The library that was to hold whiskey is empty. The home theater that was to be for watching things on a screen is empty. The micro-distillery that was to teach young Americans the craft of spirits is empty. Raj Bhakta is giving the campus away, for free, to anyone who will align with the revival of the United States, Western civilization, and Christendom.
Raj, you are fifty years old. You are a former contestant on a television show about a man who fired people. You are telling a town whose college closed in 2019 that its children’s future belongs to a faith-based campus that doesn’t yet exist. Your hands are clean now. You blame Vermont’s red tape. You blame feral cats. You are giving away a campus you never built anything on.
Raj Bhakta, co-founder of the WhistlePig whiskey brand, bought the shuttered Green Mountain College campus in Poultney, Vermont, in August 2020 for less than $5 million — a 77% discount to its appraised $20 million value. The college had closed in 2019 amid declining enrollment. Bhakta proposed a resort: 93 hotel rooms, 18 condominiums, a micro-distillery, a 200-seat restaurant, a spa, a home theater. The college library would become spirits storage and a tasting room. The town’s Development Review Board approved the plans in early 2023. State regulators at the Land Use Review Board asked questions: who the home theater was for, whether he had horses, whether the distillery would produce an odor. Bhakta withdrew his application last September, saying “Vermont’s red tape antidevelopment regime killed the project.” State regulators later notified him of alleged violations for unapproved renovations to his historic home, storing spirits on campus, and running a private school there without state approval. Bhakta defended each.
Now he is giving the campus away. He has received more than 50 applications, narrowed to 10, but told the Wall Street Journal “it is not clear the right caretaker has appeared.” His website recommends a $1.5 million annual maintenance budget and seeks an applicant with “an alignment with the vision of the revival of the United States, Western civilization and Christendom through faith-based education.” Jaime Lee, a town planning-commission member, said, “It’s hard to have faith that any one entity can maintain that entire campus.”
Raj, I am telling you what you did to Poultney. You arrived in a town that had lost its college, its economic anchor, its young people. You bought the campus for a fraction of its worth, and you told the town you would build a resort, fill the void with jobs, teach young Americans the craft of spirits. The town believed you. They wanted to believe you. They looked at you, a man who had been on television, a man who had made whiskey, and they thought you were their hero. You were not. You were a man who bought a campus and then blamed the regulatory process when you could not make it work.
Your hands held the incomplete state applications, not the blueprints. They are small, Raj. I see them. They are not large. You dropped them when regulators asked for basic clarifications — what a home theater is for, whether you had horses, whether the distillery would produce an odor. You said, “It is where people watch things on a screen.” Raj, you know what a home theater is for. You know what a micro-distillery is for. You know what a resort is for. The regulators wanted to know if you would follow the rules. You did not want to follow the rules. You wanted to be the great man who saved the town without anyone asking questions. And when they asked questions, you took your vision and left.
There is a metallic taste under your tongue when you read the town’s complaints. It does not leave. You cannot wash it out. Your jaw aches at night, and you do not know why. The ache is the town’s waiting. Your throat does not catch when you pour your morning coffee. Your chest does not tighten. You have no incomplete defensive movement. You are armored, Raj. You are a man whose failure has not touched him. You are giving away a campus as if it were a gift, but it is a burden you are handing to someone else to carry. The town will carry it. The town will carry the memory of the man who promised a revival and left them a requirement to believe in Christendom.
Your German shepherd killed your neighbor’s chickens. You denied it. You said it was feral cats. Raj, you are a man who cannot admit what his hands have done. You cannot admit that your dog killed chickens. You cannot admit that your resort plan failed because you could not answer basic questions. You cannot admit that you are leaving a campus to rot while you demand a revival of Christendom. The campus is not revived. The campus is waiting for someone who will not leave it with a $1.5 million annual maintenance bill and a requirement that they love Jesus Christ in the right way.
I see the image: you, in a vintage Lincoln once owned by Franklin D. Roosevelt, out of gas, being pushed by helpers while the town watched. The bike shop owner called it an encapsulation of your whole program. He was right. You are a man out of gas in a dead president’s car, being pushed by the town you were supposed to save, and you are telling them now that what they really need is Christendom.
Now you are giving the campus away, but you are not giving it away for free. You are giving it away with a demand. You want the next owner to align with your vision of the revival of the United States, Western civilization, and Christendom. Raj, the children in Poultney do not need Christendom. They need a school. They need a reason not to leave. They need an economy that does not depend on a man who appeared on a reality show and then ran out of gas in a parade car. He leaves the town holding a $1.5 million annual maintenance bill, while just yesterday billionaire hoteliers battled Sen. Jim Justice for control of Greenbrier resort. Raj Bhakta is a smaller man, but the shape is the same.
“Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” — Matthew 7:15
Raj Bhakta came to Poultney in the sheep’s clothing of whiskey and a resort. He leaves it now in the clothing of Christendom. The campus is empty. The town is waiting. The children are still without a school. The home theater is still empty, waiting for someone to watch something on a screen. The library is still waiting for the spirits that were never stored there. The revival is not coming. The wolf has moved on.