The 1907 L.S. Gordon Storefront Restoration: Our Future Vermont Music Archive

This picture was taken in the Spring of 2006, showing the building as it was before we began the clean-up.

Here's most of the gang that cleaned the property up over a summer weekend. Left to right, it's Pat Coman, Judy McElroy, Ryan Krushenick, Phil England, Michael Ficociello, and Katy McElroy. Leading up to the weekend we had filled rooms with garbage bags, loading them with a literal house-full of domestic clutter, and volunteers had taken truckloads of paper to recycling, metal to the scrapyard, including derelict exercise equipment and power tools.

The storefront had been a residence for decades, then abandoned for years. There was a big mess to clean up, inside and out.

On the outside we bucket-brigaded the old roof up the rock ledge the building is built over, cleaning up the tar shingles that had been left when the roof was replaced by prior owners. It was a dirty day. Myers donated two 30 cubic-yard dumpsters and both were filled. Pepsi gave us refreshments; we were glad for them.

This picture was taken in October, 2006. A volunteer, Jesse Raymond, had cleared most of the brush that had grown up to obscure the view. Since the building is located on a rock ledge, it looks down over a beautiful vista, The Lewis Creek Farm in the Lewis Creek Valley, in front of the Hogback mountain range. A maple tree stands in front of the building, and a lilac bush.

This is Ginny Joyner's illustration of the restored archive. We hope to have as many flowers as possible growing in the front yard; she imagined the scene well. Ginny's web site is http://www.ginnyjoyner.com.

Elsa Gilbertson sent this photo of the building in 1977, taken by the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation. The creamery is still standing on the right side of the road (the white building with the garage facing the camera).

Elsa also sent this picture from a slideshow she researched about Starksboro's stores. The image is a scan of a slide of a photo of the original picture that came from Bertha Hanson's collection.

We're researching the deeds which almost all mention a blacksmith shop on the land somewhere. We've learned through correspondence with John Burbank that the structure in front of the L. S. Gordon storefront was removed in the 1970's to give the residents of the storefront more room in their front yard.We wonder if this building was the old blacksmith shop. The deeds also mention a horse barn and house and we haven't dug into the papers far enough to learn how large the original plot was yet. We wonder if some of the structures mentioned in the deeds were on the other (East) side of Route 116. The first deed, which mentions the blacksmith shop, is from September 25, 1856:

"...described as follows, to wit, being the Blacksmith shop, and tools and stock and all the land on which said shop stands..."

Craig Duckworth has printed new VMLS Archive shirts at his factory in Morrisville. They're full color on unbleached cotton - beautiful! - and proceeds will support the restoration. The Ginny Joyner art is on the back and the VMLS logo is over the heart on the front. They're $15 plus $5 postage (USPS Priority Mail) and we'll be adding them to the VMLS.org store as soon as we can. Meanwhile, if you'd like one you can send a check to the VMLS with your shirt size: P.O. Box 428, Burlington, VT 05402.