have learned that strolling Valley is at a crossroad of energy zones. And they're actually you get more energy, when you're out here in strong Valley. It's, it's a geographic thing. And a lot of people consider it in but believe it to be a religious thing as well. And we are in the process of documenting this. Now we have somebody that has been out here and, and measuring things. And we are going to once we get this thing documented and explained in a reasonable fashion, we're going to publicize it as well. It's fascinating. It's very fascinating, and it's very true. I feel there are tremendous healing energies out here. We have a woman that does a lot of Chinese medicine, you know, works with Qi and so forth. And she wants to have a sort of a medical center out here because she feels that this is a healing zone. And I believe she's right. So, again, this isn't something that we can we want to publicize until we get more documentation on it. But one thing that proves gives me confidence in what she's she does and her experiences. We discovered that we had radon in our water supply, very high levels. And she was able to move it through dowsing. She was able to move the radon out of our wells. And I had this documented by the the lab over just outside of Burlington, that does was it called agnostic lab or something like that, that does water tests. And we've we've had two sets of word tests. And each time, the first one was the initial one. The second one is after she did the first housing, and now she's done a third we're gonna do a third water test. And it dropped by like, a couple 1000 points after the first 1000 It was amazing. Wow. So there's a lot of truth to all this. You've probably heard of damages that can locate water. Yes, there Well, it goes beyond that. There are damages that actually can move energy zones and so forth. Radiation, you know, that types of that type of thing. So this is all very interesting information and I hope to be able to have time to, to research it more and to document it and Tom's gonna be writing articles on it. And I'm sure we'll have something in store reporter eventually. Once we do, I'd be happy to share it with you. Sure. Yeah. But oh, that's fine. That's one of the things projects we'll be working on in the future.

 

 

08. Conservation, Land Trust _ Public Use

Gar Anderson  00:00

In the meantime, of course, we're just rebuilding trails out here. And I know from my experience and you know, it's basically took me three summers to do the upper gorge loop because there were 40 culverts to put in huge amount of ditching, because what happened is the, the, we have a lot of water, and strong value, you can see it all comes from these mountains into Stonebrook. And a lot of the streams, the drainage streams took over the old trails that people use for logging. See, back then they didn't have vehicles, they logged with oxen. So they were basically there are pathways that were perfect for the rain to drain it. So over the time, since the mill closed in 1920. Those what used to be logging trails turned into, you know, screen bags. So restoring those logging trails means ditching and putting in culverts and that kind of stuff. So that's, it's quite a project. But the end result is they're, they're quite spectacular once once it's done,

 

Amanda Huhnert  01:04

if that pond is just beyond the parking lot that you first hit when you start walking up to this truss Was that was that was that there?

 

01:10

Or no? We I built that the pounds on your property on my conservation zone. That's why it's it's available to everyone, although we can't publicize it being available because of the liability. But it is part of our conservation land and people are welcome to use it. Although we we don't advertise that. Do people swim in it? But of course, yeah, is it people in fact, that bike club, Stowe Bike club has a Mountain Bike Club has a big party out here every every summer, they do what they call a pond jump , they put a ramp, you know, in that big flat rock that is there that you dive off, they put a ramp there and they come down from the little hill, go off the ramp their bikes and do flips in the air. They've done that for three or four years in a row. Now. They have a barbecue and cookout. Yeah, a lot of fun. So, yeah, I mean, we do a lot of things up here. Yeah. See, my commitment is that when we acquired this property, and, you know, I made a commitment to the town of Stowe, that this land would be made available for recreational purposes. And that I would assist in doing that. And that's why I'm doing the trail work. You know, I never take a penny in any fees at all. In fact, what I do, because we have the trust, all the costs that I have for, you know, the the fuel for the tractors and the maintenance and the purchasing signs, that kind of stuff, I what I do is I get that tax tax exempt, when I purchase it because of the 501 C three, and then then I contribute I make a contribution to pay for it to the land trust the to our land trust. And that's how we have enough money to do it. And then of course, that contribution is tax deductible from my income. So it works out really well.

 

Amanda Huhnert  03:09

What do you do any other fundraise? I mean, you hear the land trust is constantly fundraising. I mean, what do you do to keep that? Well,

 

Gar Anderson  03:16

we have two sources of revenue. If you've noticed, the maps that we give out, the back of it says if for those of you that ever want to make a contribution, just send it to the strong postcards trust is tax tax exempt. And we'll send you a, you know, a receipt and a thank you letter, so you can deduct it from your taxes. So we get some other very little income from that. But we also when I when I built this building lots up here, I put in a provision in the deeds that has two phases, when lots are first sold, two and a half percent of the sales price has to go into the gourd, and I matched it. So 5% of the sales price of each of the lots up here at one into the gourd, the trust fund. And then anytime anyone resells a property, the buyer has to pay an amount equal to the property transfer tax. And of course, that's gone up over the years. So the last house that was sold right across the street here, we had, I think it was like $1,000 into the into the trust so and all that money goes into the trust and we just simply use that for 12 minutes.

 

Amanda Huhnert  04:26

And then a lot of volunteer hours too. Yeah. How many people do you have that are actively involved in the trust will?

