College holds soft opening for 51 Main Street

Author: Lea Calderon-Guthe

Though the first full opening of the newly renovated space at 51 Main Street is not until May 15, the open house on April 25 has had students, faculty, staff and town members alike buzzing with excitement over the décor, the mood and the opportunities at the aptly named 51 Main.

51 Main began in the summer of 2007 as the brainchild of Dean of the College Tim Spears and was projected to open in February. The space, formerly the home of the restaurant Eat Good Food, has undergone significant remodeling to better suit its new function as a bar and lounge, and it is this remodeling that has delayed its opening. Micah Gurard-Levin '07.5, a graduate involved with the project from the beginning, said that the delays were necessary to properly present the space.

"It was more about getting things right so that when it did open it sent the right message to people who came in," Gurard-Levin said. "They could understand exactly what the space had to offer, whereas if we tried to get it open as soon as possible, if you send the wrong message it's hard to get people to come back."

Both Spears and Gurard-Levin agreed that the wait was worth it for 51 Main to have turned out the way it did. The place is now more handicap-accessible with a bathroom in the first floor, and a large platform has been removed from the front of the space to open up the floor. A professional designer from New Jersey was called in to outfit the space with furniture to fit the idea of an urban establishment while maintaining ties to the Middlebury community, and since then bistro tables, bar stools, Eames lounge chairs and a sofa, among other things, have been ordered to complement the softly lit brick walls, dark wood floors and heavy red drapes.

A large tavern table is also currently under construction by the College's facilities staff using wood milled from a century-old spruce that fell near the College. Dean of Library and Information Services Barbara Doyle-Wilch hoped the upscale furniture and décor would have the effect of creating a worldly escape from the smallness of small-town Vermont.

"There's a lot of 'Vermontian' places and we want this to be more urban," Doyle-Wilch said. "We want this to be a place where if you grew up someplace else this is comfortable for you."

Doyle-Wilch will collaborate with Director of the Center for Campus Activities and Leadership Doug Adams to be in charge of the program at 51 Main as part of the three-site College/town connection that encompasses the recently purchased Old Stone Mill and the Town Hall Theater under renovation, as well. Doyle-Wilch and Adams will coordinate events and performances at 51 Main and form part of a programming board that will take proposals for use of the space.

"My goal is to provide venues for student, faculty, staff and community to do creative work and then create a place where people can talk about it," Doyle-Wilch said.

The idea is to let the community dictate the use of the space during the day, creating a chic hang-out joint that caters to all kinds of College or town group meetings, events and performances while serving up a low-key dose of entertainment on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.

Spears made it clear that the details are not final, however, and while the place will have a definite lounge feel on weekend evenings, the rest of the week and the daylight hours are still up in the air.

"This is, I think, an unrealistic vision for the place, but it's still one I have," Spears said. "It's that three different things could happen here. I hope this is a place where people can just sit here and they can write in the morning, and then in the afternoon there will be more focused activities maybe, and then in the evenings on Thursday, Friday and Saturday and there will be, well, there won't be any smoke in here, but it will have that kind of dense social feel to it."

The plan to open the space as a chocolate bar during the day has not been abandoned either. Doyle-Wilch was especially enthusiastic about giving 51 Main an international vibe and potentially bringing in chocolates from around the world rather than just local Vermont chocolates, but to make that idea a reality would require more financial security in the form of establishing a "bottom line," according to Doyle-Wilch, than any business just starting out can claim.

"We're probably six months away from bottom line," Doyle-Wilch said. "We've got to build the program, get people in and out, and then I love the idea of international chocolates so we're conversing about that."

Groups from the Middlebury Artists Guild to Addison Central Teens might utilize the space, and potential performers include any local and student musicians to a group of fiddlers coming in through the Vermont Folk Life Center. Photographs from Sarah Schorr's "Forming a Photographic Story" Winter Term class already hang along the walls, and Doyle-Wilch hoped they will be just the beginning in terms of student or local artwork, with the possibility of selling art in the future.

"I think it might be a nice place to sell student music, student art and pottery maybe faculty publications, we have to watch that grow," Doyle-Wilch. "We do want it to be more upscale, we don't want this to turn into the bookstore."

Doyle-Wilch does not want 51 Main to become the campus bookstore, and Spears hoped students know that it will not be The Bunker, either.

"Having a place like The Bunker is really important, but this is going to be a place where people can come and sit down, and whether they're having beer, wine or pineapple juice, they can sit here, hang out and talk. It should feel like a cool, hip place to go," Spears said.

The first few students at the open house on April 25 generally agreed that 51 Main is the "cool, hip place" Spears is aiming for, and Natasha Chacon '10, who attended the open house initially to see her own photography on display, thinks it has a lot of potential.

"I really hope more kids find out about it. People need to get off campus more and meet townspeople," Chacon said.