Vermont Marble Company Building Is Listed for $799K

For $799,000, a buyer can acquire a fortress of a building made from locally sourced marble. The former Vermont Marble Company building in Proctor, VT, is now up for sale.

Built in 1924 from white and gray marble, the 10-bedroom home might be more than what any one buyer wants. However, the unfinished interior offers plenty of intriguing potential.

Measuring roughly 30,000 square feet, the building sits on 2.5 acres just a few miles north of Rutland. For bargain hunters, the price breaks down to a mere $26.63 per square foot.

“It’s an absolutely stunning building,” says listing agent Christopher Long, of Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate. “The electric, plumbing, and heating need to be done if you wanted to convert it to residential. I think it will go residential because that’s where the overwhelming need is right now.”

By “residential,” Long is also referring to converting the huge building into multiple units.

“If I were an investor, the big return would be transforming it to six to eight condo units with about 3,500 square feet of space each,” he says. “If you did 30 apartments with 1,000 square feet each—that’s a lot of kitchens and a lot of bathrooms. Those are the rooms where you spend a lot of money for a residential conversion.”

At the moment, the interior of the building is undergoing a total rehab and systems update.

“Each floor has 7,576 square feet of space,” Long says. “It’s literally a fortress that was built like a bunker. It is made of steel, concrete, and marble and is truly a piece of art. If you look at the details that someone did in marble during the 1920s by hand with no modern equipment, it’s just unbelievable.”

Over the years, it has been used as business offices and classrooms for a local college. Now, it could be transformed into a commercial office building, corporate retreat, educational facility, or any other use permitted under the city’s commercial zoning rules.

Once known as the largest U.S. corporation in the world, the Vermont Marble Company employed several thousand workers at its peak in the early 1900s. Italian marble carvers, Irish quarry workers, craftspeople, and laborers from around the world came to this tiny town in the center of the state.

Some noteworthy structures constructed by the company include the U.S. Supreme Court Building and the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, DC.

Long has fielded interest in the property from buyers nationwide.

“It’s amazing, the reach from all over the country, from California to Florida, showing interest in the property,” Long notes. “A lot of people won’t tell me what they have in mind for their specific use. If you wanted to buy it and just make it into one residence, it would make for an unbelievably large residential dwelling.”