Nest — Spring 2022 by Seven Days

home design real estate

SPRING 2022

nest 9

Neat tips from pro home organizers

Kara Koptiuch’s tricks of the real estate trade

Help wanted: Vermont’s land surveyor shortage

Mother Nature inspires Starksboro nursery

Dramatic Waterbury renovation is architect’s dream PAGE 12

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pring means new growth, and there’s plenty sprouting up in this issue of Nest, Seven Days’ quarterly magazine on homes, design and real estate. In Starksboro, a longtime gardener nurtures native plants and community at MARIJKE’S PERENNIAL GARDENS PLUS. In Waterbury, architect Ward Joyce is living the stream — er, dream — after dramatically renovating a 1930s wool-drying shed into a CREEK-SIDE CABIN. Got that spring cleaning itch? Make a fresh start with help from Vermont’s burgeoning industry of PROFESSIONAL HOME ORGANIZERS. Meanwhile, the VERMONT SOCIETY OF LAND SURVEYORS could use some fresh faces; the field, which supports real estate development, is looking to attract new recruits. Buying a house is the ultimate new beginning, and Realtor Kara Koptiuch gets candid about WHAT TO EXPECT FROM THE HOUSING MARKET. And for those who don’t have a home, Up End This aims to change that with its INNOVATIVE SHELTER PODS.

Last Quarter.............................. 6 Vermont housing news

B Y A NNE WAL L AC E AL L E N

Tidy Team .................................. 9

Moving? Decluttering? Professional home organizers can coach you through it B Y A NNE WAL L AC E AL L E N

Backwater Beauty ..................12

How a creek-side cabin in Waterbury was transformed into an industrial-chic bachelor pad

B Y K E N P IC AR D

What’s the Deal?......................16

Realtor Kara Koptiuch’s inside view of Vermont’s frustrating, frenzied housing market B Y CA R O LY N S H AP IR O

Map Quest ................................18 Vermont surveyors plot ways to attract newcomers to their trade B Y A NNE WAL L AC E AL L E N

In Starksboro, a lifelong gardener spreads native plants and knowledge B Y M E LI SS A PASAN E N

SPRING 2022

home design real estat e

Perennial Passion .................. 20

ON THE COVER Ward Joyce’s home on the banks of Graves Brook in Waterbury PHOTO COURTESY OF WARD JOYCE

nest 9

Neat tips from pro home organizers

Kara Koptiuch’s tricks of the real estate trade

Help wanted: Vermont’s land surveyor shortage

Mother Nature inspires Starksboro nursery

Dramatic Waterbury renovation is architect’s dream PAGE 12

NEST SPRING 2022

Last Quarter

583

The number of Vermont homes available for sale in mid-March. Two years ago, there were 2,775.

$305,000

The median price a house in Vermont sold for in February 2022. That’s down 8.4 percent from the median price of $333,000 in January but 10.9 percent higher than the median price of $275,000 in February 2021.

$445,000

Up End This founder Michael Zebrowski at his new shop

Upending Homelessness “It creates a different kind of thinking,” Zebrowski said of the After spending a couple of decades studying and teaching flexible form. architecture, Johnson resident Michael Zebrowski is using The city contract marks a big step forward for Up End This. what he has learned to solve some of the thorniest problems In 2020, Zebrowski took part in JumpStart, a three-month plaguing society today. entrepreneurial boot camp run by Burlington’s Generator Zebrowski’s company, Up End This, manufactures mobile makerspace and the Lake Champlain Chamber. buildings and has been contracted to create 10 of the 30 Since then, his pods have started popping up in public “shelter pods” that the City of Burlington will deploy this places. Hardwick’s Front Seat Coffee bought one to use as summer as it looks for ways to end homelessness. a satellite location, and South Burlington nightclub Higher The Up End This pods that Burlington is purchasing aren’t Ground has ordered two to use as greenrooms for its Shelburne tiny homes; at just 64 square feet, without a bathroom or Museum concert series this summer. kitchen, they’re one-room shelters with a bed and a desk. In March, Zebrowski moved the pod manufacturing from The structures are intended to provide some much-needed Burlington to Manufacturing Solutions in Morristown. He’s personal space for people who are waiting for more permanent seeking investors to help him build his own production facility housing. and hopes to hire a dozen people this spring. “Our shelter pods are designed to provide He’s also looking ahead to a time when folks experiencing some of the most difficult someone who lives in a mobile times in their lives a quality space with unit could receive mail, just a light and airy interior,” Zebrowski as those in permanent homes said. He notes that when the city can. He expects initiating that doesn’t need the pods as shelter, conversation to be complicated, they easily can be moved elsewhere but he’s up for the challenge. to serve as retail kiosks or small “One of the most difficult offices. Since the company’s launch parts of finding oneself in 2020, he’s sold nearly a dozen homeless is not having an pods — which are available in slightly address,” he said. “Why not larger sizes — as guesthouses, studios, think of a way to create a coffee shops and home offices. mobile structure that has a GPS Zebrowski has pondered the idea signature address?” of mobile housing since he earned a master’s degree at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan. Learn more at upendthis.com. With the climate crisis and Read more about Burlington’s geopolitical upheaval at hand, shelter pods at sevendaysvt.com. the concept’s time has come, he End This p U by ds said. Shelter po COURTESY OF CITY OF BURLINGTON

The median price a house in Chittenden County sold for in February 2022. That’s up 2 percent from the median price of $435,000 in January and 11.3 percent higher than the median price of $400,000 in February 2021.

