Vermont barn-building ‘legend’ still visits every job site at 83

ORWELL, Vt. (WCAX) – Bud Carpenter is about to take a trip down memory lane.

“Heading to Poultney,” Carpenter said.

The ride there is dotted with silos, with many of the barns he built. “This is one of our buildings here; there’s one over there,” Carpenter points out. And then there’s a building in Orwell.

“That post office over… we built that in the early 70s,” Carpenter said.

Reporter Joe Carroll: Have you figured out how many buildings you’ve built through the years?

Bud Carpenter: You know, I thought about that a lot; I really haven’t.

Bud Carpenter Incorporated, or BCI, started on a “wing and a prayer.” “I just started working, I’d do anything, I’d wash windows, I would paint. I’d even cut meat in the store,” he said. “My first year in business in 1965, I grossed $3,600… Somehow, we made it all work; I don’t know how.

With hard work came jobs and some mistakes. “I’ve done a lot of foolish things,” Carpenter said. “Like get into the used car business.”

Reporter Joe Carroll: How did you have the time to do all of this?

Bud Carpenter: I ask myself a hundred times.

There are massive cow barns to small horse barns, like one in Poultney. “We just did this one last year,” Carpenter said.

With a bum knee and a pacemaker, the 83-year-old no longer works on site.

“He’s a barn building legend!” said Todd Boutwell, Carpenter’s son-in-law, who took over running the day-to-day operations last year. “He’s still there, every day.”

“I like to come out to all of them, I’m on all of them, one time or another, yeah,” Carpenter said.

Back on the road, the conversation turns personal. “I think the hardest part is when I went through a divorce. I had problems with my wife, and we divorced, that’s probably the hardest thing I did,” Carpenter said. “And that’s having to go back on my word… When you get married, you take your vows.”

He has since remarried. Beth and Bud have been together for decades.

And then there was the heavy drinking. “I worked hard, and I drank hard,” Carpenter said. “But I never missed a day of work in my life.”

The drinking has been cut significantly. His recollections of what he’s done are numerous. “You get a little choked up at times on it, everywhere you go, you see things you’ve done: It makes you proud,” he said.

A journey that continues.