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June 1, 2009
This Land
A Town Fights to Save an Oasis of Baguettes
By DAN BARRY
COLEBROOK, N.H.
A French couple came to town several years ago in search of something. Here, amid the swelling mountains and struggling businesses, the Red Sox hagiography and Yankee taciturnity, they were looking for just the right place to sell madeleines.
And croissants. And tarts. And long, thin loaves of French bread that all but dare you to tear at their heel before you’re out the door.
The couple converted a run-down building near an abandoned gas station into Le Rendez-Vous, a cozy bakery whose blend of bread, coffee and conversation soon charmed this rural community. After a while it seemed that the owner, Verlaine Daeron, and her partner and baker, Marc Ounis, had always been here, and always would be.
That is, until several weeks ago, when a telephone’s ring interrupted Mr. Ounis’s daily ritual of baking before daylight. It was Ms. Daeron, in tears, calling from Paris to say her application to renew her E-2 investor visa — for foreign investors and business owners — had been denied because her bakery had been determined to be “marginal.”
As in the State Department stipulation that an investment by a foreign national seeking an E-2 visa “may not be marginal.” In addition: “It must have the capacity to generate significantly more income than just to provide a living to the investor and family, or it must have a significant economic impact in the United States.”
Mr. Ounis, by now an American citizen, saw no choice. He sadly announced plans to close the bakery and leave for France once the last of a month’s worth of flour was gone, prompting outraged customers to begin the often-maddening task of parsing the language of government.
In the context of a remote county of 33,000 in northern New Hampshire, where timber and paper are down and the next big thing has yet to reveal itself, what does “marginal” mean? What does “significant economic impact” mean?
The State Department presumably based its decision on the modest financial statements Ms. Daeron submitted with her visa application. But two spokesmen for the department declined to comment, saying they could not discuss individual cases. Clearly, though, whoever denied Ms. Daeron’s visa did not understand what madeleines meant to that part of the United States called Colebrook.
This low-flame matter of international intrigue began in 2000, when the French couple came upon Colebrook while searching New England for a place to open a bakery. The Chamber of Commerce referred them to a French-speaking man named Benoit Lamontagne, who also happened to be the owner of the local Radio Shack, a town official and the champion for economic development in an area that needs it. He immediately saw opportunity.
Before day’s end, Mr. Lamontagne had found the visitors an apartment, some furniture and even a television, courtesy of his Radio Shack. They were also given a heads-up about the town’s plans to auction off the old bank building, a historic but dilapidated structure recently seized for back taxes.
Ms. Daeron won the bid with an offer of about $50,000, covered the windows with paper and began a yearlong renovation. Some people wondered what these outsiders were up to; for one thing, they were upsetting the drab Main Street color scheme of white, gray and white-gray by painting their building’s exterior a joyous golden yellow with a trim of — maroon?
“It is burgundy,” Mr. Ounis says. “Burgundy.”
When Le Rendez-Vous finally opened in late 2001, Colebrook swooned. The elegant restoration, the classical music, the enticing smells and, especially, the baked goods — it was all so civilized, so right, in part because the couple wisely left out one ingredient: that sprinkling of judgment often added by people new to the region.
“Old Yankees don’t like to be told what to do and how to do it,” Mr. Lamontagne says. “Boy, that’s the kiss of death.”
Instead, he says, the couple accepted Colebrook for what it was: a community of loggers and farmers and artisans and people working two and three jobs to get by. And Colebrook accepted them for who they said they were: transplants who had given up medical careers in Paris to make bread someplace where the air was fresh.
Mr. Ounis, 62, would rise at 2 in the morning to bake bread in silent solitude, no radio, no television. He would not have his coffee until Ms. Daeron, 51, descended from their apartment upstairs around 7:30. They would savor this time. Then he would return to the ovens, and she would open the door.
The bakery became an arts center, a community hangout, an economic engine, a source of pride featured in guidebooks. Once known as the “potato capital” of New Hampshire, the town could now add to its boasting this old-world oasis — “Not something you’d expect in Colebrook,” says George Bald, a customer and the state’s commissioner of resources and economic development.
