The Real Estate Issue 2014
Closed Five Years, Pine Ridge Sits Empty; Oculus Rift Helps Clients See in 3-D; Meet Apartment Realtor Steve Lipkin
Five Years After Closing, Pine Ridge School Still Quiet
Commercial real estate broker Jed Dousevicz unlocks the front door of the unoccupied Delano Administration Building and lets a small group of prospective buyers inside, along with a journalist and a photographer. At first glance, the building doesn’t look vacant, more like the owners are running errands and due back shortly. But the longer we…
News Quirks
Curses, Foiled Again Police investigating a burglary at a church in Chula Vista, Calif., found a cellphone at the crime scene with a photo that the thief apparently took of himself. After identifying Adam Howe, 26, from the “selfie,” they arrested him and recovered some of the stolen property. (U-T San Diego) Problems Solved Giant…
![Tara Goreau Leaves Her Mark at Pingala Café [SIV344]](https://i0.wp.com/www.sevendaysvt.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/stuck.webp?resize=400%2C300&ssl=1)
Tara Goreau Leaves Her Mark at Pingala Café [SIV344]
2/7/14: Muralist Tara Goreau has been making her presence known around Vermont over the last few years: her large scale colorful murals dress up the entrance to City Market in Burlington, Pete’s Greens new barn in Craftsbury and Jasper Hill’s barn in Greensboro. Tara’s latest work adds color and depth to Pingala Cafe & Eatery,…
Entendre, ‘Entendre’
(Self-released, CD, digital download) The well-to-do ski hamlet of Stowe, Vt., is hardly known as a hotbed of hip-hop. And as it stands now, Stowe-based trio Entendre will likely do little to change that. The group’s self-titled debut, while slickly produced and boasting a few solid performances, is at best an uneven attempt, saddled by…
Quick Lit: Mannies and Memories
Professional stay-at-home nanman looking for needy mistress with a lot of bang and a lot of buck. You: type-A powerhouse, sexy exercise freak, no time for lovely children. Me: lovable child entertainer, epicurean sorcerer, and full action figure complete with handyman tool belt. Trained in subservience and anger management for Your Highness’s stress release blowouts.…
Poor and Perfect, ‘Ribs / Friends, Heart, Family’
(Academia Tapes, cassette, digital, 7-inch) Poor and Perfect represent the latest venture from Chris Rosenquest, formerly of the Providence, R.I.-based alt-country band the Tower and the Fool. Since leaving that band, Rosenquest has landed in tiny South Royalton, Vt., where he’s been writing and recording alongside some notable locals, including Jer Coons, Zac Clark and…
Aria Code: Green Mountain Opera Festival Throws a Musical Fundraiser
Cocktails in the milking parlor, opera singers upstairs: The Inn at Round Barn Farm in Waitsfield will once again host the Green Mountain Opera Festival’s annual gala. Besides raising funds for one of Vermont’s two resident opera companies — the one with an extensive emerging-artists program — the gala is a festive evening centered on…
Comedian Hannibal Buress Talks Comedy, Writing for Television and his Sorta Celebrity
Comedian Hannibal Buress likes to have a little fun with rap music in his act. A couple of years back, he joked about a Young Jeezy song, “Lose My Mind,” in which the rapper states, “House stupid dumb big, my rooms got rooms.” “No, Jeezy,” quipped Buress. “Those are closets.” Most comics would never get…
Kit Rivers Searches for Signs of Intelligent Life at Off Center
Kit Rivers is best known in the Burlington area for her standup chops. The Saint Michael’s College senior broke into the local comedy scene during her freshman year and hasn’t stopped performing since. “I was always sort of secretly looking for an outlet that I didn’t know was standup comedy,” Rivers says. “The first time…
Should I Reach Out and Help My Ex-Boyfriend?
Dear Athena, My boyfriend recently broke up with me, and it came out of nowhere. He is sort of a loner because his family lives far away. He doesn’t have very many friends, and I know this breakup has been hard for him. I really want to reach out and help him, but I’m not…
Steve Lipkin, Ace Apartment Realtor
Batting averages, fumbles, tackles and other stats are generally considered the stuff of sports leagues, but real estate agents abide by their own set of numbers — sales totals, units sold, listing-price-to-sale-price ratios. If you peruse those figures for Vermont, it’s clear that Steve Lipkin has attained the equivalent of all-star status in the buying…
Soundbites: Previewing the King of VT Rap Battle
If there’s one thing the local hip-hop scene has been lacking, it’s a good old-fashioned rap beef. I mean, the whole peace, love and unity thing is cool and all. It’s just kinda boring. I’m not talking, like, Biggie-Tupac or 50 Cent-Ja Rule level beef. (No violence, please.) But we could use some drama to…
At the HowardCenter, an Arts Collective Engages Clients and Staff Alike
Nestled deep on some newspapers’ obituary pages a few weeks ago was a notice about the passing of 98-year-old Edith Kramer in Vienna, the city of her birth, on February 22. Along with the psychologist Margaret Naumburg, Kramer was one of the founders of and leading figures in the field of art therapy, a treatment…
Brief Histories of Everyday Objects: Paper Bags
Andy Warner’s comics have been published by Slate, Symbolia, KQED, Popular Science, popsci.com and American Public Media. Andy is a graduate of the Center for Cartoon Studies and currently resides in California. To see more of Andy’s work, visit andysaurus.com.
Grand Ole Party Poopers: Shumlin’s Up for Reelection, But Will He Have a Race?
