As Gary DeVincent was passing through Helper for the first time, he noticed how quiet Main Street was, all boarded up, but he felt pulled in by what was still standing. “It was just kind of a happenstance thing,” he says. “I was enamored by it. It was a cute little town, but it felt like a ghost town.”
His first restoration was a single gas station. Gary didn’t think beyond that. “It was never the intent where it went,” he says. “It was just something to do. I thought it was a worthy project to save.” He assumed he would finish the work and leave.
Instead, people started showing up. One visitor traveled from Tennessee after hearing about the project. “I remember thinking that was weird,” Gary recalls. “That somebody would care enough to come that far just to see it.” That moment stuck. It suggested that preservation, done sincerely, could matter beyond the town limits.
Malarie came into the picture through the same kind of work. The two met while restoring buildings across from one another on Main Street. They shared a belief that old buildings deserved to stay legible. “If you strip everything down and make it generic, it doesn’t work,” Gary says. “You lose the feeling.” Gary’s mission and vision is to preserve and restore the character of the old Helper of the 1950s.
That philosophy became central to what would become the Vintage Motor Company. When Gary’s motorcycle shop in American Fork was displaced through UDOT’s eminent domain process, he was offered relocation anywhere. He chose Helper. The business changed along with the move. Repair gave way to preservation. Vintage Motor Company became a museum built from decades of collecting motorcycles, signage, and mechanical history. Nothing was for sale. “I don’t sell anything,” Gary says. “This stuff belongs together.” They only sell T-shirts and merch.
The museum gave visitors a reason to stop, but it also reinforced something else. “I didn’t plan on moving down here,” Gary says. “But I met good people and it just kept unfolding.” Vintage Motor Company became less about bikes and more about continuity: showing what happens when things aren’t torn down or replaced.
As visitors lingered longer, another gap became obvious. There was nowhere to stay. That led to Stay Helper and later the New House Hotel. The goal was not luxury or scale, but comfort and authentic restorations everyone could appreciate. “You shouldn’t have to drive four or five hours to get away,” Gary says. “This is two hours from Salt Lake. That’s perfect.”
Stay Helper was built around that idea: quiet weekends, walkable streets, time to slow down. In winter, it offered something else entirely. Clean air. “Inversions up north can be brutal,” Malarie notes. “People come down here and immediately feel the difference.” Many arrive on their way to Moab, only to realize they don’t need to keep driving. “We hear it all the time,” Gary says. “People say, next time, we’re just staying here.”
Vintage Motor Company and Stay Helper complement each other. One draws people in. The other gives them space to stay. Neither is trying to turn Helper into something it isn’t. “You can ruin anything,” Gary says. “But if you’re careful, if you’re involved, you don’t have to.”