 

Gar Anderson  04:34

Very few. I mean, we've got I don't think we've had a meeting in three or four years. But, you know, we file the tax returns and everything in and use it for you know, for the purpose of we've had that we've hired the Youth Conservation Corps a couple of times, already. They helped us you know, we obviously maintain the the trail the strong gorge trails while the interpretive trail In fact, the former state naturalist, Charles Johnson, wrote all the signs, interpretive trail signs. And they're documented in a book that he's written about the geological history of Vermont. Very, this guy is incredibly knowledgeable. And he has volunteered, basically came up and wrote the trail signs for us. Who's his mom? So, yeah, he's, he's retired state naturalist. So we I mean, we get people that contribute, things like that, you know, and just people, people that enjoy it, you know, eventually just say, what can we do? And can we help you, you know, build a bridge or, you know, whatever, who put the swing in top. Now, the swing you're talking about?

 

Amanda Huhnert  05:54

It's a part of the loop trend, assess where I've been up there. There's a suite of just surprised.

 

Gar Anderson  06:00

That's actually over here. That's how that's on that mountain over there. And that's not installing gorge. I mean, it's not in strolling Valley. Oh, you access it through these trails? They can, yes, you can access it through there. It's called the rods. It's above the Lawrence loop.

 

Amanda Huhnert  06:15

I have no idea where I was. I just follow the trails from this. Yeah,

 

Gar Anderson  06:18

yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's actually on the land. I believe this. This stole land trust owns that I see. Okay.

 

Amanda Huhnert  06:24

Okay. All right. So your trails are all up. This is what we're talking about here?

 

Gar Anderson  06:29

Well, yeah. mountain top, from all the mountaintop all the way around on both sides down here. That's all the conservation at 20 150 acres. But it borders. Not only does it bordered on the initial state forest, and the beaver, beaver Meadows area, it also borders that piece of land that the stolen trust got a few years ago. That's near it's in Hill. So all this is the I mean, the whole area is conservation land. Yeah. Which is, which is great and tremendous Trails Network.

 

Amanda Huhnert  07:02

Now, have you gotten involved in land conservation outside of this area? This has taken up all of your was takes

 

Gar Anderson  07:07

up all my time? Yes, I do get involved in because I'm a member of the State Conservation Commission. And, you know, I help out, you know, on projects when I can, but they respect the fact that, you know, 99.9% of my work is in sterling Valley, which is great, because this is the largest conservation area in Stowe. And until recently, basically, all they had was a land management plan. You know, Mike Snyder and others were helping see, we have a great project here where Michael now is, of course, as you know, the head of forests and parks for the state of Vermont. And he actually drew the forest management plan for us back in it after we acquired the property and we set it up so there's a stone, stone Valley fund, and any money that's received from the sale of timber goes into the stone Valley fund. So that's how we raise money to do nearby the culverts and do build signs and that kind of stuff.

 

 

09. Future Plans

 

Gar Anderson  0

And this winter, we're starting a new major project. We're gonna do going out Maple Lawn lane. There are a couple areas, there were crest, it's 100% forest now, but there are a couple areas that we're going to open up the fields of meadows, and establish we're working with the National Audubon Society, we're establishing a bird habitat to raise young birds. Because as you know, around the country, now, birds are threatened. And they need places where birds can be raised. And they've identified strong values, one of the best places in the nation to do that. And so we've committed to that the Sterling, the Conservation Commission has approved it. And they've spent the summer up here studying the bird habitats, mapping out the land, and there'll be a reason in the next couple of weeks is going to be a plan submitted. And then we'll be hiring foresters to come in and do the logging this winter. From from Maple, and Lane, you're gonna access it that direction. So it won't interfere with the trails over here. And they're going to clear a couple areas, which will improve the views. I mean, you can see what the view is like here, that same thing will be created over there on Maple lane. And in the meantime, we also have a grant that we received from the National Historic Society for putting in historic sights. And in fact, that's something we're meeting on Friday, Barbara Barrows been helping us for that. She's helping do the text we're going to put in historic markers for the shot the pike Shaw mill, we're going to call pike Shaw, because Shaw is the one that owned it from 19 180 20. They were the last owner, but the first owner was powerful Pike, who was a senator, and actually school teacher. And so and this goes back to the days of the Civil War. And he also was a guy that donated the park to the ton of stones downtown. And the one that's behind stolen. Yep. Yeah, he's the guy that made that donation. The one that you can't bring any on behind, right. So yeah, Paco Pike was the guy that built the mill. So we're done clearing over there. And if you've seen it, but opened up the viewpoints, the foundation still there. I've got aerial photographs. Now the old mill that go back to the taking, making 41. So we're gonna put up marquees there. We're also going to do the boardinghouse, which is out at the intersection of strolling, gorgeous strolling Valley Road, we're going to do the basin house. And if you've been up the upper gorge loop, if you get to the basin where the weather, opera group splits, left and right, if you take the right just up there, you know, 50 yards, on your left, there's a big foundation, you can see. And that's where glide a snap was born. And Gladys Knapp was born there without a doctor in a snowstorm. And she lived for over 100 years. And so she died, I don't know, half a dozen years ago or so longer. And what she lived in stole his time. So you knew her? I knew it. Well, she was my neighbor, the rusty nail, so what kind of story so she shared with you then? Well, she, she shared me with me the photographs. You know, once we finished with this, I'll show you the photographs that we have that we're going to put on those monarchies. I've got a photograph of the house. She was born in the basement where the foundation is I get a photograph of the boarding house photographs of the mill, a photograph of the the house that they call the mill house, which was the house where the northerners lived, which was right here in the field right near where the pond is. And then photograph of this big barn site that was right out here. On the there could be foundations just as you go out maple run mean. So we've got photographs of all those most of those buildings. And so we're going to put up marquees and barbers helping us write the script, and we're going to talk about the history out here and so forth. Wow, yeah, which will enhance the trails, you know, the, the more of SEC we did with the interpretive trail where we put in all that knowledge base to so not only do you get to enjoy the gorge, but you learn, you know, what the rocks are and where they came from and how long it took to form it. You'll be able to see those foundations and know the buildings that were there and who owned them. So, yeah, so it's gonna be it's more than just recreation. It's read your recreation and education. So that's kind of our goal.

