Approximately 2 mi. upstream from Montpelier, Vt. sandwiched between U.S. Highway 2, a railroad, and the Winooski River, is a mostly undeveloped island of fields and trees.

Close to the road, though, a 19th-century Greek Revival house and a barn connected by an ell stood for many years until recently, when the connecting wing was deconstructed, along with the house's roof, Vermont Public reported Aug. 15, 2025.

"Today we're taking the nogging out," said Dave Giese of Deconstruction Works, a West Dummerston, Vt., firm that specializes in the salvage and reuse of structures across northern New England. "So, in the old houses, they used brick as kind of the insulation."

The company is taking apart the house and its adjacent buildings board by board — and brick by brick — so the materials can be bought and reused.

In fact, Giese told the statewide media service that the bricks have already been sold.

Earlier in August, Ben Doyle, a Montpelier city councilor and president of the Preservation Trust of Vermont, gave Vermont Public a tour of the work site.

In a plot twist, however, the preservation group is leading the effort to take down the historic structures despite the fact that the property once belonged to Jacob Davis, Montpelier's founding settler in the 18th century and the man responsible for naming what is today Vermont's capital city.

Doyle explained that removing the buildings will solve a few problems.

First, the property has been vacant for more than a decade.

"No one wanted to say, 'Hey, we own this property, and we'll take care of it,'" he said.

And then there is the catastrophic flooding that hit Montpelier especially hard in 2023 and has reoccurred in Vermont every summer since, which many scientists believe is part of more supercharged weather patterns linked to climate change.

"I came down here and went through this doorway and [found] water in the basement," Doyle said. "It's like 8 feet of water down on the floodplain. And I'm [thinking], ‘This isn't happening.'"

Trucks Haul Out Tons of Material to Restore the Floodplain

A coalition led by the Preservation Trust of Vermont received $395,510 from the state's Flood Resilient Communities Fund to pay off the property's mortgage and deconstruct the buildings. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) also is reviewing an application that would help fully restore the floodplain on the property.

"And when that happens, we're going to get dump trucks on site and take out about 24,000 cubic yards of material," Doyle said, adding that the effort will reduce future localized flooding.

"When you start to aggregate dozens of projects like this across the entire watershed, then you're really starting to make a difference," he said.

Rebecca Diehl studies river systems as a research faculty member at the University of Vermont. She agrees that this project, located on a good-sized floodplain, can contribute to downstream flood resilience.

"The stretch around Montpelier doesn't have substantial access to floodplains, right? It's fairly well confined in the valley," she told Vermont Public. "And then you add on top of that … the roads and the infrastructure. So, this project in particular does represent a really amazing opportunity."

History Gives Way to 21st Century Reality

Before the riverside property became a floodplain restoration project, it was the site of a private home for at least seven families across two centuries as Montpelier developed around it with the addition of railroads, a cement plant and vehicle traffic.

Vermont Public reviewed historical records that the house, barn and ell now being deconstructed did not belong to Davis, who bought the property in 1787. Instead, local historians think that the structures were built right after his family sold the property in the 1830s.

And prior to European-Americans displacing the native Wabanaki peoples from their ancestral homelands, floodplains like this along the Winooski River supported the growth of corn, beans and squash.

Now, the plan calls for returning the island property to its pre-agricultural state, Vermont Public noted.

"The highest and best use of a floodplain is to serve as a floodplain," Doyle said. "And that's what this will do."

He added that he often thinks about giving up a piece of local history for the future.

"But at the end of the day, it's the reality of climate change," Doyle said. "I personally believe preservation isn't about locking everything in amber, right? It's about how do we take this and make it work for us now and for the future?"

A future which will inevitably bring more flooding to the Winooski River Valley.