From First Build To Best-Of-The-Best

How 501 Main became one of Efficiency Vermont’s 2025 Best-of-the-Best winners.

Jonah Richard

Apr 06, 2025

Hey — Jonah here.

Welcome back to Brick + Mortar, where I share stories on developing real estate at Village Ventures in rural Vermont.

Not bad for an old post office with a glow-up.

Big news.

501 Main just won Efficiency Vermont’s Best-of-the-Best award for small multifamily projects.

I’m not usually one for awards or certifications. But this one hits different. It feels personal.

When we started pre-development in 2020, I had a dream of building a high-performance building. I’d always cared about sustainability (almost went down the PhD-in-solar-engineering path), but at that point, I barely knew how to build at all—let alone build something efficient.

So I dug in.

And there was a lot to learn. (Still is.)

This was the first project I was developing and general contracting from the ground up. No prior construction background. Just curiosity, stubbornness, and a bit of scientific training—which, honestly, meant I got overly excited when things got technical.

I leaned on everyone around me.

Our architects, Dan Haedrich and Daniel Johnson, were incredibly patient and generous with their knowledge. Our insulation contractor was basically a walking building science encyclopedia. And I spent too many late nights down the rabbit hole of Green Building Advisor.

I learned about thermal bridging, benefits of keeping sheathing insulated, air leakage, mechanical ventilation, heat pumps, roof design to support proper insulation, triple vs double pane windows, Aerobarrier, etc.

Putting it all into practice, though, was a different beast.

These weren’t standard details for most of the crew. I was on-site every day, sealing penetrations, double-checking everything, and (let’s be honest) probably micromanaging a little too much. There were a few heated moments.

But the end result was worth it.

501 Main in the 1940s as the town’s first post office. Built with help from my great-grandfather!

We turned Fairlee’s original 1932 post office into a 3-story mixed-use building—8 apartments and a coffeeshop—with a salvaged foundation and Passivhaus-level energy performance.

Some quick project stats:

4,200 sq ft (8 apartments & one retail space)
Triple-pane windows with average U-factor of 0.18
Exterior 2x6 walls with dense-packed cellulose and 3” of recycled polyisocyanurate rigid foam (~R40)
24” of blown-in cellulose insulation in the attic (~R70)
3” of closed-cell spray foam on basement walls (~R20)
0.27 ACH 50
All LED lighting
6,000 BTU cold climate heat pumps as primary heat for each unit
LifeBreath 267 HRV (ventilates all 9 units)

We also tried to keep waste to a minimum. The original concrete foundation—over 50 cubic yards—was left in place and reused. Other materials were given a second life: insulation and windows went to a young couple building their first home, millwork was donated to a local trade school, and we reused the structural steel in the new build.

In the end, we did all this for a total development cost of $1.3m. That’s $150k/unit, or $309/sf.

18 months later, residents average $57/month on total electricity—heat, hot water, lights, and cooking included.

Compare that to another nearby building we own, built in the 1950s: residents there spend more than double.

And here’s something wild—for the four units at 501 Main with landlord-paid utilities, usage is 50% higher. There’s nothing that gets me more fired up than seeing a window open in January with the heat blasting. When you’re not footing the bill, efficiency kind of goes out the window. (Literally.)

Still, across the board, the numbers are impressive. Especially for a first-time project on a tight budget.

At one point, I tried counting how many people had a hand in making this project happen—architects, engineers, contractors, lenders, town officials, investors, mentors/advisors, and more.

I lost count at 75.

75+ people with an active role in the project.

Just keep that in mind—one developer gets their name on the project, but there’s a small army of people behind the scenes that bring that vision to reality.

This was a hard project. But I’m proud of it.

And the lessons we learned here—about performance, detailing, collaboration—will carry forward into every future build.

Here are a few photos from during and after the build.