BY ANNE WALL ACE ALLEN anne@sevendaysvt.com

JEB WALLACE BRODEUR

BY THE NUMBERS

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REAL(TOR) TALK Vermont’s housing inventory may be at a historic low, but its inventory of Realtors has been on the rise. Membership in the Vermont Association of Realtors grew 11 percent between February 2021 and February 2022. Membership typically increases by about 3 percent per year, said Kathy Sweeten, CEO of the Montpelier-based trade association. The current number of member Realtors, 2,011, seems high to her, but she noted that it’s probably not a record because of how technology has changed the way real estate is bought and sold in recent years. Sweeten thinks the state’s busy real estate market prompted much of last year’s interest in joining the association. She also saw a lot more applications than usual from Realtors who were moving into the state. And, of course, the pandemic turned many people’s lives — and jobs — upside down. “More people saw it as an opportunity to possibly make a career change,” Sweeten said. Now that the real estate market is tighter than it’s ever been, “we may see the number of Realtors drop a little bit,” Sweeten said. “There is not a lot out there to sell.”

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O R G ANI Z AT I O N

BY ANNE WA L L A C E A L L EN • anne@sevendaysvt.com

LUKE EASTMAN

Tidy Team

Moving? Decluttering? Professional home organizers can coach you through it

When professional home organizer Eileen Dugan was living in Fairfield, Conn., she never had to define what she did for a living. But it’s a different story when she’s talking to prospective clients in Vermont. “I don’t have to explain home staging. I don’t have to explain moving help … But a lot of times, people have said, ‘Is it possible for you to clean out a basement?’” said Dugan, a Montpelier resident. “I say, ‘Yes, that’s totally what I do.’” But awareness of the organizing profession could be growing locally. Thanks to a fast-paced real estate market in which thousands of people are coming and going — and to the enormous popularity of organizing gurus such as Marie Kondo — makeovers are happening in Vermont’s basements, attics and spaces in between. And organizers are helping.

Emily Bissonnette of Middlebury started her organizing business, Your Joyful Life, in 2019 — the name is a reference to Kondo, who has created a small media empire called KonMari out of her tidying tips and theories. Her 2011 book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, inspired a Netflix reality series and an international wave of self-reflection about what to keep and what to cast off. Kondo is known for instructing her acolytes to ask themselves whether an item cluttering their space — be it a shirt, a book or pretty much anything else — sparks joy.

If it doesn’t, Kondo recommends thanking the item and bidding it farewell. A former school administrator, Bissonnette completed a KonMari certification course in New York City. There, she took seminars from master consultants and attended a keynote speech by Kondo herself. Professional organizers such as Bissonnette are EI L EEN busy these days as Vermont changes and grows. Many of them say Vermonters are just catching on to the idea that someone can help them use their space more effectively or take away items they don’t want anymore. For those who haven’t used such

services, “it’s hard to understand how someone is going to come in and actually be able to work with them in a way they’re comfortable with,” said Dugan, whose business is called Changing Spaces. “I lighten the load, and when someone can see that right off, they’re surprised.” According to Bissonnette, the job requires empathy and a deep DUGAN understanding of the reasons people hang on to stuff they don’t need. “The piece we focused the most on in the training was: How do you support people in working through their

PEOPLE AND THEIR STUFF —

IT’S VERY SENSITIVE.

