Poultney’s town garage occupies four acres where Furnace Street meets the Poultney River with gravel and pavement nearly to the water’s edge, a salt shed, aggregate piles, and equipment storage. Mature hardwoods line both banks. The town asked what this site could be instead.
The answer came from five years of community planning. A 2021 recreation-economy process identified an outdoor recreation hub as the piece that could anchor Poultney’s growing trail economy. A 2023 town-wide effort refined the program through open houses where residents spent “Poultney Bucks” on their priorities: public restrooms, trail maps, a community room, a water filling station, a playground, covered outdoor space. None of these exist in the town today.
Gable-roofed volumes hold retail, a snack bar, office space, restrooms, and a community room—sized to read as interconnected Vermont vernacular buildings alongside the existing streetscape rather than dominating it. A low-slung roof of regional mass timber on steel columns connects them, breaking down the massing while covering a generous outdoor room that serves as entry, pavilion, and shade structure. It shields the west-facing glazing from afternoon sun and reduces the summer cooling load for a building the town will condition for decades.
The design is also driven by the potential need to phase a community supported and funded project which can anticipate and allow for future growth which is anticipated but not yet fully understood, as is the case with many public buildings.
Most of the pavement goes away. The riverfront returns to flood-resilient green space featuring playground, pump track, stormwater pond, and trail connections to the extensive Slate Valley network, used by walkers, trail runners, bikes and skiers throughout the year. Where road salt and other possible hazards were once stored beside the river, the plan puts a riverbank park and its community members.
Architecture Volansky Studio
Landscape & Master Planning SiteForm Studio / Tom Hand
Community Planning Town of Poultney, Poultney Town to Trails Committee, Slate Valley Trails