 

10. Retrospective _ Dowsing

Amanda Huhnert  00:00

Gosh, do you think back half 30 years ago? Yes. You have any idea how things that unfold? You know?

 

Gar Anderson  00:08

Well, I feel I've been led here. I mean, there are certain things that that have occurred over the years, obviously, my acquisition of the gorge for one. And just the fact that the work we've been able to do out here, I just feel that I was sort of led to this area, we certainly

 

Amanda Huhnert  00:33

tried to, could have left stone. I mean, think about those early years, how many times you almost laughed and things worked out so that you were here? Yeah. Yeah.

 

Gar Anderson  00:44

So I was, you know, I think from a religious perspective, there's a lot to be said to that I really do think there's a if this energy zone is explained, where people will understand, and if they can actually benefit from it. I think people understand that there is a real possibility that, that there are people that have been led to this area, to make it available to others. I've discussed this with a couple people from, you know, our various churches and religious societies, and they're very, very much supportive of, you know, what the possibility is out here. So we're, we're working on that. We're working on that. And I'm pretty confident that this is all going to come together in a way that will benefit a lot of people. Because I think people are getting benefits from coming out here. Not

 

Amanda Huhnert  01:46

sure. And when you bump into them on the trails, and you can tell your personal story.

 

Gar Anderson  01:50

Yeah. When they when they say, and this is not something I'm encouraging them to say, they come to me and say, Well, I love it out here. Every time I come out here, I have so much energy, you know, that type of thing after after that happened two or three times I said, Well, wait a minute. Now, you know what's going on here? There's something to this.

 

Amanda Huhnert  02:09

So what did you do next? How did you take that and how to? Well,

 

Gar Anderson  02:12

that's when I met Briana Lin, who was this, this person that does the healing see contacted her. I had actually met her through another source I had a lot of infections in my job and from I don't know if you know what root canals are, but 98% of them become infected over time. And eventually, that infection will will spread through your body. So she identified those through the dentist's office, and she was able to assist me in getting all infection. Write it out of the of the jaw bones because they had to dig down into the jaw bones. And that's what I mean, I don't have any teeth in owner, these are all dentures. But I had them all to a boil. The amount of energy I got after that was incredible. It was like taking, you know, 10 years off your life

 

Amanda Huhnert  03:05

because of the work that she heard is it? Yeah, she

 

Gar Anderson  03:09

would buy cheese, she was able to direct the dentists as to where the infection was located. She was able to do that. And in fact, it wasn't just me, she did it for she does it for dozens and dozens of people on a regular basis. And there's a group of dentists now that understand the risks of root canals. And, of course, I was even worse than that, because when I was a kid, I had a lot of cavities. And I was back in days where they put mercury in your mouth. And I had a mouthful of mercury, which I initially had taken out, and then that's when they found the you're tracking for the root canals. And one thing led to another for surgeries, but I eventually got it all removed. And that made a huge difference in it. It also I mean, people look at me, so we Oh, you must be sick because you lost so much weight. I lost. Let's say I think I was up to like 220 pounds, and I'm now at 160 570. So, but that was my college weight. And I haven't lost any energy or any strength, I can still lift the heavy boulders and logs that I did when I was 220 pounds. It's just that I have more energy now.

 

Amanda Huhnert  04:39

How did you how did you How do you attribute the weight loss is that I just

 

Gar Anderson  04:42

I I think it was because of the fact that the body body is working better now. You know it processes things better. And things you know you're not building up fat plus the fact that I changed my diet considerably to so that I'm sure that it's so it's interesting you know, there's there's a lot of truth to that although a lot of people don't believe in that, in fact, the American Dental Society they, they're opposed to losing root canal work because that's probably the biggest moneymaker for dentists in the world. But there's some great books that have been written by, you know, medical doctors that confirm exactly what happened to my, in my jaws.

 

 

11. Winter Carnival

 

Amanda Huhnert  00:00

Is there you know, when you I'm kind of going back? Are there any other organizations or any other areas of so that you've touched personally that have been? Well, yeah. Are you

 