TIDY TEAM NEST SPRING 2022

» P.10 9

O R G ANI Z AT I O N

complicated relationships with their possessions, on getting clear on what matters the most?” Bissonnette said. “How do I define my values? What makes me most happy? What does that feel like?” For some clients, decluttering feels like a tremendous relief. “Nobody really knows what to do with their items,” said Peter O’Brien, owner of Estate Sales and Consignments in Colchester. An antiques and collectibles dealer who has been in the business for 30 years, O’Brien works with organizers who are helping people declutter their homes or move out altogether, sometimes after several decades in the same place. He thinks that older people need more help from professionals than they used to because their kids are less willing, or less able, to take on the job of helping their parents redistribute a lifetime’s worth of stuff. Families are smaller than they used to be, making it less likely that offspring will be around to lay claim to furniture or keepsakes — much less handle the whole move. “The children that grow up here generally live out of state now in order to work,” O’Brien said. Often, he observed, they don’t even return for the move or after a parent has passed away; they just pay for the disposal of items. He worked on an estate sale at which a daughter wanted just one book from her parents’ belongings. Finding a new home for unwanted items is a skill in itself. It’s expensive to throw things out, and many of the people in the moving and organizing businesses would rather see items go to someone who needs them than send them to the landfill. Tammy Browning of Montpelier, who started her business, Lighter Moves, with a friend in early 2020, sells what she can for her clients and gives a lot away. Lighter Moves was created to help seniors move out of homes, in some cases after many decades in a large house. The neighborhood message board Front Porch Forum has been a boon to the company whenever there’s free stuff to share. “Old magazines, we just put them on Front Porch Forum, and people want them,” Browning said. “Even if they’re a little bit moldy, they want them. We have people in our area who want any old stereo equipment, old camera stuff, half-empty bottles of cleaning supplies. If we put it out for free, people take it.” Organizers’ fees vary. Browning charges $45 an hour, while other organizers might charge $160 for a three-hour session. 10

NEST SPRING 2022

PHOTOS: CALEB KENNA

Tidy Team « P.9

then, while he took some phone calls, she sorted equipment and tools so that they would be easy to find. She also made some recommendations on ladder storage. A couple of months later, she saw his truck on Shelburne Road and pulled up so she could look through the window. “It still looked good,” she said. As skilled organization has gained traction in the last few years, so has the concept of self-forgiveness, which is championed as a mental health tool in do-it-yourself books and apps. To reach a point of acceptance when it comes to clutter, it’s crucial to set up some boundaries against the perfectly curated homes that are ubiquitous on social media.

HOW DO YOU SUPPORT PEOPLE Professional organizer Emily Bissonnette in Middlebury

Dugan said 80 percent of the people who hire her are women. Some have used her business for years to keep their homes in order. Every once in a while, a therapist refers someone to her for decluttering. She offers life coaching, too. “People and their stuff — it’s very sensitive,” Dugan said, adding that reality shows such as “Hoarders” don’t help.

“After that show, they are not letting anyone in because of embarrassment,” Dugan said. Organizers don’t just get homes in order. Four years ago, an electrician hired organizer Ellen Gurwitz of Shelburne business De-clutter Me! to help get his truck in order. The two worked together some of the time, and

IN WORKING THROUGH THEIR COMPLICATED RELATIONSHIPS WITH THEIR POSSESSIONS? EM I LY B I S S O N N ET T E

That teaching is something Renata Watts, an organizer in Thetford, consciously brings to every job. Watts, who started her company, Reveal, in 2018 and also attended KonMari training, said there’s no denying that perfect order at home feels good. But the reality of a full life — complete with jobs, hobbies, children or pets — makes it nearly impossible to achieve. “It’s a standard that nobody can live up to,” Watts said of the exquisite interiors on social media that can spark guilt, not joy. “It creates this feast for the eyes, but in real life it can be very demoralizing.” Watts’ goal is to coach her clients to find order, and peace, in their surroundings in a way that they can reasonably achieve. Things don’t have to be perfect. “I want to take away the burden from my clients — not give them new, unreasonable standards to live up to,” she said. m

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Backwater

Beauty How a creek-side cabin in Waterbury was transformed into an industrial-chic bachelor pad BY K E N P IC AR D • ken@sevendaysvt.com

Ward Joyce had yet to set foot inside the tiny waterfront cabin in Waterbury when he told his Realtor that he wanted it. “I cannot believe this piece of property is for sale,” Joyce remembered saying the first day he saw it in 2020. “I’m making an offer right this minute. What do we have to do to close?” Neighbors had already been offered the opportunity to buy the red clapboard bungalow before it went on the market, but none was interested. Either they didn’t want the hassle of renovating it, Joyce surmised, or they thought it wasn’t worth the $150,000 asking price. Tucked behind a cluster of more contemporary houses a mere 100 yards from Interstate 89, the 630-square-foot cabin was built as a wool-drying shed in the 1930s. One wall still had the four-foot-wide double doors that allowed farmers to roll the wool onto a slatted floor that opened above a dirt basement. In the 1960s, the shed was converted into a one-bedroom bungalow with a Murphy bed, bathroom, fireplace and kitchenette. “It was like a 1960s camp on a lake, with twoby-four walls full of mouse shit,” Joyce said. The cabin was initially mapped within the 100-year floodplain, meaning that the Federal Emergency Management Agency deemed it at high risk of flooding. Based on its proximity to Graves Brook, the camp seemed destined to wash away in the next major storm. But Joyce, a Montpelier-based architect and builder, immediately recognized its potential. Newly single and an empty nester when the pandemic hit, he wanted to throw himself into

