Shaftsbury's Chocolate Barn owner, 80, puts business up for sale
Toolbox
By PATRICK McARDLE Herald Staff - Published: January 7, 2009
SHAFTSBURY — A longtime Route 7A landmark, the Chocolate Barn, is on sale by its owner, who, at 80, is ready for new challenges.
Lucinda Gregory said she had put up the store, which sells chocolate and antiques, the two-story home and the 5 acres of land because she was ready to pass the Chocolate Barn to someone who she hopes will keep it going.
"It's time to downsize. It's only me and my dog, my Scotty, and I have several books in the works to be published that I haven't had time to get done, one of them being in the works for a long time. There's just other things I'd like to do with my life and this is a seven-day-a-week operation doesn't allow for that," she said.
Gregory said her family encouraged her to sell the business several years ago.
"I wasn't ready to do it then. I love the barn and I love people and I enjoy owning a business so it's been good to me. It's been allowing me to live well and it's allowed me to travel for the barn. I've been traveling over the years buying in Europe for certain things for the barn. So it's been a pleasure. It's been a great pleasure," she said.
Gregory and her husband, John, are from Connecticut where she was trained as a medical illustrator and John owned an executive headhunting business. They had a longtime interest in the area, however, sharing a house in Stratton with friends.
When the couple's youngest went off to college, they decided to move to Vermont, taking over the Chocolate Pot and making it the Chocolate Barn in June 1976.
"We bought an ongoing business and decided, being business people, we'd certainly try to make it go. … We worked very hard at it and it did well. We said we would give it three to five years and in less time than that it was doing very nicely," she said.
For a time, there were Chocolate Barns at the base of Stratton Mountain in Jamaica, Shelburne and on Martha's Vineyard, in Mass. After John died in 1981, however, Gregory decided she only wanted to own one store.
The Chocolate Barn has been a hands-on endeavor for Gregory.
"I make all the fudge. I do many thousand pounds of fudge a year. … I make fudge at the house next door, early every morning, that's my morning chore. And we sell a lot of fudge. That's our biggest seller," she said.
The store is also well-known for its metal candy molds.
"This is the foremost collection of antique chocolate molds in the country and we use them all. They're all European. Most people are using plastic now but this is what we use," she said.
The Chocolate Barn is a quiet place during a weekday morning but it's always busy on weekends, holidays like Christmas or Easter and especially during leaf-peeping season.
By offering carefully selected chocolates and unique molds at reasonable prices, Gregory said she's been able to turn tourists, just passing through town, into regular costumers who come back to visit or take advantage of the mail-order service. Many customers have become close friends and on Tuesday, Gregory was preparing an order she puts together every year for the wife of a man who wants a box of Chocolate Barn candy every year.
Combining two businesses has advantages as well.
"People often come in and antique or they know about our (chocolate) molds for sale, the ones we have duplicates of, and they aren't buying but they'll very seldom go out of here without buying some chocolate or some of the good food stuffs which we've tested over the years," she said.
Gregory said when the property sells, she intends to remain in Vermont where her son, Judd, of Dorset, and daughter Amy, of Shelburne, live.
In 2004, Gregory was the victim of a violent burglary but she said the incident was not part of her decision to sell the business.
The three men who police believe committed the burglary and assaulted Gregory are currently serving time in a federal prison after admitting to charges of robbing a bank in New York.
The Chocolate Barn is available for sale through Phoenix Business Properties. Gregory said she thinks it would be a good business for a couple, who want a new challenge like running a chocolate store or possibly a bed and breakfast from the house.
The property even comes with a sense of history. It was once the home of the largest sheep farm in Vermont, owned by two English brothers named Longbottom.
Gregory had a piece of advice for whoever becomes the new owner.
"Everybody wants to be in the country or drives up to the country and when you're up here, you gotta find a little bit of time to smell the roses because once you're up here and working you don't afford yourself enough time for that," she said.
Contact Patrick McArdle at patrick.mcardle@rutlandherald.com.
42