So when the State Department denied Ms. Daeron’s visa, it became personal, for a couple, a town, a region.
While Mr. Ounis baked bread and shyly worked the counter — usually the domain of the more outgoing Ms. Daeron — Colebrook made some noise. Thousands of people signed petitions, while hundreds more, including Mr. Bald, sent letters to every official they could think of, from Washington to Paris.
The letters, typewritten and handwritten, all but demanded reconsideration. Many complained that a lot of businesses in the north country might be considered “marginal” by State Department standards; that a paper mill in Groveton closed not too long ago; that a small restaurant beside Le Rendez-Vous shut down this past winter. That everything is relative.
“Colebrook and this region of New Hampshire don’t fit neatly into the bureaucratic formulas created by officials apparently removed from real life circumstances,” Jayne Lytle, of North Stratford, wrote to Senator Jeanne Shaheen. Le Rendez-Vous, Ms. Lytle wrote, is a tourist draw, a good neighbor — “an integral part of the economy.”
Perhaps Jack and Sandra Riendeau put it best in their letter to Ms. Shaheen. Of Ms. Daeron and Mr. Ounis, they wrote, “We want them here where they belong.”
Days passed, then weeks. Elected officials made their calls while Mr. Ounis made his bread, the supply of flour dwindling like hourglass sand. Ms. Daeron telephoned from her mother’s home in Paris three, four, five times a day, asking about developments.
Then she called to say she had been instructed to appear for an interview at 9:15 on the morning of May 19 at the following address: Ambassade des États-Unis d’Amérique, Service des Visas d’investisseurs; 4, avenue Gabriel, Paris. Her case, it seemed, was being reconsidered.
At 6 that morning, New Hampshire time, Ms. Daeron called Mr. Ounis at the bakery, excited: Her visa had been renewed. In notifying her, she said, the embassy official explained how struck he was by the sense of community reflected in all those letters; how much it reminded him of his hometown back in Wisconsin.
That day Mr. Ounis told everyone who walked through the door. And Ms. Daeron made another telephone call from Paris, this time to order more flour.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/01/us...ml?_r=1&ref=us
A French couple came to town several years ago in search of something. Here, amid the swelling mountains and struggling businesses, the Red Sox hagiography and Yankee taciturnity, they were looking for just the right place to sell madeleines.
And croissants. And tarts. And long, thin loaves of French bread that all but dare you to tear at their heel before you’re out the door.
The couple converted a run-down building near an abandoned gas station into Le Rendez-Vous, a cozy bakery whose blend of bread, coffee and conversation soon charmed this rural community. After a while it seemed that the owner, Verlaine Daeron, and her partner and baker, Marc Ounis, had always been here, and always would be.
That is, until several weeks ago, when a telephone’s ring interrupted Mr. Ounis’s daily ritual of baking before daylight. It was Ms. Daeron, in tears, calling from Paris to say her application to renew her E-2 investor visa — for foreign investors and business owners — had been denied because her bakery had been determined to be “marginal.”
As in the State Department stipulation that an investment by a foreign national seeking an E-2 visa “may not be marginal.” In addition: “It must have the capacity to generate significantly more income than just to provide a living to the investor and family, or it must have a significant economic impact in the United States.”
Mr. Ounis, by now an American citizen, saw no choice. He sadly announced plans to close the bakery and leave for France once the last of a month’s worth of flour was gone, prompting outraged customers to begin the often-maddening task of parsing the language of government.
In the context of a remote county of 33,000 in northern New Hampshire, where timber and paper are down and the next big thing has yet to reveal itself, what does “marginal” mean? What does “significant economic impact” mean?
The State Department presumably based its decision on the modest financial statements Ms. Daeron submitted with her visa application. But two spokesmen for the department declined to comment, saying they could not discuss individual cases. Clearly, though, whoever denied Ms. Daeron’s visa did not understand what madeleines meant to that part of the United States called Colebrook.
This low-flame matter of international intrigue began in 2000, when the French couple came upon Colebrook while searching New England for a place to open a bakery. The Chamber of Commerce referred them to a French-speaking man named Benoit Lamontagne, who also happened to be the owner of the local Radio Shack, a town official and the champion for economic development in an area that needs it. He immediately saw opportunity.
