From “Drive-By Community” to Destination: How Historic Preservation Put West Stockbridge on the Map
![West Stockbridge Old Town Hall viewed from the north](https://ahfbostonstg.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/683EB70E-BAD5-4639-81C0-46A6BE03A3A5_1_105_c.jpeg)
![Announcement for a temperance meeting at the West Stockbridge Old Town Hall, c. 1862](https://ahfbostonstg.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/18D00DF7-3F4D-476E-BAFE-161B64294600-1024x744.jpeg)
![Old Town Hall stage](https://ahfbostonstg.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/8A84514A-260B-4D6B-9A2C-411F8A35963E_1_105_c.jpeg)
![A concert at the Old Town Hall](https://ahfbostonstg.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/84A9376F-4568-400C-9345-8364D2602A22_1_105_c-1024x680.jpeg)
![West Stockbridge Old Town Hall](https://ahfbostonstg.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/304734DD-05FB-4F24-937F-9BDE573892B1_1_105_c-1024x680.jpeg)
One year has passed since AHF broke ground at the Speedway. On that sunny October day, surrounded by our partners and neighbors, we never imagined that such a gathering soon would be impossible. Had all gone as planned, the Speedway would have opened to the public this month. The courtyard would have bustled with families and friends mingling over Notch beer, enjoying outdoor music, and browsing local artisans’ wares. But like everyone else, we had to take a step back when the pandemic hit. We’ve weathered construction delays, endured market uncertainty, and thought long and hard about which aspects of the project are still feasible in the age of COVID. The answer: almost all of them. Our vision for the Speedway is still on track – just delayed and slightly altered to meet public health standards. We have some exciting updates to share with you as we gear up for a Spring opening!
Last Wednesday, AHF teamed with GraffitoSP, Bruner/Cott Architects, and Business Guide and entrepreneur Maggie Battista to host our first tour of the Speedway for prospective creative operators. Six small-format spaces in the former sheds and stables of Building E are available for short-term leases with food and beverage operators, small shops, makers, and artisans. We were blown away by the tour attendees’ enthusiasm for the site, and inspired by the creativity and tenacity they’ve exhibited in growing their businesses. The day came to a close with a surprise visit from State Representative Kevin Honan. Our next tour is scheduled for Monday, November 16. See our Call for Creative Operators for more details and to complete a Submission of Interest Form.
Nothing makes us feel that we’re nearing the end of construction more than seeing graffitied garage doors and boarded up entrances replaced with new glass. Notch’s taproom has received the first storefronts, while Garage B, the Speedway’s future event space, was outfitted with glass doors. We can’t wait to see how elegant the Speedway looks once the rest of the storefronts are in place!
Our friends at D.F. Pray General Contractors have awed us with their skill and patience in installing the Speedway shingles – one at a time, and entirely by hand. Their hard work is paying off. Siding is nearly complete at the Speedway, which looks better and better with each passing day. Though we loved the buildings’ old brown color, we decided to restore the property to its original unpainted appearance. The Eastern white cedar shingles will weather over time.
AHF always envisioned the Speedway as a place for people to enjoy themselves in all seasons, and we knew that a publicly accessible courtyard would be one of the site’s best features. Now that the pandemic has discouraged indoor gatherings, the courtyard has become more important than ever. We’re fitting out the courtyard for lamp posts and gas heaters so that visitors can use the space comfortably even in the dark and chill of late fall and winter. Who knew that a police station and racehorse stables could be so hygge?
The buildout of Notch’s brewery and taproom has begun! Turns out brewing beer requires some complicated plumbing. During the fermentation process, beer acidifies quickly and corrodes conventional cast iron drainage pipes. To transport byproduct from the operation safely off the premises, we dug deep trenches in the future brewery’s floor and installed a special lined cast iron pipe. We’ve also installed the lines from the brewery to the taproom, which will bring freshly made beer to Speedway visitors. All this work is now buried beneath a newly poured concrete floor, hidden from view.
Notch is beginning to fit out its brewery and taproom at the Speedway.
As ever, a big thank-you to the Brighton community for supporting this project over the past six years. The Speedway couldn’t have gotten this far without community members’ ideas, encouragement, and advocacy. We look forward to sharing more updates as the project comes together.
AHF president Sean McDonnell speaks with a community member at the Speedway.
Architectural Heritage Foundation is a 501(c)3 dedicated to stimulating economic development in disinvested communities through historic preservation. Follow AHF and its projects on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Learn more about the Charles River Speedway revitalization project.