a project — specifically, creating a funky new living space for himself in a wooded hideaway. The finished product is a tricked-out house that feels far more spacious and remote than its modest dimensions and central locale would suggest. “This is a full exercising of my skills,” Joyce said. “At 56, I brought 30 years of experience to bear in this project.” The location has many unexpected benefits. The highway is concealed by vegetation and a cliff, and most of the year the babbling brook masks the traffic noise, Joyce noted. And though the property is less than half an acre, it includes 300 feet of waterWAR D J OYC E front, as well as remnants of an old stone dam, which Joyce plans to convert into a patio. The cabin itself is among the last of seven historic structures — along with the original location of Hen of the Wood restaurant, which is a short walk downstream — that once stood along Graves Brook. “It’s a pretty wild property,” Joyce said on a recent tour. “It’s this weird environment where we’re 100 yards from the interstate, but you feel like you’re in a state park.” Joyce admitted that, once he’d bought the place, it took him a while to decide what to do with it. After gutting the cabin, he opted for a modern redesign. His floor plan included three additions, a full thermal retrofit, and conversion BACKWATER BEAUTY

» P.15

Photos at right: Ward Joyce’s home on the banks of Graves Brook in Waterbury. The 630-square-foot cabin was built as a wooldrying shed in the 1930s and converted into a cabin in the 1960s. Joyce purchased and began renovating the property in 2020.

NEST SPRING 2022

PHOTOS COURTESY OF WARD JOYCE

WE’RE 100 YARDS FROM THE INTERSTATE, BUT YOU FEEL LIKE YOU’RE IN A STATE PARK.

HO ME T O UR

NEST SPRING 2022

The fireplace at Ward Joyce’s home in Waterbury

The kitchen

KEN PICARD

COURTESY OF WARD JOYCE

PHOTOS COURTESY OF WARD JOYCE

BEFORE

AFTER

Ward Joyce’s “industrial-chic” aesthetic is on full display in this view of the front porch, showcasing the mix of black siding, horizontal wooden slats, steel bars and cold-rolled steel.

NEST SPRING 2022

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Backwater Beauty « P.12 of the house to all-electric heat and appliances. He also excavated several feet of the “dirt hellhole” basement, then poured a new concrete floor and converted the lower level into a second bedroom, second bathroom and laundry room. In all, the renovation tripled the interior living space. Despite the building’s age, the Town of Waterbury never included it as part of its Mill Village Historic District. Joyce’s building permit was subject only to standard setback and waterfront requirements; in fact, Joyce’s engineer later determined that the house isn’t within the 100-year floodplain after all, which saved him thousands of dollars on insurance. As both the architect and the general contractor, Joyce used a design-build approach, which enabled him to make material decisions on the fly while construction was under way. He estimated that 50 percent of his aesthetic choices happened during the building process; in a conventional build, more than 90 percent are decided in advance. “Design-build allows for the evolution of ideas,” he explained. “I knew what the floor plan was going to be and the elevations were going to look like. But I hadn’t made all the material decisions.” For example, Joyce initially had planned to build either two decks overlooking the brook or one large deck that stretched the length of the house. During construction, however, he realized that a single, smaller deck would suffice. Instead, he extended the roof to cover a circular metal staircase that accesses the lower floor. When facing the front porch, a visitor can see what Joyce called his “industrial-chic” aesthetic on full display. He chose black siding for some surfaces, horizontal wooden slats, steel bars on the railing and a green standing-seam metal roof. The walls along the front porch are lined with cold-rolled steel, providing an attractive, rusty patina. Inside, Joyce kept the original wood floors and an open floor plan in the kitchen and den. Though this level is just 750 square feet, its 12-foot ceilings and ample windows, many of which face the creek, make the interior feel bright and airy. The main room features a collage of styles: Islamic tiles for the backsplash, stainless steel appliances, a mix of antique and modern light fixtures, and an industrial-style island, which Joyce built on wheels so that it can be moved

for parties. The visual focal point of the kitchen is a large red midcenturymodern Italian refrigerator. Because Joyce likes to decorate with antiques, he included an oldtime coffee grinder on the island, a brass baritone horn atop the kitchen cabinets and a cast-iron fireplace cover, which he bought at an antique shop in Burlington. He’d assumed the cover was Early American until he discovered a “Made in China” stamp on the back. “It’s just a piece of iron from a Chinese foundry,” he said, “but I think it’s great.” The bedroom, which is a new addition, sits just off the kitchen behind a sliding barn door. Joyce kept the old Murphy bed, which still folds into the wall. He called the style “a little bit steampunk chic.” The walls aren’t painted but feature a mud-and-plaster mixture that includes green-black clay dyes, which created an old-world finish. Joyce is most excited about the large bay window reading nook, which overlooks the brook. The second addition, which serves as a breakfast nook or reading room, has nearly floor-to-ceiling windows and also juts out toward the water. Combined, the two window-intensive rooms create the sensation that you’re camping along a river in the woods. “One of the first weekends I stayed here,” Joyce recalled, “I was standing at my dining room table, the sun was going down and a coyote ran across in front of me in the setting sun.” Because of the limited space, Joyce maximized the storage areas, with shelves tucked away in cabinets and nooks. One such shelf lifts open to reveal a laundry chute to the basement. Interestingly, the only room Joyce didn’t touch was the original bathroom, which already had an antique sink in good condition. After investing $400,000 in the house, including his professional time — he spent six months on-site full time — he didn’t see the point in dropping another $15,000. While the major interior renovations are done, Joyce has many more ideas percolating for the property. In years to come, he plans to add a firepit, a hot tub, stonework, plantings and a patio overlooking the brook. “With real estate, it’s all about place. But even more, it’s about place-making,” he said. “What you can accomplish on a property takes more time and thought than just getting the building done. I want to trick out the land, as well.” m