Gar Anderson  00:09

struggling the carnival? I mean, we had a situation where one day I got a call from Stan Schaeffler Stan Schaeffler was from Switzerland. He came to the world what do they call it the World's Fair up in Montreal, and he ran the Swiss pavilion. This goes back, I was in college back then. So that was around 65 or so maybe the World's Fair and in Montreal, remember was on the island. Anyway, he ran the Swiss pavilion. And after running the Swiss pavilion, he he must have come down to Stowe and, and found the building near restaurants Swiss spot, which he he renamed at restaurants was about I was was in before that. For the bar downstairs. I can't remember the name. But anyway, he he opened, he moved all the stuff that he brought from Switzerland for the for the pavilion, and moved it down and open the restaurant, Swiss pot. And one day, he gives me a call. We became friends because I used to like to eat there was good food. And he said, Come on over for lunch, I want to buy a lunch. So I went over and he sat down. He said, You know, he said I was just to keep mining. He was running a business now a restaurant. And he said I was just struggling Quebec City. This is during the winter. And he said I went to though the Winter Carnival up there. What's it called? Now it's called the famous name. It's named after some kind of a design or something. But anyway, so I was just up there. And he said, We gotta have that kind of thing. And still, we need a winter carnival and stuff. And I said, he said, how would I go about doing that? And I said, Well, yeah, I'd love to do that. Let's let's work together on that. I'd say first thing to do. Let's let's call Bill O'Reilly Bill O'Reilly was the marketing director for the mountain has a company. Let's get him and let's get a couple other people in town. So we call a special meeting at the restaurants was a dinner meeting. And they all came in. And we talked about it. Everybody was excited about it. Let's let's do the let's let's start a Winter Carnival. Now, apparently, there had been a Winter Carnival years before, but none of us knew that. Like it was like 20 years earlier, there had been some kind of a little one. But we thought we were starting something brand new. So we said Now how are we going to make this? You know how we're going to make this work. And Bill Reilly said, Well, the best thing you can do is get a national ski event. He said that will bring people from all over. And that's something that mountain company will support set personal support. So, at the time, I said, Well, you know, the biggest new ski event is freestyle skiing. And it's it was just starting was the early days of freestyle skiing. What year? What? early part of what decade? Well, let's see, this would have been, let's see. 1970 say 73 or four. Okay. Again, I've got all the it's all documented in there. So anyway, so everyone said, Well, yeah, sounds like might be good. Let's give that a try. And there was a event being held out in Colorado, that coming weekend, and Stan said, I'll fly out there and see what I can do. I'll check it out. So the Stan crew out there. He came back and said, I got the Okay. From the people that from the guy that Chris oberhasli His name has occurred over here. Kurt over Hansi, who was the manager of the professional freestyle associates, he was basically the president. He said he's agreed to come to stoke and do an event and I also talked to what was the muffler Midas muffler and they are willing to sponsor it. So we went up to see SAP going into SEPs office and set review be willing to host a freestyle event here and step step said you know set was a downhill skier he had national debt events up there and, you know, World Championships and that kind of stuff. And he kind of looked at us and said, ABC wild world of sports, we'll come and film it. And as soon as we said that, he said, I'll do anything you want. So the first year, they came in ABC Wildwater sports did a great television show. They were a weekly television broadcast did a great show on Stowe, Vermont. And our mommies will company sup loved it. And septic got back next year. So we scheduled another one for the second year. And in the meantime, Jerry good, who ended up buying restaurants Westpac from Stan Schaeffler, Jerry good went back to his former employee and got them to sponsor the event. And then Colgate Palmolive came involved. And Colgate say we want to sponsor the woman's event. And we'll do a special one hour TV special just on the woman show. So the second year, we got two television shows, ABC wall road sports and Colgate primetime special. And set was just loved over the moon. And of course, he did a phenomenal job we had what he did in setting up and doing the building the ramps that people do the flips off and all the way at the top skiers. Some of the top skiers in the world were over here doing you know flips and aerials and ballet and in the mobile competition was great. So those were the first two years of the stolen a carnival. And back in those days, we used to, they used to close down Main Street one night, and some people around, you know, the by the old post office and ran out. And then we would take in and snowplow all the snow into the road. And we do we do skiing around right down on Main Street right in front of the memorial building. And we'd have you know, entertainment out on side. That was a big party we'd have every night as part of the Winter Carnival.

 

Amanda Huhnert  07:06

Wow. So oh my gosh, it's hard to imagine. Oh, there were

 

Gar Anderson  07:09

some great things back then. And of course, that's when we had the snow golf, and just all kinds of things. And back then those days when a carnival was really a big, big deal. Yeah. Was it a two week affair? One week? One week, one week? Yeah, it was one week better always had the major event, which was really, I mean, those television shows just did so much for the touchstone.

 

Amanda Huhnert  07:33

So how long did you stay involved in the planning?

 

Gar Anderson  07:35

I was present in the winter carnival for three years, the first three years. And then then Vinny took over for a couple of years and did a couple of years. And then eventually we got involved in other things. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, that was that was fun. See, back then the whole town worked as a, you know, all the I mean, we're young people back then growing up, and they just loved getting us involved in things. And we got support from everybody. I mean, there were some very wealthy people. I mean, you think about it, you know, Werner Reed and Tom watts, and all these people, they're a very wealthy people that love what we're doing. And very supportive, Colgate, Palmolive. And, you know, all these companies, you know, just love to sponsor what we're doing. So, we had, how did you go about making

 

Amanda Huhnert  08:27

that amount? You're talking about the sponsorships? How did you make this ally? I mean, how did that come about? Did you contact them or they,

 

Gar Anderson  08:34

they were Colgate, of course, became involved. They love supporting the women in the freestyle events. So they were sort of became involved in the whole circuit. But Jerry good. And trying to think with his company was a huge company, national company, I'd have to look that up. But he's the one that got sponsorship for the event itself. So and then, initially, of course, it was the Midas muffler that that got the first sponsorship. And this was all back in the days where, you know, these companies were looking for publicity. And of course, they got, you know, by sponsoring the event. They had all the banners, and they would show up on the television shows and they got their, you know, their business out of it. Yeah. And, of course, just having it installed with all the beautiful photography they do and all the discussions. I mean, we had Olympians would come in, you know, and do the announcing. So, I mean, they were all very, very well known popular people.

 

 

12. Social Changes and Land Use

Amanda Huhnert  00:00

So how did you think about like the social scene and sto and certainly nightlife being a component of that? I mean, how has that how did you see that change over the years of 1969? When you

 

Gar Anderson  00:14

from then to now?

 

Amanda Huhnert  00:15

Yeah, I mean, how has it evolved or changed?