Where to begin? When we posted our first Speedway progress update in early March, we never imagined a pandemic would shut down renovations for a month. Nor did we expect that we would have to delay opening until winter, or that the restaurant and retail industries would be thrown into turmoil. While the Speedway construction site came to a standstill, AHF staff worked feverishly to adapt the project to a world of social distancing and economic disruption. Despite these challenges, we’ve managed to move the project forward.
During the shutdown, our main priority was to stay connected with our Brighton neighbors. To this end, AHF connected with State Representative Michael Moran, Charles River Community Health (CRCH), and local wholesaler Katsiroubas Brothers to help address more immediate needs in the community. The result is the Speedway Produce Program. Now in its eighth week, this initiative has delivered 320 boxes of fresh produce, as well as masks, to CRCH members experiencing financial hardship due to the pandemic. AHF sponsored the first month’s worth of produce boxes; thanks to dozens of individual donations and a Harvard University Allston-Brighton Emergency Response Grant, we are able to extend the program until the end of July. Visit our GoFundMe page to help Brighton’s most vulnerable residents access fresh food through the summer.
Meanwhile, the Speedway rehabilitation has progressed by leaps and bounds! Construction restarted in early May after a month-long shutdown. Since then, our contractor D.F. Pray has worked hard to renovate the complex, and it shows:
If you’ve recently driven past the Speedway, you’ve probably noticed that the Western Avenue and Soldiers Field Road sides of the complex have gotten a makeover. Shingling is nearly complete on the buildings’ public-facing walls, transforming not only the Speedway, but the streetscape itself.
The masonry of Buildings C and H is being repointed, creating a stable foundation for the buildings’ future tenants – Notch Brewery and a to-be-determined restaurant operator.
The Speedway has a new roof! Ensuring that the complex is water-tight was one of our main priorities when construction got underway again.
For years, the Speedway’s windows were boarded up – the most visible sign of the blight that had set in at the site. Under the direction of DCR, a Student Conservation Association crew painted fake windows over the plywood, while the 169 real ones were locked away in storage. Now the original windows have been restored and are being re-installed. The difference is unmistakable.
AHF is particularly excited to activate the Speedway courtyard as a public space. Last week, D.F. Pray began laying the foundation for ramping and decking, which will make the courtyard accessible to people of all ages and abilities.
The interior framing of Buildings E, C, and D – future creative/retail bays and Notch’s brewery and taproom – has been restored, allowing for more extensive improvements. In fact, rough electrical work has begun in Building E!
Behind the scenes, AHF is preparing to open the Speedway in a radically altered environment. Stay tuned for future announcements as we approach the Speedway’s new opening date in winter 2021.
Architectural Heritage Foundation is a 501(c)3 dedicated to stimulating economic development in disinvested communities through historic preservation. Follow AHF and its projects on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Learn more about the Charles River Speedway revitalization project.
What if a vacant town hall in a small Massachusetts community were granted a new life as an arts center devoted to solving the national problem of rural isolation? For the Friends of the North Brookfield Town House, this vision holds the key to their community’s revitalization.
Not many people know about North Brookfield. Nestled among orchards and state forests, this town of 4,800 could, at first glance, be any rural New England village. Modest single-family homes line Main Street, which runs north to south through a small downtown. The white steeple of the First Congregational Church rises above a sprawling green, opposite the Romanesque bulk of the Haston Free Public Library. Dark storefront windows of low-rise commercial blocks turn blank stares to the street. The “For Rent” posters are offset here and there with “Open” signs that wink redly from the businesses that have managed to hold on: Angel Nails Salon, St. Jeans Country Package Store, Jim’s Pizza… Near the center of town, Vibram employs over two hundred in manufacturing rubber soles for outdoor boots – a modern incarnation of the Batcheller Shoe Factory, which fueled the community’s growth during the nineteenth century. And rising above it all is the North Brookfield Town House.
“The center of everything.” That’s how North Brookfield residents characterize the Town House, whose tall, arched windows and Italianate bell tower reflect the importance that its nineteenth-century designers and subsequent users attached to it. Once a town hall, theater, retail venue, and jail, the building has been vacant since 2002, victim to the same forces that have challenged North Brookfield and other rural communities throughout the country: reduced industry, the success of big box stores at the expense of small businesses, an exodus of young people seeking opportunity elsewhere. For many residents, the Town House’s peeling paint and locked doors came to symbolize these problems. Restoring the building would have to be part of the solution.
