PERKINSVILLE, Vt. – Vermont Soapstone began handcrafting bed warmers, boot dryers, heat registers, griddles, and wood-burning stoves in Perkinsville, Vt., in 1856. Today, the company continues that tradition of craftsmanship while manufacturing custom soapstone countertops, sinks and other fixtures, and home accents.
In June, Brandon Eustace and Zachary Harvey purchased the 170-year-old company from Glenn Bowman. Bowman has agreed to stay on through the end of the year, marking 40 years with the company.
Bowman acquired the company after he realized he needed to settle down. He read an article in the Rutland Herald about the company’s owner at the time, who was nearing retirement. He called him up, they chatted, and Bowman ended up buying the company.
According to Bowman, the previous owner was involved when the Army Corps of Engineers moved Vermont Soapstone from its original mill operation on the Black River to its current location at 248 Stoughton Pond Road in Perkinsville. Bowman said, “When they were going to build the North Springfield Dam, they were going to end up flooding the area potentially where the mill was…if you go across the Black River and look towards Springfield east, the dam is still there, but that area [was] condemned when they built the North Springfield Dam” in the mid-20th century.
Some of the old mill equipment and artifacts used in Vermont Soapstone manufacturing are still on display and stored at the facility. Bowman said, “Lower Perkinsville was a village that they moved all the houses and so forth, and it happened back [in the] late 1950s, but that’s well before my time.”
Under Bowman’s ownership, the company shifted from producing retail products to manufacturing architectural products. Bowman said, “I can’t claim the expertise of having done it, but it’s how the market went, and I just followed it along.”
“It’s been a great work force of local people,” Bowman said. “I’ve had great employees over the years and some of them…came with the business, two of them have been working here for over 40 years themselves.”
Bowman explained how the industry evolved during his time as owner. “When I started, we did mostly retail products – griddles, boot warmers, bed warmers, boot dryers, retail products were our biggest customers – Vermont Country Store, and Gillingham’s up in Woodstock, and LL Bean,” Bowman said. “The market for those products and the way that they marketed them changed, and so we got into doing architectural work – sinks and countertops and so forth – and that’s what we’ve primarily done for the last 40 years.”
“We travel all over the northeast, primarily northern New England…New York, New Jersey, sometimes we get down to the Carolinas, and we ship all over the country…it’s been pretty good to us, and to me,” Bowman said.
Harvey lived and worked in Boston for 25 years, and Eustace lived and worked in New York, before moving back to Vermont. They each live in Manchester, Vt., and grew up in Brattleboro. Though they had never met in their youth, they have since become friends through their children. Eustace noted that each partner has a background in business, with Eustace previously having worked in mortgage banking, and Harvey in real estate.
Their business partnership was formed when, Eustace explained, “I visited this business over a year ago, met Glenn, saw the operation, took a look at the books, and it seemed like a really nice investment.”
Harvey explained, “I was speaking to Brandon about the same sort of thing, I really wanted to…invest in a small business with a tangibility of almost an anti-AI situation…so I was looking for something more in the trades or some sort of Vermont oriented company.”
Eustace said, “I’ll tell you when I first visited, I felt in over my head. I didn’t expect much, then I came and saw this campus.” He continued, “I saw the mill, and I met the employees, and I met the old owner, and I said, ‘OK, there’s a lot to learn here.’” Harvey added, “[We realized] how important the long-term staff, particularly the mill workers, as well as our sales team, were to the business and [recognized] that their skillset is not easily replaced.”
Vermont Soapstone primarily sells full custom countertops and sinks direct to both retail customers with full installation, as well as business-to-business wholesale. Harvey said, “We do 100% soapstone, all of our stone comes from one quarry [in Brazil], so while there can be differentiation from batch to batch…we like to keep it basically at the same aesthetic.”
Bowman expressed his hope that Eustace and Harvey will keep the company going into the foreseeable future. “The company started [in 1856], so we’re at 170 years now. So hopefully…they’ll get it up to a couple hundred.”