With Town Meeting Day in the rearview mirror, we can now safely turn our attention to this fall’s election season. And by that I mean what’s shaping up to be Vermont’s most boring political contest in recent memory. I know, I know. I’m getting ahead of myself. Columnist caveat: Anything could change, yada, yada. But…
Austrian Chef Remakes Derby Line Village Inn
Get ready for schnitzel, sauerbraten and Hungarian goulash poutine. Austrian chef Fritz Halbedl has hit the Vermont-Québec border. He and his wife, Paula, aim to open Derby Line Village Inn in two weeks, after six months of remodeling the 120-year-old bed and breakfast. Its restaurant will be a showcase for Halbedl’s well-practiced native cuisine. Most…
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Are you between jobs? Between romantic partners? Between secure foundations and clear mandates and reasons to get up each morning? Probably at least one of the above. Foggy whirlwinds may be your intimate companions. Being up-in-the-air could be your customary vantage point. During your stay in this weird vacationland, please abstain…
Burlington Beer Company Opens
Mason Jar Mild. Hills and Hollows. C’est Bon. Race horses? Nope — they’re the names of some of the newest beers to join Vermont’s craft-brewing scene. Burlington Beer Company opened last week in a Williston warehouse. Owner-brewer Joseph Lemnah is busy brewing those initial offerings on a 15-gallon pilot system, which he’ll use until he…
Seriously
The dashboard clock had just clicked to 3 a.m., and downtown Burlington was quickly becoming a ghost town. A scant hour earlier, the streets had thronged with people. But now, one hour after last call at the bars, most everyone had completed the weekend routine: They had bought and ingested their pizzas, kebobs and sausage…
Bus Fair? CCTA Drivers Get Ready to Strike
By some measures, the Chittenden County Transportation Authority and its drivers have never had it better. Ridership has grown 60 percent in the past decade, and drivers avoided layoffs and got raises every year during the recession. And yet, for the second straight contract negotiation cycle, talks between employees and management have turned bitter, creating…
House Hunting? What $250K Can Get You in Vermont
How much house does approximately $250,000 buy you in the Green Mountain State in 2014? We combed through the current listings and came up with examples that, by and large, prove a few general principles of Vermont real estate — starting with the all-too-obvious “location, location, location.” Finding a great home for a moderate price…
Power Play: Developers Race to Run Lines Under Lake Champlain and Beyond
Large hydroelectric dams in the north of Québec are generating energy that is abundant and cheap. New England states and New York are clamoring for clean power that will help meet ambitious goals to cut greenhouse-gas emissions. The push to get Canadian juice flowing south is generating a number of transmission-line projects in the northern…
Carving the Commute: Crossing Lake Champlain in Winter
Lake Champlain is frozen all the way across for the first time since 2007. But that hasn’t stopped two boats from traversing it, all day, every day. The Lake Champlain Transportation Company operates three ferry crossings, two of which now stay open year-round. The ice-breaking boat that plies the waters between Grand Isle and Plattsburgh…
A Writer Says Farewell to Her Beef Cows — at a New Mobile Slaughter Unit
Slightly more than three years ago, one bull, five cows and two calves arrived at the farm in Shoreham where I live with my husband, Colin Davis. In the years since, our herd has grown to 17. We — and here the credit falls almost entirely to Colin and his father — built fences and…
The Great Beauty
When you think of the protagonists of the past year’s best films, aren’t you really thinking less about them than about what happened to them? Played to perfection by Toni Servillo, the central figure in the latest from writer-director Paolo Sorrentino (Il Divo) is a famous magazine writer and bon vivant named Jep Gambardella. He…
Two Middlebury Grads Offer Software to Help You See in 3D
Shane Scranton and Nate Beatty are the first to admit that when they show up at an architecture firm, tiny black briefcase in hand, they’re likely to face skepticism from the seasoned designers in the room. Inside that briefcase is a headset that looks a bit like a bulkier version of opaque, black ski goggles.…
Non-Stop
Liam Neeson is punching people again. Yet, all appearances to the contrary, Non-Stop is not an attempt to clone Taken, the film that turned Neeson punching people into an annual reason for male baby boomers to leave the couch. That movie was a gleeful, nonstop kill fest; this one, despite its name, is a far…
Letters to the Editor
A Little F*#king Context [Re “Capital Fireworks: Incumbent, Ousted Employee Spar in Montpelier Mayor’s Race,” February 26]: Seven Days is the third newspaper in the past week to print portions of an email I provided to Gwen Hallsmith in response to her Freedom of Information Act request after she was terminated from her position as…
Gallery Profile: Axel’s Frame Shop & Gallery
Axel’s Frame Shop & Gallery has been a mainstay in downtown Waterbury for more than 30 years. For its first three decades, the storefront at 5 Stowe Street offered exactly what its name promised: In the back was a frame shop where customers could choose from two types of glass and an assortment of frames;…
Taste Test: South End Kitchen
Referencing a certain Roald Dahl classic is only natural when discussing South End Kitchen. After all, the new Burlington breakfast-and-lunch spot is flanked on one side by bean-to-bar Blue Bandana Chocolate Maker and on the other side by a culinary classroom featuring instruction in chocolate making (see sidebar). Parent company Lake Champlain Chocolates displays its…
Arcade and Ale House to Open in South Burlington
“When we were kids, all we wanted to do was hang out in arcades and play video games, but we didn’t have any money. Now that we’re adults and have money, there aren’t any arcades anymore.” That’s how Joshua Nickerson explains the motivation behind Tilt Classic Arcade and Ale House, which will open along Route…
California Cuisine Comes to Stowe
Stowe locals know Jamie Persky as the woman behind Jamie’s on Main, the popular Main Street breakfast-and-lunch spot that Persky and her husband, Mark Rosman, sold in 2011. “We stopped loving it and stopped having a good time,” Persky recalls. But the couple will return to the restaurant biz on March 12 when they open…
