WhistlePig Whiskey founder offers former college campus for revival of Christian faith

By Leonardo Blair, Senior Reporter Thursday, April 02, 2026

After a failed attempt to settle an ongoing dispute with the Town of Poultney in Vermont over the tax bill for the 115-acre campus of the former Green Mountain College, WhistlePig Whiskey founder and businessman Raj Bhakta is offering to bequeath the property to new owners who will dedicate it to the “spiritual revival of our Christian faith.”

“We wish to bequeath this unique — beautiful and intact — New England college campus to the right beneficiary. The right beneficiary has a vision aligned with the revival of the United States and Western Civilization,” a website seeking requests for proposals in a process that closed on Tuesday says. “They would also recognize this must first begin with the spiritual revival of our Christian faith. It will be upon coherence with this mission that candidates will be judged.”

Green Mountain College was originally founded by Methodists in 1834, but it has functioned as a non-sectarian liberal arts college for most of its modern history before closing in 2019 due to financial issues.

The property is currently zoned to be used as a college campus or mixed-use. It consists of academic buildings, renovated dormitories, administrative offices, athletic fields, and other facilities, including a gymnasium, pool, commercial kitchen and dining spaces.

In addition to having a qualifying vision for the campus, prospective new owners of the property will need to demonstrate that they have sufficient resources to cover $1.5 million in annual costs to maintain the property, including about $500,000 in deferred maintenance costs.

Just before he bought the former college campus for $4.8 million in 2020,  Bhakta was ousted from Whistlepig due to allegations of fraud, Vermont Public reported.

He now runs a new business called Bhakta Spirits, but told The Christian Post’s Billy Hallowell that he hopes his possible gifting of the college would help spark a revival of Christian values.

“When we look at what's happening in our country today, in the Western world, what we used to call Christendom, it really, I think, pretty clearly stems back from a collapse of our moral order, a collapse of the idea of the absolute nature of truth,” Bhakta, who is a professing Catholic, said.

“It's not relative. I don't have a personal truth. You don't have a personal truth; it is true, or it's not. And truth comes from God. And, you know, the most apparent, bitter fruits of that is what we see in, like, wokeism, where everything is relative,” he said. “I can be a pink flamingo or a woman or an elephant, and whatever I decide I'm going to be, which is patently insane to anybody, almost in any other period of time.”

Bhakta said more than 100 proposals have been submitted, but only a small and meaningful percentage are real.

His spokesperson, Andrew Lohse, told VTDigger they had about 30 active applications as of mid-March from universities and religious organizations, including at least one from Vermont. Several applications also came from New England. Lohse further stated that Bhakta had not ruled out granting multiple groups parcels of the property to ensure the gift is financially viable.

A shortlist of grantees will be announced on April 8, and interviews will take place from April 8-15. The selected application will be announced on April  20.

“The tide, I think, is turning. I do believe that we're in the early stages of another great awakening in this country,” Bhakta said.

“What will come will come, and maybe there are some dark days that we're going to have to endure, and perhaps our children, and maybe even our grandchildren, may have to endure. But so long as that flame, the light of truth and revival remains alive within our civilization and our culture, there is no setback that we cannot overcome,” he added.  “There is no defeat that is final so long as the flame remains alive, and hopefully this campus can be brought back to its original idea.”