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What’s the

Deal? Realtor Kara Koptiuch’s inside view of Vermont’s frustrating, frenzied housing market BY CAROLY N SHAPIRO

NEST SPRING 2022

JAMES BUCK

Realtor Kara Koptiuch at a house she had listed in Shelburne

As a kid, Kara Koptiuch rode horses and carpooled to the barn with a prominent Vermont real estate agent. From the wheel of her stick-shifted Saab, the Realtor would take calls and pick up voice messages, writing on sticky notes as she steered, Koptiuch recalled. Koptiuch thought the work looked exciting. After she graduated from the University of Vermont with a degree in psychology in 2007, she joined the real estate firm of Century 21 Jack Associates in South Burlington. The franchise structure, though, didn’t offer her the independence to create the kind of personal service she wanted, she said. In 2016, Koptiuch and Bryce Gilmer, a colleague from another real estate office, decided to start their own brokerage in Burlington. They spent a couple of years building the business, Vermont Real Estate Company, then brought in other independent agents to work under that banner. Today, the company has 23 agents helping clients buy and sell homes all

over Vermont. It has additional offices in Montpelier and Woodstock and team members in the Rutland area, Northeast Kingdom and southern Vermont. Koptiuch and her peers have never seen a real estate market as heated as it is today. High demand, low supply and record sale prices are leaving buyers frustrated — and sellers in a frenzy. Agents act as therapists as much as they do deal-making consultants. Koptiuch’s psychology degree has served her well, she said. “Buying a home is a very emotional process,” she explained. “People want to be heard and listened to, and you really have to be a good listener to be a good real estate agent, because the biggest part of this job is caring about people.”

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Nest recently visited Koptiuch between house showings to find out how she helps clients through these tumultuous times. Nest: What has changed since you got into the business? KARA KOPTIUCH: I haven’t seen a market like it is right now since I’ve been selling — how strong it is, how much cash is in the market, how competitive it is, the low inventory. There are no homes for sale in Shelburne right now that aren’t new construction. It’s crazy. Shelburne is my hometown. It’s a really difficult market to be a buyer, and I feel bad for my buyer clients. We’re going to find them something, of course, but I just feel bad [for them] having to go through losing out on deal after deal because they’re up against either cash or other buyers who are able or willing to waive everything to get the deal. What does this mean for someone who wants to buy a house? If something does come up for sale, you’ve got a three-day window. People are putting the houses on [the market], allowing two or three days of showings, and calling for all offers. Some of these properties, you are only being allowed a 15-minute showing window to make a decision if you want to buy a property — not only if you want to buy property, [but] if you want to go in $50,000 or $100,000 over asking [price] and waive your inspection and your appraisal. In South Burlington last week, there was a condo that came on the market, a very nice condo priced under [$300,000], and it got 30 offers. Yeah, 30 offers on a condo under $300,000. What happened with your client? My client went significantly over [$300,000, buying with] cash, and waived all the contingencies, and we didn’t even make the short list. How do you, as an agent, prepare people for that reality? As a Realtor, you want to show people what the past sales were. You really have to put the ball in their court now, because our job is changing a little bit. We used to show the buyers what the [comparable homes] were and, in the previous market, maybe you came in below asking [price]. In this market, there’s not even a scenario where you come in below asking. So you’re basically saying to the buyer, “I can’t tell you how high to go, because you need to be comfortable. You need to put your best foot forward that you’re

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comfortable with, that you’re not going to regret tomorrow, but also a number that, if someone else goes $1,000 over it, you’re going to be OK that you didn’t get it.”

summer: The property appraised for $70,000 under what [the buyers] were contracted to pay, and they had to make up the difference with their own funds. That is hard to swallow.

What are your tricks of the trade to get buyers a winning bid? There definitely is strategy. If you’re not a well-versed, knowledgeable agent, you’re not going to know how high to escalate their offer. You’re not going to know some of the other tricks — like, this seller wants to live in their house until June; maybe you offer to close quickly and give them a rent-back option. There’s a ton of small intricacies that can help make one offer look better than the other. I had one client be as creative as to offer a very expensive dinner for 10 people at a local restaurant just to set her offer apart from other buyers.