Before day’s end, Mr. Lamontagne had found the visitors an apartment, some furniture and even a television, courtesy of his Radio Shack. They were also given a heads-up about the town’s plans to auction off the old bank building, a historic but dilapidated structure recently seized for back taxes.
Ms. Daeron won the bid with an offer of about $50,000, covered the windows with paper and began a yearlong renovation. Some people wondered what these outsiders were up to; for one thing, they were upsetting the drab Main Street color scheme of white, gray and white-gray by painting their building’s exterior a joyous golden yellow with a trim of — maroon?
“It is burgundy,” Mr. Ounis says. “Burgundy.”
When Le Rendez-Vous finally opened in late 2001, Colebrook swooned. The elegant restoration, the classical music, the enticing smells and, especially, the baked goods — it was all so civilized, so right, in part because the couple wisely left out one ingredient: that sprinkling of judgment often added by people new to the region.
“Old Yankees don’t like to be told what to do and how to do it,” Mr. Lamontagne says. “Boy, that’s the kiss of death.”
Instead, he says, the couple accepted Colebrook for what it was: a community of loggers and farmers and artisans and people working two and three jobs to get by. And Colebrook accepted them for who they said they were: transplants who had given up medical careers in Paris to make bread someplace where the air was fresh.
Mr. Ounis, 62, would rise at 2 in the morning to bake bread in silent solitude, no radio, no television. He would not have his coffee until Ms. Daeron, 51, descended from their apartment upstairs around 7:30. They would savor this time. Then he would return to the ovens, and she would open the door.
The bakery became an arts center, a community hangout, an economic engine, a source of pride featured in guidebooks. Once known as the “potato capital” of New Hampshire, the town could now add to its boasting this old-world oasis — “Not something you’d expect in Colebrook,” says George Bald, a customer and the state’s commissioner of resources and economic development.
So when the State Department denied Ms. Daeron’s visa, it became personal, for a couple, a town, a region.
While Mr. Ounis baked bread and shyly worked the counter — usually the domain of the more outgoing Ms. Daeron — Colebrook made some noise. Thousands of people signed petitions, while hundreds more, including Mr. Bald, sent letters to every official they could think of, from Washington to Paris.
The letters, typewritten and handwritten, all but demanded reconsideration. Many complained that a lot of businesses in the north country might be considered “marginal” by State Department standards; that a paper mill in Groveton closed not too long ago; that a small restaurant beside Le Rendez-Vous shut down this past winter. That everything is relative.
“Colebrook and this region of New Hampshire don’t fit neatly into the bureaucratic formulas created by officials apparently removed from real life circumstances,” Jayne Lytle, of North Stratford, wrote to Senator Jeanne Shaheen. Le Rendez-Vous, Ms. Lytle wrote, is a tourist draw, a good neighbor — “an integral part of the economy.”
Perhaps Jack and Sandra Riendeau put it best in their letter to Ms. Shaheen. Of Ms. Daeron and Mr. Ounis, they wrote, “We want them here where they belong.”
Days passed, then weeks. Elected officials made their calls while Mr. Ounis made his bread, the supply of flour dwindling like hourglass sand. Ms. Daeron telephoned from her mother’s home in Paris three, four, five times a day, asking about developments.
Then she called to say she had been instructed to appear for an interview at 9:15 on the morning of May 19 at the following address: Ambassade des États-Unis d’Amérique, Service des Visas d’investisseurs; 4, avenue Gabriel, Paris. Her case, it seemed, was being reconsidered.
At 6 that morning, New Hampshire time, Ms. Daeron called Mr. Ounis at the bakery, excited: Her visa had been renewed. In notifying her, she said, the embassy official explained how struck he was by the sense of community reflected in all those letters; how much it reminded him of his hometown back in Wisconsin.
That day Mr. Ounis told everyone who walked through the door. And Ms. Daeron made another telephone call from Paris, this time to order more flour.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/01/us...ml?_r=1&ref=us
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