 

Gar Anderson  00:18

What happened is back then sto was certainly not as populous as it is now. was a much smaller town, at sure had nice group of hotels and all but add nowheres near the number of condominiums that has now sto now is primarily condominiums. Second homeowners, back then there were there are a few, but any was is before notch book was before Robinson Springs was before all those, you know, none of those had been built back then. So, you know, bringing people to town was a big challenge. And that's why we got local support from all the business people. And any anything that we would do that would bring people to town, we got tremendous support. You know, the beta was, you know, their own stuff, like all the people that had been in town for many years would support what we were doing, and gave us free hotel rooms. And

 

Amanda Huhnert  01:16

you keep saying we so who is we in this row? We

 

Gar Anderson  01:19

mean, everybody that that worked together on it. Yeah. So they were

 

Amanda Huhnert  01:23

there certain players, though, when you think about we when you think about these things that you've been doing over the years? Yeah.

 

Gar Anderson  01:29

I mean, we're like talking to Winter Carnival. You know, we had Stan Schaeffler course, who owned Swiss Park, we had many Banano. We had he was just talking about marketing director, right.

 

Amanda Huhnert  01:50

We've just said, yes. Okay. So when you're saying so basically, these, these different players were involved in a lot of the different things that you had going on. So yeah, yeah.

 

Gar Anderson  02:01

You know, and then separation was very supportive of anything that would bring business to town. So it was an coastal area Association back then, I know, I serve for almost a decade on the board of directors of stone area, you know, we'd meet you know, every was it once a month? Yeah, probably once a month we'd ever, our directors meeting, and they always had the the top business owners in town at the meeting. So we all got to be friends and we work together. So yeah, that's how just a lot of good communication. You know, we always work together. I know, I know, Sep was on the board of directors of the Union Bank. And when I needed a loan to expand the rusty nail, he was in there to make sure you give it to this guy, you know, that type of thing. We just helped each other, you know? Sure. Yeah. So that's, that's how we got things done back in those days.

 

Amanda Huhnert  03:00

And you feel like it would do feel that how is the culture changed around them? Is it just that it's grown? sheer numbers?

 

Gar Anderson  03:07

Yeah, it's sheer numbers. Now, of course, are far more second home owners in town, that really don't understand and appreciate what the old stove used to be like. In fact, I have a particular situation out here, I'd rather not publicize this, but one of the three contributors of $50,000, Max Bazerman, sold his property and bought a mountain top out in New Hampshire. And the people he sold it to are from New York City. And they work in the the investment industry. And even though they signed or they they got a they had to accept the covenants, you know, the, the, you know, the natural area covenants, when they purchased basement property. They don't want anyone on their property. And so even though it says specifically written the deed, they're out hiring lawyers in New York to find the loopholes in the deme. Where he said, We cannot. They can protect, they don't need to allow people in the property to protect natural wildlife. So they claim they found an eagle's nest. Now, I've never seen an Eagles drone guy, but they claim to have an eagle's nest on their property. So they don't want people coming on their 50 acres. Right. So that type of thing, you know, and that's and I can't blame them for that because they're brought up in New York City and in New York City. You don't leave your doors unlocked. You know, you don't leave your keys in the car. You know, that's you you worry about vandalism. That doesn't happen out here, you know. But at the same time, I think if they had understood the commitment that we made to the town in order to acquire this land, the alternative would have been if this had been sold to a developer, they could have built 550 houses out here. This could be another community. So which do you prefer? Do you like to have all this natural land with all these trails? Or would you like to be involved in another village? You know, right. So it's, it's a matter of sitting down and explaining to them, and I hardly ever see them, you know, they're rarely in town. But next time I get a chance, I'm going to sort of walk them through the history of how this came about. But I think a lot of our visitors that come in here are just used to different living modes, and they don't understand, you know, what is behind the conservation efforts that we make in town, are public access, why we're so supportive of this, why we take our time, our vacation time and donate it to building trails, and, you know, all volunteer work and that kind of stuff. They don't understand that they don't have that perspective, because they weren't part of the movement that created it. So, you know, I'm looking forward to retirement, so I can spend more time building TROs up here, you know,

 

Amanda Huhnert  06:24

what sounds like you're also you're kind of describing a little bit of just a difference in values, and the reason why people come to so and what attracts you to this area versus maybe, you know, people coming from different places for different reasons. I don't know how to articulate that, but I see that and so, you know, there's different motives for wanting to spend time here. And you definitely have a long history here and a sense of ownership and responsibility to protect,

 

Gar Anderson  06:56

you shop that push you get a healthier environment. You know, you've got fresh water, clean water, you've got, you know, good produce, you can you can either grow it or bite at the farmers market. You've got, you know, fresh air, you know, you don't have to worry about pollution. In fact, even out here in sterling Valley, you don't have to worry about radiation either because, you know, we don't have any cell phone towers next to us. So, you know, it's just a healthier environment in which to live.

