To The Editor:
While watching Allie Rood‘s wonderful documentary, “Prickly Mountain and My Design Build Life,” I was reminded of the excitement and creativity that inspired our family to relocate to the Mad River Valley in the spring of 1970.
All we needed was one winter season, renting one of the unique homes up at Prickly Mountain and being introduced to the charismatic founder David Sellers for us to pull up our roots in suburban Boston and head off on a new adventure. We purchased The Warren Store from Roy Long, quickly added running water and central heating, and the motley Prickly Mountain crew built a wild spiral stair to the second floor. Dave Sellers joined the board of directors of The Warren Store and we quickly became a lively meeting spot for the community.
The film tells the story of the many architects who were also drawn to this area by the visionary Dave Sellers. People you would recognize today as major contributors to the culture, civic organizations, conservation, and the economic vitality of our community.
Tragically the film only tells part of the story, a sanitized version.
As was reported in this paper back in 1987, Dave Sellers pleaded guilty to having sex with a minor. During those proceedings it was revealed that he had sexually assaulted young girls as far back as 1970 and involved girls as young as 13 years old. Dave Sellers was a pedophile.
It’s an insult to the victims of sexual abuse, and the general audience not to tell the story of a deeply flawed man. Let us not ignore evil by just avoiding the subject.
The film does such a wonderful job describing the creative, collaborative experiment that was Prickly Mountain but fails in presenting a truthful accounting of the founding architect’s destructive side.
I urge you to see the film, but keep this truth in mind.
Jon Rickard
Warren
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