BERNARDSTON — The Windmill Motel on Northfield Road (Route 10) is back in business under new ownership, with plans to reopen the restaurant in the months ahead.
“That’s what people are waiting for,” said Vrajeshkumar “VJ” Patel, who purchased the property last summer and opened the motel on March 1. “A lot of people stop by here, waiting for the restaurant to open.”
Patel, who lives on site, said he has been in the hospitality industry since arriving in the United States from India nearly 30 years ago.
There are 15 motel rooms available at 497 Northfield Road, though there will likely be a 16th one. Patel had knocked down the wall separating the office from Room 8, with plans to open a liquor store by August. But he learned on Friday that his request for a liquor license had been denied. That idea, he said, came from “trying to survive in the business, because just the motel rooms is not enough.”
Jim Hawkins, a building commissioner who provides services to Bernardston through the Franklin Regional Council of Governments (FRCOG), explained that Bernardston’s zoning bylaws allow only one principal use on a building lot. He said the Windmill Motel has two — for the motel and the restaurant — which predate the bylaws and are grandfathered.
“His request to the Selectboard for a package store was subsequently denied as a third principal use,” Hawkins wrote in an email. “He has been redirected back to the board for a liquor license as an accessory use to the restaurant.”
Patel said he intends to pursue this avenue.
Brian Keir, who chairs the Selectboard, said he moved to Bernardston in 1991 and is thrilled to see a local landmark rejuvenated after a period of extended dormancy.
“I think it’s a good thing,” he said. “Business is always welcome in Bernardston.”
A real estate transaction on BusinessWest.com shows the property as having sold for $700,000 on Aug. 6, 2025.
Before Patel purchased the Windmill Motel last summer, it was sold at auction to a private out-of-state lender for $750,000 on April 10, 2024. Shelburne attorney Kevin Parsons, who represented the lender, declined to disclose his client’s identity, but said at the time that his client always intended to sell the property again, to a person or entity that would reopen the business as a 16-room motel.
According to a Greenfield Recorder column written by Irmarie Jones in February 1998, the motel was built in 1981 by Hungarian immigrants Kalman and Helen Nemes. Kalman’s dream to construct a windmill outside the motel came true 16 years later.
“I got the building at 10 a.m. on Sept. 19, 1997, and by 3 p.m. I was pouring the cement for the foundation,” he told Jones.
The Nemeses sold Hungarian dishes once they completed the dining room, though it shifted to breakfast-only after Helen died in 1993. Once open, Patel said his restaurant will serve American cuisine.
The Windmill Motel operates a Facebook page and can be reached for more information at 413-835-2178.