 

 

13. Hopes and Concerns

Amanda Huhnert  00:00

Now are there any other you know, as we wrap up, are there are there other changes that did or did not happen in sto that you would have either liked to have seen happen or that happened that you disagreed with over the years in particular,

 

Gar Anderson  00:13

there's there's nothing that I can think of that I wouldn't have supported. And still, I think we've had a wonderful history of town government. I think our select boards over the years have done tremendous jobs. I mean, and we see the good news is you get volunteers from, from the business community, and from the general community. I mean, I spent maybe four or five years as chairman of the stock Planning Commission. Then I also was chairman of the sto, constant sto cemetery commission for a few years. And now, of course, I'm among the Soil Conservation Commission Board. And so, I mean, but all kinds of people that administer for many years of doing the same thing. So I think that's, that's what makes our town really good. They get volunteers, to dec get out and support things, and help help things to happen. I mean, a lot of the grants that we get for, for doing the work we have out here, come from people that just have, you know, have a long history of supporting things in this area, and they know how to convince the legislature that this is something you need to do. And you think about the money that the legislature gets out of stuff for the schools. And in the state. It's quite amazing. So I mean, the legislature does respect the fact that we are a, you know, our money source for them, for the state and for the schools. And at the same time, you know, we also run a good community, good for our community, we don't do anything that violates state laws. So I just think we get a lot of a lot of support from the state. To me, there was a time when Augusto had so much money, they don't need any more money, but but when they understand what we're doing with the money, we're working on trails that we're bringing more people in, that will spend more money in taxes than they understand. Well, yeah, this is worth investigating. Right? Yeah. So that's, that's the kind of message you have to get across.

 

Amanda Huhnert  02:23

Is there anything that you look into the future there? And what what would you say your hopes are for Sto? Or what do you?

 

Gar Anderson  02:28

Well, the most, the thing I'm more impressed with than anything in town is the number of conservation parcels that we would currently own. When I say we currently own I'm talking about the public, whether it be the sto Land Trust Sterling falls gorge trust at times. So anything with conservation easements, is a tremendous source. Now, when you think about it, we have a lot of land that is under conservation, including a lot of land is in the municipal state forest as well, and by the state. Now, that means that the future of sto is, is going to be far superior to most any other town in the in the country. Because we've got all this preservation land, we're spending a lot of time building trails, offering it, you can come to stone now, and stay in a hotel eat in a restaurant, but you can go out and ski for free. If you're a cross country skier, or if you're snowshoeing or if you're a mountain biker, there are no charges for any of that you owe if you want, you know, a nice groom pack trail, you can go up to traps, but they don't charge a lot of money. It's you know, fair, or if you're downhill skier you can go up and pay for a lift ticket. But, you know, that's, that's fine. But there are also a lot of opportunities to ski for free up here too. So and, and that's something I think everybody supports because I think the they realize that having people come that are interested in mountain biking, supports the hotels and restaurants in town. People that like to just come up and relax and hike. Same thing. People like to ski have all sorts of options. A lot of people like to, you know, I don't mind spending $100 to go skiing up at the mountain that day. But I'd like to, on the next day, I think I'll just go out and cross country ski for free. So I mean, there's there's a lot of that. And I just think we have a tremendous pool of opportunity up here for people. And we get obviously look look at the number of Canadians we get. It's amazing how many people come down here. And people from all over the country when I I was out here clearing around the mill foundation. One day I had people from Switzerland, people from let's see the Virg not the Virgin Islands, but Puerto Rico. And yeah, three different nations. Were here. Just yeah, just happen to be here. They didn't they weren't, didn't come together, they were just three different countries. Wow. So I mean, you know, I just think that's, it just speaks a lot for Sto. I think sto has a wonderful reputation. And I think we just are a tremendous source of a wonderful vacation spot.

 

Amanda Huhnert  05:29

Any worries, any concerns?

 

Gar Anderson  05:33

My only concern is that we educate the people as to the importance of conservation. And when we have public lands, we and conservation easements, we just ensure that the public has has access to them. Now, I'm not too concerned about this 150 acre parcel, because quite frankly, it's not the the best place in the in the Valley for recreation. Hey, we got plenty of trails. But there is an erratic boulder that sits right on the corner of the property. And I wanted to I want to I'm going to extend the strolling Gorge Trail from where the staircase goes down and then extend it down to where the Radek is. It could very well be one of the largest erotic builders in New England, if not the country. And I've had it confirmed from the geological grouping in in the state. And it's an amazing boulder. Of course, erotic is something that was moved by the glacier, right? So it happens, unfortunately, to be right on the corner of their conservation land. And, you know, they're opposing access to it. So I said, Okay, we won't have we won't let anyone walk on your land, but they can certainly look at it. No, you can't put up a fence in front of it. So that's the type of thing but again, I think once once we have time to sit down and explain to them how how this all came about, and why we do it the way we do it, hoping that they'll they'll understand. So it's just that they're from a different society and a different way to look at things.

 

Amanda Huhnert  07:18

So is there anything else we didn't cover that we had talked about covering or that you wanted to talk about today?

 

Gar Anderson  07:24

Not in particular, but if something comes up I'm more than happy to to discuss everything. Been in town a lot of years and been involved in a lot of different things.

 

 

14. Sale of Sterling Valley Land

Gar Anderson  00:00

Let's see. Let me see if I can find this is one of the original. Arthur kreizel was the owner of top notch. half on the other one it was from Quebec and you were involved with he work at top notch I do the manager supply we see marketing director, marketing director. Okay.