How is it on the seller side? We haven’t really seen a ton of “for sale by owners” right now, or off-market [sales], because there is absolutely no advantage. You want to put your house on the market and put it in front of every eligible buyer out there — and there’s a lot of them — and let the market do its thing.

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ARE THE PRICES THAT THEY PAY TODAY GOING TO HOLD? K AR A KO P TIUC H

Did that work? Unfortunately, no. But we were the runners-up. What happens with appraisals in a market like this, with such high prices? Do houses even appraise for the amounts they’re selling for? Buyers are having to waive their appraisals. That means, if they’re going $100,000 over asking [price] on a property, and if they want to get that property and they’re up against 10 or more other offers, they’re going to have to waive their appraisal, because that’s a big risk for the seller to take an offer that hasn’t waived their appraisal. What happens if the property appraises at the list price? The appraisers are having a really hard time keeping up with hitting the numbers. The properties are going to such extremes, and [the appraisers] don’t have the comparable sales to justify them. So when they go out and do the appraisal for the bank, that number isn’t hitting the contract price. It’s coming in low. This scenario happened to me last

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Where do you see the market going from here? It’s a really scary time for buyers, because no one has a crystal ball. What’s going to happen in three or six months or a year from now? Are the prices that they pay today going to hold? Are they going to lose money? Are the prices going to go up? We get this question constantly. We hope and believe that our market will stay strong and that the prices will stay steady, level out. Potentially, more inventory will come on, which will help with the prices and help with the competitiveness. But we don’t know what’s going to happen for sure, and that’s another piece of the job that makes this extra challenging right now. m

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Map Quest As he set up his instruments last month on a sunny dock on the shores of New Hampshire’s Lake Winnipesaukee, land surveyor Randy Otis said he felt perfectly at home in his profession. He likes where it takes him. “The real beauty of this work is, we’re not stuck in a cubicle. We see some really cool places,” said Otis, who is president of the Vermont Society of Land Surveyors. While mapping out some lakeside property boundaries that day in March, Otis said he’s not really a people person. He often works alone or with just one other person, and that part of the job appeals to him, too. Those conditions don’t seem to hold much allure for others, however. The surveying profession in Vermont, and in the rest of the world, is working hard to find more members. Twenty years ago, the Vermont Society of Land Surveyors had 157 members. Now, according to administrator Kelly Cochrane-Collar, it has just 74.

Many are retiring, and few people are moving in to take their places. “They are 70 years old and working part time,” Otis, 39, said of many of his colleagues. “One only works eight hours a week.” As professionals who create maps, surveyors use robotic instruments to establish or confirm precise boundary lines and other measurements that are vital to real estate development. They’ve become a prized commodity as Vermont undergoes a sharp increase in home construction. Todd Thomas, the planning director and zoning administrator in Morristown, said he used to get by on the work of retired surveyors

Vermont surveyors plot ways to attract newcomers to their trade B Y A N N E WA L L A C E A L L EN anne@sevendaysvt.com

who lived in Florida most of the year and returned to Vermont in the summer to pick up a few surveying jobs. But home construction has taken off in Morristown, as in so many places. “The gentlemen who did surveys in my office have all aged out or literally passed away,” Thomas said. He now relies on two contractors, which he said isn’t enough. In 2010, when Thomas assumed his position, 10 homes were built. Last year, there were 146, and 400 are in the pipeline now, he said. There probably would be even more, Thomas suggested, if it weren’t for the lack of surveying contractors. If one isn’t available, his office can’t process

permits and developers can’t get final plat approval on subdivisions. “It gums up the entire works,” Thomas said. The need for surveyors didn’t develop along with subdivisions in the modern era. Surveyors like to note that their profession has been around since ancient times. It’s surveyors who were behind the construction of the pyramids in Egypt and other notable projects through the eons, according to getkidsintosurvey. com, a slickly produced website that promotes the profession to children through

Surveyor Rebecca Gilson (left) and survey technician Camilla Mahon with dog Peso on-site in Stowe

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posters, comic books and other attractions. The campaign is based in England, with representatives in Australia and Maryland promoting the profession, demonstrating the breadth of the need. There are more efforts under way to draw in math-loving youngsters. Among other things, the National Society of Professional Surveyors promotes a Boy Scouts merit badge in surveying. In Vermont, the state society has hosted an annual exhibit at the nowdefunct Vermont History Expo and appeared at middle school and high school job fairs. This summer, its members will offer hands-on demonstrations through

the Vermont Historical Society as part of a project highlighting James Wilson, a cartographer who lived in Bradford. Wilson, who started farming around 1810, is credited with being the first American to make a globe. Land surveyors typically make around $65,000 a year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. But other professions are also seeking smart go-getters, and the competition is keen. Some surveyors blame the local shortage on the fact that no Green Mountain State school has offered a degree in surveying since Vermont Technical College stopped