The Town House still stands today thanks to a dedicated group of volunteers. The Friends of the North Brookfield Town House were founded in 2006 to raise awareness and money for preserving the building. During the first several years, they focused on stabilization, such as repairing the roof and bell tower following Hurricane Irene. Yet the building’s future use was a persistent question. The Friends wanted the Town House to become a community hub – a coffee shop or artisan bakery, something to draw people downtown. But how to accomplish this multimillion-dollar restoration project in a financially sustainable way?
Finding an answer required the Friends to transform their approach to the project from fundraising around a predetermined use to amplifying the building’s unlimited possibilities. In 2017, AHF began consulting for the Friends and soon discovered that the plans for a coffee shop and bakery were infeasible in the local economic climate. There was simply not enough traffic downtown or expendable income locally to support a dining establishment. Rehabilitating the Town House as a destination café, or any other commercial venue, would require a full-scale downtown development plan to create a more business-friendly environment.
Far from being discouraged, the Friends ran with AHF’s advice – and ran further even than they thought possible. They forged a strong relationship with the North Brookfield Board of Selectmen, Central Massachusetts Regional Planning Commission (CMRPC), and Main Street America, leading to the creation of a Downtown Development Committee. They broadened their vision for the Town House to encompass a wide variety of future uses, from commercial to cultural. They raised the visibility of the building online, in classrooms, and at community events. At AHF’s suggestion, they organized a community-wide effort to repaint the Town House façade, transforming what appeared to be a shabby building into one brimming with potential. And people noticed.
Bonnie Milner, Owner and General Manager of local recording company Long View Farm Studios, was astounded when she saw the repainted Town House – a building that she had often passed, but seldom noticed. The Friends invited her to tour the building in hopes that she might furnish an idea for its reuse. She realized that it would the perfect location for her to fulfill a lifelong dream of establishing an arts center for rural at-risk youth. Several months of collaboration later, the Creative Life Center concept was born.
The Creative Life Center (CLC) at the North Brookfield Town House is intended to be a replicable model for addressing rural disfranchisement through the artistic reuse of cherished historic properties. Under Bonnie’s leadership and in partnership with Berklee College of Music, the CLC will offer educational programming in music, theater, and the visual arts for local youth and seniors, provide a performance venue for the broader Central Massachusetts community, and give emerging artists the opportunity to showcase their work. In so doing, the CLC will foster connection and stimulate economic development in an oft-overlooked rural region. Yet it’s only the beginning of North Brookfield’s revitalization.
While the Friends and Bonnie were refining the CLC concept, the Downtown Development Committee was working with CMRPC and Main Street America to create a business-friendly environment around the Town House. Their plans include streetscape improvements, such as handicapped-accessible sidewalks, bike lanes, benches, and plantings; renovations to the Common, its playing fields, and playgrounds; and the rehabilitation of other vacant historic properties for commercial and nonprofit uses. These improvements will be driven by the Town House restoration and the expected increase in foot traffic downtown around the CLC.
By doggedly trying to preserve an historic building, the Friends catalyzed a downtown revitalization project. Their perseverance, diligence, and flexibility are putting North Brookfield on the map and giving other rural communities throughout the country reason to hope. Not even the pandemic has slowed them as they embark on a capital campaign to raise $2.5 million for the Town House’s rehabilitation. Each day brings them closer to their goal of reinvigorating rural communities through historic preservation and the arts.
To help the Friends realize their vision, visit their website to donate.
Architectural Heritage Foundation is a 501(c)3 dedicated to stimulating economic development in disinvested communities through historic preservation. Follow AHF and its projects on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Since construction began at the Speedway five months ago, the renovations have progressed by leaps and bounds. Thanks to our partners at D.F. Pray, the historic site is getting a makeover from top to bottom that is transforming what was once a collection of dilapidated buildings into a vibrant public space. Here’s what we’ve accomplished so far:
If winter is cold and dark, at least snowdrops and the promise of spring give us hope and hint of new life. The cycles of change—to cities and the natural world—can remind us that places have souls to lose. Emotions may be mixed. There is a quiet richness to the reworking of existing buildings that has crept into the psyche of the design professions as they resurrect past aesthetics, juxtaposed against new imageries and an overturning of previous uses. Those cycles of change reel from catastrophic to delicately nuanced, and architects try to counter one and orchestrate the other.