Homestyle Hotel | Bar & Restaurant, and Main + Mountain, Ludlow
“The first two weeks were surreal. You’re at the ground level; you’re just a robot at that point. We scheduled plumbers and electricians and carpenters, got in touch with the insurance people, filed the claims, met with the adjusters, took a million pictures, inventoried everything, cleaned up all the equipment. Your adrenaline is shot by then, and you want to get back to normal.” –Justin Hyjek, Homestyle Hotel, Main + Mountain
Homestyle Hotel is a popular, laid-back restaurant on Ludlow’s Main Street, established by Justin Hyjek and his partner Eliza Greene in 2014. The couple opened Main + Mountain, a boutique bar and motel, directly across the street in 2019. A Ludlow native, Justin serves as a village trustee and member of the select board. He tells his story in a mix of present and past tense even six weeks after the flood, a reflection that the events remain vivid. Thanks to his team’s tireless efforts, Homestyle Hotel opened on August 24, a week ahead of schedule.
Around 6 a.m. on Monday, we got a phone call from a friend. “Hey, there’s a river running down Homestyle’s driveway.” So I go down and the basement’s a little flooded and I think, Well, not much we can do now. Let’s just wait it out. It’s supposed to be clearing up in the next couple of hours. We’ll be okay. The water recedes a bit by noon and we’ve got about 4 feet of water in the basement, but I think we’re in the clear.
Then the rain intensified and hung over us like a dark cloud that would not leave the valley. I’m from Ludlow, and I’ve never seen rain come down like that. My wife and I live on high ground about a quarter mile from downtown so we were okay, but we can only access downtown via bridges from our house. And we didn’t want to go over the bridges for obvious reasons.
So there was nothing we could do. Then the town started bringing in the swift water rescue team boats and depositing them right next to our house. At that point I realized we were in trouble. I had to just sit at home in nervous anticipation, watching the rescue boats get deployed. Later that afternoon around 4 or 5 p.m., we walked down to the bridge. The water was almost cresting over the bridge at Depot Street right by the mill. Main Street had become a fast-flowing river. At that point I knew Homestyle was in tough shape because it sits on the river at a low point on Main Street. Our other business, Main + Mountain, is directly across the street but at just a little higher elevation. We just stood there literally watching our businesses maybe float down the river.
We evacuated our Main Street neighbors on both sides and put them up in the second floor of Main + Mountain. I asked them to keep in constant communication with us and to take pictures. I needed to know what’s going on down there. The water came up to the bluestone patio right in front of Main + Mountain but miraculously stopped. The force of the water disconnected our propane tanks. They got caught on our neighbor’s sign and just spewed gas. But you couldn’t get to them because you’d be swept away. A guy tried to drive through and his car got sucked under a bridge. It was mayhem.
The water dissipated quickly by the next day. The basement was a 100 percent loss. The mud wash on the first floor was a quarter-inch from the entry to both the kitchen and the dining room floor.
The back prep area, the back dormitory, the back bathroom, mudroom, foyer, all that stuff got totally ruined. But our major kitchen appliances were spared. It’s crazy that six hours of flood can absolutely ravage everything that you thought you knew. Natural disasters are like that, I guess.
Here at Homestyle and Main + Mountain, we’ve cultivated a great following of regulars. Some friends from out-of-state own a company that has industrial-level dehumidifiers and fans so they brought up some of those. We hit the pumped-out basement for two days and dried out that sucker. And then we tore out all the wood and sprayed everything with bleach. Later on, we poured a new concrete floor and sloped it into a sump pump station. We’re now focused on mitigation and resiliency. What can we do to buffer ourselves in the future? These hundred-year storms are coming with more rapidity.
The first two weeks were surreal. You’re at the ground level; you’re just a robot at that point. We scheduled plumbers and electricians and carpenters, got in touch with the insurance people, filed the claims, met with the adjusters, took a million pictures, inventoried everything, cleaned up all the equipment. Your adrenaline is shot by then, and you want to get back to normal.
Amazingly, with 9 inches of rain that day, our town dams held even though they’re about 50 or 60 years old. But they’ll need to be rebuilt, which will be approximately a $50-million project. Vermont’s Agency of Transportation estimated road damage at more than $8½ million. We’re working on getting the wastewater treatment plant up to full capacity. So our municipality has its work cut out.
As a village trustee and member of Ludlow’s select board, I want to emphasize that the town did a fantastic job dealing with this disaster. We have an amazing support system, and everyone can make a difference. Who helps, who stops by, who checks in, who starts up GoFundMes? Who does boots on the ground, who excavates for free, who works 15 hours a day hauling stone and dirt and mud? We didn’t have access to clean water, so people drove and got clean water and delivered it all around town. They supplied gloves and sanitizer, offered pumps and hoses. Businesses opened up and gave out free sandwiches and pizzas. People did fundraisers for unemployed workers affected by the flood.
On the municipal end, the construction workers, excavators, contractors—those guys have been doing double duty with the highway department, the parks and grounds, and the recreation committee. We have a remarkable emergency management crew of ambulance and fire. Brendan McNamara, the town manager, has been on the job for only four months. He’s a shining star in all this.
Carol Lighthall of the Okemo Valley Chamber of Commerce has been integral in helping local businesses. The Chamber, in unison with Crown Point Board of Realtors, the Ludlow Rotary, and others, have generously set up and dispersed donation funds. Carol’s marketing push throughout the summer was instrumental in helping businesses that were unaffected by the flood not suffer too much tourism loss. It’s been a coordinated effort. Every single person in this little town played a vital role and helped get Ludlow up and running. I couldn’t be prouder.