 

Gar Anderson  00:18

Right. Marking director for top notch and then actually I was the manager I worked for Marvin gamma off the Green Mountain. Okay, I'm actually the person that was in charge of the renovation of the Green Mountain. In fact, I talked. I ran into putting in that staircase that goes up from the center. Oh, sure, right. So, Arthur kreizel also helped me with communicator, Tom Watson. Let's see. Let's see. As to the additional land when I begin to do something with that property. This is simer Tom Watson, I would be glad to think about selling him piece of land. But to make a single transaction at this point, it's just more trouble than a review worth, either to him or to me, by far the best way to buy the Sterling value property for me, after all, there are only 20 150 acres involved. And it would make you a fine investment just as it has me. Well, who was it? He sold it for a million and it was he paid 220,000 for it. Let's see just looking for the corn that city's Oh, yeah, here it is. Okay, this is signed Tom Watson, August 27 1983. I am interested in selling my strong valley land or want to sell it in a fairly uncomplicated way. You live in the area, and you know, the land and its beauty. So I need not dwell on that. I bought the property many years ago because I thought it would be fun to develop the the skier now is my 70th birthday approaches. My interests lie in long distance cruising and flying. He owned a Learjet, and he was a pilot and also owned a jet Ranger helicopter. And I am interested in disposing of this parcel. However, I would want 50% of the price up front, and very clean financing, etc. arranged for by someone else. So the deal to me was entirely cash. If you have any ideas along those lines, I might proceed a step or two down the road code and appraisal. This is this is what's this was the first actually the first real communication was 82 when Arthur put me in touch with with Tom, but is 83 This was the first actual negotiation that we entered. So I've got all this documentation that goes through the years. And all these letters signed by Tom Watson back and forth.

 

Amanda Huhnert  03:31

Are these are there are copies of this somewhere else?

 

Gar Anderson  03:35

No, no, I don't think anyone else has copies. But I'd be happy to give you copies if you want to. Yeah, I think that that would be

 

Amanda Huhnert  03:44

really interesting.

 

Gar Anderson  03:47

Yeah, and this is Keith Bryant was his one of his attorneys he was helping me to he came up and we became friends and he was helping me with times. I just had two or three people working. Helping me on this process Oh, yeah, this this is the other part that is interesting Ted lad from Dover, Massachusetts, who was terrible at again. Okay. I believe this is the guy that was buying Beaver Meadow or own beaver now. Let's see. Dear Mr. Ladd. Let's see. And this was from Keith Bryant Okay. Let's see. guardians to told me you will be meeting with Tom Watson on February 13. We would therefore like you to take time to consider our interest in Mr. Watson's 2200 acres in Stowe, our position is as follows. We are proceeding with the development of 3000 acres in the bowling track 300 No 3000 pounds That's $3,000 Wow, makers in the back track, which he joined your lamp. So this guy here quiet phoned the whole mud city, Beaver Meadow land, and he was going to develop it. We believe that is our mutual benefit to join these two tracks into 150 200 acre parcel. So this was the developer that was trying to develop this whole area. And he wanted to acquire lots of property. So with respect to your track, it seems that approximately 15% of the acreage is about 2500 elevation. Therefore undeveloped, meaning you need special permits. General soil maps indicate the possibility of good leech fields at the lower elevation, timber operations revenue should be able to support forest management improvements and so forth. land swap seems appropriate for our proposed development. And he goes on and on conclusion is assuming we receive professional verification for the items, we are prepared to pay 6500 $650,000.

 

Amanda Huhnert  06:18

And he was asking you for

 

Gar Anderson  06:20

a million, right. So this is what got me motivated, because I didn't want this whole thing turned into a massive Oh my gosh. So this is what got me to start working with Tom to get him to hold off and not sell the property, which he was fine in doing. Because I mean, he first of all he had, he was a multi multi millionaire, he didn't need money right then. And he didn't wasn't particularly big on working with other developers because he wanted to develop any equipment. So he wasn't big on anyone else doing. So this, this documents that. And then it goes on, this is just a whole play of how this whole thing happened over the years. And how we eventually got to the point after he passed away where I said, I wanted to promote an interest. So we need to get, you know, three months to raise the money. Because if we go public and try raising money, the developers are going to be all over this thing. I mean, when you know, right, today, you there's, there's there are lots in Robinson springs that are million dollars just for building. And you think about whole this entire valley for a million dollars. That's incredible. I mean, somebody could have made a fortune by by buying this. And they would have. So and this is Ted lab. This is I think another this was one of Watson's attorneys to I gave him a tour of the valley. And he helped me a lot. Yeah, he reviewed with Tom Watson, my proposal and so forth. And I mean, at one time I was my first thought was to buy the land and just put in a couple building last to be able to pay for the land and then conserve the rest. But then once I found out that the Vermont Land Trust was supporting, I said, Let's conserve the whole thing. And we needed some money to start. That's where I came up with a plan. Let's do 350 acre parcels get $150,000 cash to start and put the conservation easements on first and the Vermont interested that's a great idea. And they they went along with it. So this just goes on and on and on. And this is sort of how the history works. And it's so cool to know that no one knows of this. And the person that wrote that book, obviously got the message wrong. And I didn't want to you know, talk a lot about this because I was never one that wanted to, you know, be a hero. I just wanted to do what my commitment was to serve the town.

 

Amanda Huhnert  09:07

So do Do many people know how responsible you are for this

 

Gar Anderson  09:14

piece? I caught a few people though certainly Tom Amidon would know and I think I did. I have shared it with a couple people in town I think the Conservation Commission understands it now. But they've never seen these documents. I told him I have it documented but you know I haven't really shared in it when Paul Percy was a big supporter as well. So I mean these are all

 

Amanda Huhnert  09:43

How did you get copies of the letters here's some of the letters were not between you and that person he or CC you're copied on them? Probably

 

Gar Anderson  09:52

will know most of these like

 

Amanda Huhnert  09:58

I just thought there was some letters in the Beginning that we're between

 

