The Winooski roundabout was still a gleam in some urban planner's eye in January 2003 when my wife, Ann-Elise, and I bought our first house in the Onion City. With help from the local land trust, we got a three-bedroom, 1,100-square-foot home on lower North Street for just $118,000 — cheaper than anything we could have found in Burlington.
We were among the homebuyers who flocked to Winooski because we were priced out of the big city. Seven Days noted the trend in a package of stories later that year with the headline: "Is the Onion City Becoming Burlington's Brooklyn?"
I wrote about the demographic shift Ann-Elise and I were part of: lifelong residents moving out; a fresh crop of twentysomethings, LGBTQ residents and recently resettled refugees moving in.
Most of our neighbors on North Street had been there for decades — in some cases, their whole lives. For example, Jan and Steve Pickering, who lived across the street. Reporting my piece, I marched over, introduced myself and asked if I could interview them. They graciously invited me in, and I learned that Jan was of French Canadian descent and one of nine kids who had grown up in the small house she and Steve then occupied. Like many of our neighbors at the time, they were Catholic.
I asked what they thought of all the newcomers to Winooski — in particular, the gay ones like me.
"It's their lives," Jan said. "If this is the way they want to live it, great for them." Steve was more taciturn. "To each his own," he said.
It was a bold question — Vermont's civil unions debate was recent history — but Jan and Steve were unfazed.
After our kids, Graham and Ivy, were born — in 2006 and 2008, respectively — Jan and Steve watched out for them. So did Aline Gamelin, from down the block, and Lyle Remick Sr., also from across the street. Like surrogate grandparents, they cooed over the kids in their Halloween costumes and gave them special treats. After every snowstorm, Lyle cleared our sidewalk and driveway with his snowblower, without being asked, often before I had gotten out of bed.
In 2010, Ann-Elise and I started looking for a bigger place. We wanted to stay in the neighborhood — we loved living in a small, walkable community with a diverse array of perspectives. Around the corner, we found another three-bedroom brick house. When I peeked inside, I saw freshly painted white walls and gleaming wood floors. It had 1,800 square feet of indoor space and a huge side yard.
I learned later that the house had been in the same family for generations. An electrician and his wife had bought, gutted and fixed it up; they also cut back the brush in front where a homeless man had been squatting. The new owners sold it to us for $280,000 — a stretch, but we made it work.
We stayed in touch with our beloved North Street neighbors, but Aline, Steve, Jan and Lyle have all since died. Most of the single-family homes on our old block have turned over, some more than once.
The downtown has changed, too. Gone is the empty parking lot, replaced by the roundabout that opened to traffic in 2006 and is now ringed by a wide range of restaurants. My go-to gift shop, Golden Hour, is there, too. It sells some cheeky items that would have made Jan and Steve blush.
Though Graham is technically a senior at Winooski High School, he's in the early college program. He's finishing his first year of classes at the Community College of Vermont, a short walk from our house; its campus opened here in 2010. This weekend, Winooski welcomes back Waking Windows, the multi-venue music festival that debuted in 2011. Among the dozens of bands on the bill is Afro-pop group A2VT, whose 2012 hit "Winooski, My Town" celebrates the inclusive nature of our small city.
But Winooski is less inclusive than it used it be: Proximity to all these amenities — and Burlington — has driven up rents and home prices, forcing some residents, and new refugees, to move elsewhere. Derek Brouwer and Alison Novak document the trend in this week's cover story: "'We're Leaving': Winooski's Bargain Real Estate Attracted Diverse Residents for Years. Now They're Getting Priced Out."
Our family has witnessed this migration, too. Two of the Nepalese families we knew departed in recent years for better prospects and cheaper housing in Ohio. My coworkers look to Ferrisburgh and St. Albans for their first homes. According to Zillow, our modest abode, built in 1850, is now worth over half a million bucks, almost double what we paid for it.
I'm happy that our real estate investment has appreciated, but I'm also unsettled by what it means for our neighborhood. We couldn't afford to buy our house now. I doubt people like our old North Street neighbors could, either. Who can pay these sky-high prices?
Airbnb hosts, apparently: Alison and Derek note that the number of houses and apartments being used as short-term rentals in Winooski has tripled since the pandemic. There's one bordering our property. My parents have reserved another on Weaver Street for the week of Graham's graduation.
A few years ago, that property was a shambles, occupied by an elderly woman to whom Ann-Elise delivered Meals on Wheels. Now it's a well-appointed three-bedroom with a big yard — exactly the kind of place that's impossible to buy or rent in Winooski these days.
It's a shame nobody lives there.