Bernie Sanders's House

Bernie Sanders has represented Vermont in the US Senate since 2007, after 8 years as mayor of Burlington and 16 years as the state's only member of the House. He ran for president in 2016 and 2020.

Sanders and his wife, Jane O’Meara Sanders, closed on this Lake Champlain summer place in early August 2016. VTDigger found no mortgage recorded with the warranty deed, and Jane told the Associated Press they paid cash.

The town’s 2025 grand list still carries the parcel in the name of a trust dated August 2, 2016, with the couple as trustees. It is classed as a camp, and no homestead declaration is on file.

Seven Days placed the house on the island’s east shore, looking across the water toward mainland Vermont rather than New York. VTDigger described it as a log cabin-style seasonal home with more than 500 feet of shoreline.

North Hero was chartered in 1779 as part of Two Heroes, a grant to Ethan Allen, Samuel Herrick, and 363 other Revolutionary War veterans. When the grant was split in 1798, North Hero took the whole northern island.

Jane Sanders told the Associated Press the money came from selling her share of a family lake house in Maine to her brother for $150,000, plus her retirement savings and an advance on a book her husband was writing.

Asked about owning 3 homes at a February 2020 presidential debate, Sanders said, “like thousands of other Vermonters, I do have a summer camp.” Seven Days checked and counted about 17,000 seasonal homes in the state.