The Inn on Park Street – a unique treasure in Brandon

Fifth in a series on Brandon’s historic buildings

By JAMES PECK

69 PARK STREET as it appears today, with a new color scheme by current owners Barbara and Scott Scribner, who still operate it as the Inn on Park Street.

Houses, like people, have histories and stories to tell. This old inn does, too.

PETER BENJAMIN JOHNSON was the architect of the Second Empire-style house at 69 Park Street in Brandon. Among his other commissions was the County Courthouse in Rutland. In 1868, he sold 69 Park Street for $8,000, a very high price for the time.

Built in 1867 by a fledgling local architect named Peter Benjamin Johnson, it is one of only four houses in the French Second Empire style in Brandon. The other three are the Bird Cage on Wheeler Road (featured in a previous article), Rosebelle’s Victorian Inn at 31 Franklin Street (to be featured in an upcoming article), and the Bliss house at 52 Park Street. 

Architect Peter Johnson bought the lot at 69 Park Street in 1865 for $500 from lawyer and abolitionist Rodney Marsh. Johnson designed the house in the unique French Second Empire style, which was popular with rich folks at the time. The house was built in 1866 and 1867. He sold the house to A. Warren Goss for $8,000 in 1868, a very high price for houses in Brandon at the time.

Johnson went on to design many buildings in Rutland, including the ornate Baxter Estate, the County Courthouse, and a block downtown, then was prolific in Connecticut and in many New England cities. 

Personal Residence

The inn was a personal residence for its first 117 years. Eight different families made it their home. The first resident was Alba Warren Goss, who was a third-generation Brandonite, the grandson of one of the earlier settlers in town. 

Goss was the brother of Emily Goss, who married Thomas Davenport and co-invented the electric motor. 

Two of the families were named Thayer though were not related. For a while, it was called the “Thayer House.” The first Thayer was Eddy Thayer, who was the son of the rich capitalist Erastus D. Thayer and who bought the house from Goss in 1885 and lived there with his wife Addie and their daughter Madge. In 1892, Eddy inherited vast wealth from his father and sold his successful dry goods business to play golf and go fishing at Lake Dunmore. Madge Thayer was one of the first club champions at the short-lived Neshobe Golf Club located above High Street.

The Thayers sold the house in 1909 to the Carpenter family. Clarence Carpenter was a jeweler and optician. The Carpenters sold to Josephine Thayer in 1923. Though she was not related to Eddy Thayer, she was a very wealthy widow, mostly from her deceased husband who had been a successful New York City industrialist. 

Josephine and her sister, Imogene Varrelman, would use the house as their summer home for the next 14 years, while they travelled each year to England or Europe. In 1937, Josephine died and Imogene sold the house to the McCastlines, William and Janet. He was the head physician and a professor of medicine at Columbia University.

The next owners were Ken and Betty Doten, whom some may remember. They lived there from 1956 to 1965, selling to Tom and Ginny Russell from Colorado. Both the Russells would be heavily involved in community affairs, but due to size of their family—five sons and two daughters—they moved to the much bigger Marsh mansion on Pearl Street in 1967. 

Hugh and Bette Moffett bought the house from the Russells. Hugh was a former editor for Life Magazine and had interviewed both Nikita Khruschev and Albert Schweitzer. He later represented the town in the Vermont legislature. Bette was involved in many Brandon organizations and founded the Brandon Thrift Shop. 

In 1976, the house was added to the National Register of Historic Places along with 244 other architecturally and historically significant buildings in Brandon as part of the Brandon Village Historic District. Thirty of these old houses, built in the 1800s, line Park Street. In fact, there are only two houses built after 1887 on this street; those were built in 1909 and 1910.

A SKETCH OF 69 Park Street by local artist Doug Lazarus. The Second Empire style of the house was popular in the 1850s and 60s. There are only 3 other examples of the style in Brandon.

Bed & Breakfast/Inn

In 1985, the house was converted into a bed & breakfast called the “Moffett House.” It was operated very successfully under that name for 17 years by Cecelia Pouliot, then by Nancy Phillips, and then by Mary Bowers until 2002, when it was renamed the “Inn on Park Street” by the next owner, Tracey Heaney. 

BARBARA SCRIBNER IN front of 69 Park Street in Brandon soon after she and her husband, Scott, purchased the inn from Judy Bunde. The house has been run as a B & B since 1985.

The Heaneys were there only two years, selling to Judy Bunde, an accomplished pastry chef who ran the Inn for the next 18 years. Judy loved running the inn and was very good at networking in town and marketing through the internet. She also loves the town and still lives on the street today. 

Current owners, Barbara & Scott Scribner, bought the inn from Ms. Bunde on November 18th of 2022. The interior was totally renovated and, last year, the exterior was skillfully scraped and painted an historic red, white, and blue by talented local painter Devon Fuller. 

The Scribners love being innkeepers and the caretakers of this beautiful historic inn. They are especially proud that Barbara is continuing the tradition of the inn being a woman-owned business for almost 40 years, since its inception in 1985.  

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