Gar Anderson  10:01

Yeah, let's hear from the developer. This is actually from Ted, this is his Watson's attorney Scholarshare. Woods, this is just, I mean, they look like they're copies, but a lot of these originals. Some of them are copies, most of them are originals. And the other thing I, when I was getting the act 250 permit, the way the, the land was set up, that I purchased from Brunner, the old mill site, had, if you're standing out where the bridges here, you know, the simple Lane Bridge, if you're on that side of the bridge on the, you know, approaching side of the bridge, there was about an acre of land that cut down where they used to pile all the wood, all the timber, see what they had, in the wintertime, they had one or two cabins that were located way up in the valley. And people would, the men would go up there, and they would spend the night this is all going to be documented on our marquees, they would, they would spend the winter up there, cutting the trees down and pulling them down here by oxen. And they would stack them in this in this one acre section where where the bridge is now. So when when the land got transferred to Verna read that that little square stayed with the no site. So I was going to put the bridge in to get over to this side of the book. But it was it would have had been down at the bottom of that acre, which would have been closer to the actual gorge itself. And the Conservation Commission. And the Planning Commission said we'd much prefer if you put the bridge up next to the the old the old bridge, the old hybrid, the foundation still there, the big hybrid, it's right next to the single lane bridge. And I said I totally agree with that. Unfortunately, I own the land on on this side, but not on side with the town wrote it. And so they said, we'll write a letter. So the chairman of the Conservation Commission, let wrote a letter to Tom Watson and asked him if he would sell me that, that he could lend. Tom wrote back and said, I'd be happy to cooperate with you. And I know gonna be happy to solve that. But I don't really need cash. He said, I will trade him some land if he gives me a forget what he said. I think I gave him three acres for one acre. Yeah. He said you can give it to any of us anywhere in his land. Just give me the three acres I'll give him the equity he wants. So I ended up giving him the piece that there was way down at the bottom of the gorge, which is where that erratic boulder sits. Right. And which was originally on the Gorge land. So I I get traded on that. Just simply so I could appease the active 50 Commission and the the local planning commission in the conservation area, that one that wanted to keep the bridge closer to the with the old hybrid, which I totally support it. And it wasn't like there was a date what they want. It was great. It just said I needed to own the land to do it. Right. So that's how that happened. Oh, interesting. Yeah. So I mean, it's yeah, a lot of things happen over the years, you know, back and forth.

 

Amanda Huhnert  13:30

Oh, yeah. Wow, what a story. McVicker is

 

Gar Anderson  13:33

the attorney that started the he made the stolen trust and also the Sterling gorge trust. And this is when we initially tried to negotiate with with Watson. And he said that he did not feel that your group was interested in enough of the property that he had for sale. There was not time to go into any detail, and that your group did not seem to have the financial. So this was like this was 93 This was before we actually that before Tom passed away, and we actually got the money together.

 

Amanda Huhnert  14:14

So let's uh, he had been in concert this John vicar, John had been in contact with Watson. Oh, yeah. You're saying Watson doesn't really? Yeah, I see.

 

Gar Anderson  14:26

So yeah, there are many aspects. He went back and forth for almost a decade. Oh my gosh, so the whole thing is, but I'll get the other aarC copies made. So you have you can document the actual letters from Tom Watson and so forth.

 

Amanda Huhnert  14:48

Do you think Watson was having second thoughts?

 

Gar Anderson  14:52

Well, I think at the time, I mean, keep in mind he was looking for it to make a profit on it. I mean, you Was he was a businessman. That was what he did all his life. But he was also very respective of a lot of stuff. And I, I had been to his house he he was the guy that owned there were two Watson houses on spruce, spruce, pecan, big spruce rocks, a little spruce wanted some one that the tower that's up right near the the ski club, you know, a big spruce tower? Yes, yes. That actually. That wasn't Tom's house. That was one of one of the Watson family that was the Senate Senator. But Tom's house was down. I believe. It's no longer I think they tore it down when when they built the new hotel, but it was right down next to where the ski club used to be. And I went over, he invited me over the house once and I went over and we went downstairs to come downstairs with the lounge downstairs. I went downstairs and started walking around who was this big one? at eye height. The entire basement wall was photographs. And every single one of them was Tom Watson shaking hands with a president a, you know, a king or a queen, or, you know, of every nation, almost every nation in the world? Because he was I think he was the US Ambassador to what was it Russia? I don't know. Yeah. And he just he just knew everybody. I mean, he was a very famous person. So we got to know each other over the years. And the good news was he kind of respected the fact that, you know, we didn't want develop him up here and you kind of just sat on it. 

 

15. Closing

 

Gar Anderson  00:00

here's the here's the Closing Vermont housing conservation board 300,000 Town of Stowe 380,000 Anderson get 45 Bazerman get 45 steel get 45 supplemental guests another 1500 Freeman foundation $200,000 And that brought us to $1,016,500 transfer from Vermont Land Trust escrow $15,000 that brought us up to $1,031,000 and then the expenses the land purchase the recording fees the title search this this is a total documentation of of the costs of  purchase. Oh, good. I got a copy of that. Okay, great. Yeah, this this documents every penny. Okay, wow.

 

01:04

1995 Yep. Why six? Yep.

Gar Anderson  01:09

Yeah, I've got all the I've got all the documentation to remember. Right. Well, it helps the documentation helps pull the pieces together. Thomas J. Watson, he died in 1993. So this was two years later. Yeah. Although probably wasn't a full two years it probably just after a year. Former Chairman of IBM and longtime resident of Stowe

01:38

Watson camp so where's Watson Camp then

Gar Anderson  01:41

that was located upon the  mountain. It overlooks Sterling pond. Oh, I think they actually tore down. It was  the long trail. Yeah, he had a lot. He was a really cool guy. A lot of things going on.