teaching those courses decades ago. The University of New Hampshire’s surveying and mapping program ceased taking new students in 2018. And in the New York Adirondacks, Paul Smith’s College, which has produced many Vermont surveyors, stopped offering its associate’s degree in surveying three years ago. The only college left in the area with surveying degrees is the University of Maine in Orono, Otis said. Another problem, surveyors say, is that the profession isn’t very visible. “Most folks aren’t aware of us until they need us,” surveyor Rebecca Gilson said. She regularly works for Morristown. The 44-year-old would like to see new recruits, but she’s at a loss for how to find them. “I kind of fell into it,” she said of her own career. “I answered an ad looking for a survey technician. All I knew was, it was outside and it was math, and those were two things I loved.” Eventually Gilson went to school for surveying — licensure in Vermont requires an associate’s or bachelor’s degree, or six years of experience — and started her own business. Her alma mater, White

Mountains Community College in New Hampshire, ended its surveying program a few years ago, she said. The profession also suffers from a lack of glamour, said Joe Flynn, chair of the regulatory Vermont Board of Land Surveyors. Surveyors often work outside; they get their hands dirty. But the job also requires intelligence, training and good judgment, Flynn said. He recalled mapping work that he was hired to do as a surveyor on the Colchester waterfront 15 years ago that eventually led to a court case over a land parcel boundary. The matter was settled by a deed description written by none other than a founding father of Vermont, Ira Allen, in 1804. Flynn’s side was right. “It proved my assumption on a boundary line,” Flynn said. “I came home from work giddy that night.” Gilson, too, loves the history she comes across in her job — as well as the art. “When you are making your maps and your plats, you’re designing them, and everybody has their own artistic flair,” she said. She thinks more people would choose a career in surveying if they knew how much fun it is. “It’s a really well-balanced profession in that there’s a little of everything — being inside, being outside, math, history, art,” Gilson said. “Plus, there’s the technology side — we’re using GPS and [robotics].” Otis keeps a logbook of all the places he visits as part of his job. He has happily spent hours in small planes visiting remote locations, and he once did a surveying job on a small Atlantic island that was closed to the public and populated only by thousands of seals. He likes knowing his work is essential. “If you drive on a road or cross a bridge, there’s a good chance a surveyor was involved. The infrastructure around you was underpinned by professional surveyors,” Otis said. “Somebody needs to fill that role, and if it’s not surveyors, then who best to do it?” m

INFO The Vermont Historical Society exhibition “A New American Globe,” featuring three James Wilson globes and other related material, will open on July 2 at the Vermont History Museum in Montpelier. vermonthistory.org Learn more about the Vermont Society of Land Surveyors at vsls.org. NEST SPRING 2022

PHOTOS COURTESY OF MARIJKE NILES

Perennial Passion In Starksboro, a lifelong gardener spreads native plants and knowledge

Marijke Niles cried after she moved to Starksboro from South Bend, Ind., in 2001. While she was happy to relocate to northern Vermont — close to mountains and her daughter, who was then attending college in Montréal — Niles had a problem with the grounds around the home she and her husband had bought. Everything had been mowed short, she recalled. “It was just kind of dried-up grass. There was not much going on,” she said. “I actually was in tears because I didn’t see any wildlife.” Back in Indiana, Niles was known for her beautiful gardens and for welcoming all forms of nature into those gardens — even if that involved occasional nibbles of her prized plants. “I’ve always had plants that attracted everything,” she said.

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MELISSA PASANEN

NEST SPRING 2022

GARDEN IN G

In Starksboro, Niles immediately set to work planting perennial flowers, shrubs and berry bushes, focusing on native plants. More than two decades later, she cannot stop smiling when she looks over the rambling, colorful, wildlife-rich gardens that have also hosted her nursery business, Marijke’s Perennial Gardens Plus, since 2008. Niles, 76, emigrated from her native Netherlands to the U.S. in the early 1970s. “I come from a country where flowers are honored,” she said, noting that fresh flowers are a fixture in most Dutch homes. “I have always been a gardener,” Niles said. “I was the person that would bring a plant to school when I was, like, 6 years old, and I would take care of it.” When she came to Vermont, “We moved with three cars full of plants and just a little space for people,” she recalled. “I couldn’t live without my gardens.”

gently try to redirect fauna from flora. “I do share,” she said. “I love all things alive.” For example, she planted several blueberry bushes where bears often emerge from the surrounding woods. The goal? “They’ll stop at those blueberries in the hopes that they don’t eat mine,” she explained with a smile. Those strategies are not always completely effective, but Niles takes that all in stride. A sign posted last summer by a clump of heavily “pruned” hostas read, “Pardon our appearance. Deer at work.” It was one of many whimsical touches around the winding garden paths. Big-eyed stone owls peered out from the “We Rock” rock garden. Sculptural succulents filled ski boots, wooden clogs and even a repurposed toilet bowl topped with another sign: “We know how to pot it up.”

