Vermont Castings

How Did Vermont Castings Start?

Duncan Syme had a master's in fine arts from Yale and had taught sculpture at Bennington College.^[26][4] In 1973, he moved to Warren, Vermont,^[7] and heated his house with a converted mail-order stove. After a winter of waking up cold, he decided to design his own, one that paired the airtight efficiency of a Scandinavian stove with the looks of an American Franklin.^[1][6]

His brother-in-law, Murray Howell, left a job in New York finance to run the business, and a friend, W. Mitchell, came in as the third partner and chairman.^[9] The three put up about $25,000.^[1][7] On July 4, 1975, Duncan showed the prototype to friends in Warren,^[8] and in March 1976 the first Defiant was sold.^[5] The company set up in the old Sargent, Osgood & Roundy foundry buildings in Randolph and sold directly to customers, by mail and from the factory.^[5][1] By 1978, it had 125 employees, a second stove called the Vigilant, and a ten-week wait for 500 stoves a week.^[5]

What Made the Defiant Special?

Before the Defiant, most wood stoves were either efficient black boxes or pretty, leaky Franklins. The Defiant was both: an airtight, thermostatically controlled cast-iron stove whose front doors swung open so you could watch the fire like a fireplace.^[1][5] Inc. reported it put about 60% of the wood's heat into the room when most stoves managed about 40%.^[1] The name came from defying winter, and from an America's Cup defender.^[10]

In 1979, Vermont Castings built its own foundry outside Randolph, the first new stove-plate foundry in the country in decades, paid for almost entirely out of cash flow.^[1] Then came majolica porcelain enamel, a European process that put deep, glossy color on cast iron.^[1] The Smithsonian added a Defiant to its collection in 1989,^[12] and the original design was retired in 1988 as new EPA limits arrived.^[11] The name came back, and today's Defiant is still one of the stoves people search for most.

What Were the Vermont Castings Owners' Outings?

Vermont Castings treated owners like members. It mailed them the Owners' News, answered a toll-free line, and in June 1979 opened the new foundry to them.^[1] About 5,000 owners came, and the open house became the annual Owners' Outing.^[1] By 1983, more than 10,000 people were coming to Randolph to picnic with the people who made their stoves.^[6] Sales reached about $29 million in 1981,^[1][2] and Time profiled the company in 1979.^[4]

What Did Jim Collins Say About Vermont Castings?

In Beyond Entrepreneurship (1992), and again in BE 2.0 (2020), Jim Collins and Bill Lazier use Vermont Castings as their main lesson about vision.^[2][3] Duncan Syme's vision, they write, was to make the best wood stoves in the world, and in the 1970s he'd stand on the line checking stoves himself.^[2] Murray Howell was diagnosed with cancer in 1980 and died in March 1983.^[1][13] In the early 1980s, Duncan handed day-to-day management to professional managers, who cut the newsletter, the toll-free line, and the Outings, and let quality slip. Growth stalled.^[1][2]

Duncan came back in 1986. That July, the company launched the Defiant Encore, cleaner than any federal or state limit at the time,^[1] and he wrote down the company's vision and creed so it wouldn't depend on him again.^[2] Collins' point is that a vision has to live in the company, not just in the founder. The book's account ends with that recovery.^[3]

Who Owns Vermont Castings?

Hearth & Home Technologies, part of HNI Corporation, since October 1, 2014. The road there was long:^[20]

• In May 1990, PacifiCorp Financial Services, the finance arm of the Oregon utility, took over Vermont Castings after a loan default, and sold its interest in August 1994.^[14][15]
• In 1996, CFM of Ontario, the maker of Majestic fireplaces, bought Vermont Castings for more than $48 million.^[16]
• After CFM's bankruptcy in 2008, Monessen Hearth bought the Vermont Castings and Majestic assets for $42.5 million,^[17] and in 2013 renamed itself Vermont Castings Group, which its managers then bought.^[18][19]
• In 2014, Hearth & Home Technologies bought Vermont Castings Group for $62.2 million.^[20]

One Harman connection along the way: In the early 1990s, Vermont Castings sold a cast-iron pellet stove called the Reliance. Dane Harman remembers supplying the feeder and burn pot,^[21] and owners who've opened them up report Harman parts inside.^[22] Through every owner, the Randolph foundry kept pouring iron, and it still casts the iron for Forge & Flame stoves today.^[24]

Is Vermont Castings Still Made? Vermont Castings and Forge & Flame

Yes. In August 2023, Hearth & Home Technologies brought Vermont Castings, Harman, and Quadra-Fire under one name: Forge & Flame.^[23] Vermont Castings stoves are sold as Forge & Flame stoves “Crafted with Vermont Castings Finish,” in the WSX wood series and the GSX gas series, and vermontcastings.com forwards to the Forge & Flame website.^[25]

The names are the ones you know: the Defiant, Encore, Intrepid, Dauntless, and Aspen wood stoves, the Montpelier II wood insert, and the Intrepid, Radiance, and Stardance gas stoves. The Intrepid FlexBurn uses FlexBurn, which lets you run the stove with or without its catalyst, a system Forge & Flame calls a Vermont Castings exclusive.^[25] Earlier Defiant and Encore models used it too; today's Defiant, Encore, and Dauntless are catalytic stoves.^[25] The models below are the current lineup.

Who Were Duncan Syme and Murray Howell?

Murray Howell was the business mind. In May 1982, he received a Small Business award from President Reagan in the Rose Garden,^[13] and when he died of cancer the next spring, still in his thirties, Duncan called him the very soul of Vermont Castings.^[13]

Duncan Syme kept designing for the rest of his life: houses, boats, and a wood-fired Zamboni for his pond.^[26][28] In 2022, he sat down with the founders of the other great stove brands, and he said he was honored that his designs still mattered.^[27][21] Duncan Syme died on May 2, 2024, at 86, in the Upper Valley of New Hampshire.^[27] At the 2026 HPBA Expo, Harman's Karen Harman Smeltz paid tribute to him in front of the industry he helped build.^[21]

Can I Still Get Parts for an Older Vermont Castings?

Often, yes. Hearth & Home Technologies still supports Vermont Castings, and Forge & Flame dealers order parts by model number, which is usually cast into the stove or printed on its rating label. Gaskets, glass, firebricks, catalysts, and grates are the common replacements. Enamel castings for stoves from the 1970s and 1980s can be harder to find, so ask your dealer what's still available, and whether a rebuild or a new stove makes more sense.