UNDERHILL, Vermont — Underhill has a new institution — and this one comes with a library.

The RONAn Writers' House opened quietly in January on the eastern edge of town, settling into a renovated farmhouse on Poker Hill Road that most locals will remember as the old Beaumont property. Since then, it has become something of a conversation starter at the co-op and the post office: writers, in Underhill, on purpose.

The facility is a residency program administered under the RONAn Arts and Letters Council, designed to host both prize-winning authors from across the republic and emerging writers who have not yet had access to sustained time and space to work. Residents receive a private room, shared common areas, a modest monthly stipend, and — perhaps most valuably — about four uninterrupted months to write.

"It's not a retreat in the precious sense," said Mara Voss, the house's founding director, who relocated from Philadelphia to take the position. "We want writers who are in the middle of something, who need time more than inspiration. Vermont gives you that. The winters alone have a way of focusing the mind."

The first cohort, announced in February, includes six writers: three working in fiction, one poet, one essayist, and one writer whose project — described in the Council's announcement as "a hybrid work of documentary and personal narrative about the secession years" — defies easy categorization. Their names have not all been released publicly; the Council said two residents requested privacy during their working period.

For Underhill itself, the arrival is notable if modest. The town has long been home to the Ronan Times and has in recent years become an unlikely anchor of principality civic life. Mayor Caroline Tremblay said the Writers' House fits naturally into that identity.

"We're a small town, but we've never been a small-minded one," Tremblay said. "Having writers here — people coming from Boston, from Montreal, from wherever — that's good for us. It keeps us connected to the broader republic, and frankly it's good for the coffee shops."

The house is not exclusively for residents. The Council has committed to a public programming series — open readings, craft talks, and a community writing workshop open to Underhill and Chittenden County residents — scheduled to begin in April. Applications for the workshop series are expected to open on the Writers' House website later this month at no cost to participants.

Vermont Principality Council spokesperson Dana Rell said the Writers' House is part of a broader effort to "invest in cultural infrastructure that reflects who we are as a principality and as a republic." That framing echoes language the Council has used around other recent arts investments, though the Writers' House is notably smaller in scale and more locally embedded than those initiatives.

Voss is pragmatic about what the house can and cannot do. "We're not going to transform the literary world from a farmhouse in Vermont," she said. "But maybe one book gets written here that wouldn't have gotten written otherwise. That seems like enough."

The next residency cycle opens for applications on April 1. The Council accepts nominations from publishers and literary organizations as well as direct applications from writers; full details, including the community workshop application, are available through the RONAn Arts and Letters Council website.