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I wish

MELISSA PASANEN

I had shared my home sooner.

I COULDN’T LIVE WITHOUT MY GARDENS. MARIJ KE NILE S

Every year between mid-May and October 1, Niles welcomes hundreds of customers drawn by the certified master gardener’s deep knowledge and wide range of native plants propagated on-site. Equally welcome are the many nonhuman visitors who come to her gardens for other reasons. When Nest stopped by in summer 2021, Niles explained how the leaves of sunshineyellow cup plants cradle water to create tiny drinking bowls for hummingbirds and bees. Monarchs fluttered among the bright orange blooms of the aptly named butterfly weed. “Look at the butterflies,” Niles said. “They like it here.” In a few cases, the gardener may

“Imagination and humor run wild at this retail nursery,” enthused Yankee magazine in its March/April 2021 issue, which highlighted the best New England nurseries and garden centers. It emphasized Niles’ focus on “lowmaintenance and ‘nature-nourishing’ native plants and hardy succulents.” Many repeat customers also sing her praises. Kris Miceli of Starksboro was delighted to discover Marijke’s Perennial Gardens Plus a few years ago. “It was so unexpected,” Miceli said. “We saw this little sign, and you go down this beautiful little road, and it opens up on all these flowers.” Miceli appreciates PERENNIAL PASSION

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G A R DENI NG

Succulents in shoes and pots at Marijke Niles’ garden in Starksboro

The garden in late spring

COURTESY OF KIRSTEN NILES

that Niles grows most of what she sells and can answer almost any question. “You can just pick her brain,” she said. Even those with expertise said Niles teaches and inspires them. Shari Johnson of Cornwall met Niles through the University of Vermont Extension’s Master Gardener Program, in which Johnson is also certified. “She’s such a positive, can-do person — so fun and so knowledgeable,” said Johnson, who especially remembers a garden that Niles created to resemble a patchwork quilt with squares of different sedums. When designing her gardens, Niles looks to Mother Nature for inspiration. She also counts the ecologist and native plant proponent Doug Tallamy and his 2007 book, Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife With Native Plants, among her biggest influences. While she is careful to note that she is not a purist, Niles said, “I definitely call myself a native nursery.” Even if people devote only 10 percent of their gardens to native plants, she said, “that still forms a corridor for insects and butterflies and birds to go from one garden to the other. That already does an enormous amount of good.” In early spring at Marijke’s Perennial Gardens Plus, snowdrops and crocuses emerge tentatively from the cool soil, followed by a frothy sea of bluestar and violet catmint. By late summer, pink and purple phlox and coneflowers cluster like a bevy of bridesmaids around a tall birdhouse on a post. Underplantings of low, spreading plants such as red-leafed mukdenia span the seasons, turning from bright green in spring to deep red in fall. Beyond their attractive foliage, they also shade the soil and help reduce the need for weeding and watering. Niles’ gardens are by no means messy, but they are far from manicured and

COURTESY OF MARIJKE NILES

Perennial Passion « P.21

there are zero straight lines. “I like it to flow,” Niles said. “Nature doesn’t plant in a row.” Set dramatically against the backdrop of surrounding woods, a massive 15-foothigh boulder draws attention, and the mass of tall Joe-Pye weed and the creamy bottlebrush blooms of American

Colorful Shades of Spring

burnet planted at its base draws plenty of insects. The arresting natural feature is known as an “erratic” rock, deposited on this Starksboro hill during the Ice Age, Niles explained. “I try to plant around it such that it really can be seen,” she said. In 2008, a big storm helped clear

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space for her nursery business by bringing down about 120 trees. “They all tipped over like dominoes,” Niles said. The stumps of several still lay, roots exposed, anchoring beds of ferns and mosses as they decay naturally in place. A number fell around the huge rock, making it more visible. “I was very grateful for that,” Niles said. Edging toward 80, Niles shows no signs of slowing down. She has some part-time help during the gardening season, but “I’m always weeding,” she said. “It keeps me in the very best of shape.” In the winter, Niles keeps in shape on the slopes at Sugarbush Resort, where for the last 21 years she has taught skiing to preschoolers through octogenarians. She first fell in love with the sport many years ago in Austria for the same reason that she is such a devoted gardener. “There was this connection to nature that still catches me every day on the slopes,” she said. Her teaching gig was born out of winter boredom, she said: “I need to be busy.” From late spring through fall, Niles stays busy giving talks, workshops and tours in her gardens. She has volunteered with the Vermont Flower Show for more than 16 years and especially gets a kick out of hosting groups of youngsters from local summer programs. They explore all the nooks and crannies of the gardens, make succulent containers to take home, collect Japanese beetles in jars, and help layer newspaper and cardboard to suppress weeds and grass for new garden beds. “I like to make memories for my guests from the impression of my gardens, but also because I share knowledge,” she said. “We celebrate nature.”

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