Nest — Summer 2024
Federal Lawsuit Changes the Real Estate Game; Inside a Stunning Lakeside Home With History; How Vermonters Personalize Their Porches; Designer Brings the Sparkle to Wallingford
Richard Alther’s Lakeside Home Is a Memorial to His Own History — and Vermont’s
Richard Alther lives on Fort Cassin Point, an island in Ferrisburgh where Otter Creek meets Lake Champlain. In 1814, it was the site of the Battle of Fort Cassin, between the U.S. Navy and a British fleet aiming to destroy American warships being built upriver. The two-hour exchange of gunfire resulted in a win for…
Gardening Consultant Maggie Herskovits Celebrates Urban Plant Life
At the end of a vast parking lot gritty with spilled gravel, a woman in a plant-print jacket gestured to what some might call an urban wasteland. The lot by Burlington’s Perkins Pier is ringed by train tracks, the loading docks of businesses and stubborn clumps of dusty weeds — hardly a place most people…
Settlement of a Federal Lawsuit Will Change How Real Estate Agents Are Paid
Before she put her Westford home on the market, Vicky Phillips did some math. With the four-bedroom home priced at $808,000, Phillips estimated it would cost her about $48,000 in commissions for a real estate agent to handle the sale. Phillips decided to keep that money and sell the home herself. In May, she posted…
Nest — Summer 2024
Summer is here, and this issue of Nest — Seven Days’ quarterly magazine on homes, design and real estate — soaks it all up. Richard Alther invites us into his lakeside home in Ferrisburgh, notable for its layered history and expansive vistas of water and sky. Even without lake views, Vermonters like to expand their…
Sparkle Barn and New Boutique Lodging Bring Vibrant Design to Wallingford
In interior design and life, Stacy Harshman doesn’t pay much attention to the rules. The 51-year-old artist and entrepreneur moved to Vermont from New York City nine years ago, seeking a more grounded, peaceful life and a sense of community. Two business launches later, she’s made her free-spirited mark on Wallingford, turning the small, rural…
Porch Song: How Vermonters Take It Outside in the Summertime
The Green Mountain State is blessed with an abundance of places for cooling off in summer — lakes, rivers, pools, swimming holes. But when it’s time to chill, nothing beats a good porch. Vermont houses haven’t always featured porches — they first gained popularity in the late 19th century — but anyone who has one…
