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Lenox Keeps Building Its Brand as a Destination

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Marion Hayden says she’s always had a “love for color, design, and merchandising,” and all three come together in her new venture, Home on Main.
Community Spotlight Special Coverage

Community Spotlight

Marion Hayden says she’s always had a “love for color, design, and merchandising,” and all three come together in her new venture, Home on Main.

Marion Hayden says she’s always had a “love for color, design, and merchandising,” and all three come together in her new venture, Home on Main.

 

When it comes to the arts, hospitality, history, and architecture, Sara Goodberlet says, Lenox has an extremely strong brand.

It’s been built over time and is fortified by institutional landmarks such as Tanglewood, Shakespeare & Company, the Mount (Edith Wharton’s home), Ventfort Hall (home to the Gilded Age Museum), spas, inns, restaurants, retail shops, nature trails, and much more.

And as the relatively new director of the Lenox Chamber of Commerce, she said one of her primary directives is to protect, nurture, and enhance that brand.

“I want to keep building Lenox as a brand, as a destination,” she said. “It’s a strong brand, but I want to freshen it up a little bit. We’re in a unique position … we have some older, mature, historical roots, but then we also have this fresher, modern vitality that’s also in the mix.”

Elaborating, Goodberlet said one of her goals is to educate and inform the public about not only the pillars of Lenox’s strong arts and hospitality sector — like Tanglewood, which has two Paul Simon concerts featured in a packed 2026 schedule, or Shakespeare & Company, which also a full slate of shows starting in June — but the many small businesses and nonprofits that help make this brand as strong as it is, and the people behind them.

People like Molly Lyon-Joseph, who owns two restaurants in town — Frankie’s, an Italian-American eatery, and Pizzeria Boema — and is set to open a third, Bea’s House, in a historic property, the former Café Lucia on Church Street.

“I want to keep building Lenox as a brand, as a destination. It’s a strong brand, but I want to freshen it up a little bit. We’re in a unique position … we have some older, mature, historical roots, but then we also have this fresher, modern vitality that’s also in the mix.”

Or Scott Shortt, a former financial services veteran turned serial entrepreneur whose latest venture is a unique event space, called the Belvedere, carved out of a former retail space in downtown Lenox.

Or Marion Hayden, a long-time employee at the former Annie Selke store in downtown Lenox, who, after the store closed, decided to keep that destination alive with a venture she calls Home on Main.

Individually and collectively, these businesses (much more on them later) contribute to the vibrancy that defines Lenox for at least three seasons each year — winter is considerably slower and a challenge for many businesses — and also to a highly supportive environment.

“I wouldn’t choose to do business anywhere else — I love the Lenox community. I feel like everyone supports each other; there’s collaboration on many levels,” said Lyon-Johnson, adding that the many hospitality businesses benefit from Tanglewood, especially, but all the major draws, and they support those institutions in kind.

Added Goodberlet, “I’ve never been in a business climate where there’s so much being created. It’s such a treat to help support them, bring people together, and market our area and continue to give it the personality it has.”

For this latest installment of its Community Spotlight series, BusinessWest takes an in-depth look at Lenox and how its brand is stronger than ever.

 

The Play’s the Thing

Jaclyn Stevenson, director of Marketing & Communications for Shakespeare & Company, described 2026 as an important year for the live theater venue, for many reasons.

For starters, it will be a time to remember Tina Packer, the company’s co-founder and founding artistic director, who passed away on Jan. 9. There will be a celebration of life on May 31 at the Shakespeare & Company campus, said Stevenson, adding that Packer remains an inspiration to all those at the company, and in her honor, the Tina Packer Legacy Fund has been established to support the future of the institution and the work she founded.

Meanwhile, 2026 will mark a financial milestone — this will be the first time since its founding in 1978 that the nonprofit theater is completely debt-free, having paid off the remaining $1.7 million of the $4 million mortgage on its campus, thanks to contributions from its board of trustees and a combination of successful property transactions, community support, and a strong box office season, Beverly Hyman, chair of the board of trustees, described this financial development as a turning point for the institution.

The Arthur S. Waldstein Amphitheatre, seen here during last season’s production of Romeo and Juliet, is one of three outdoor theaters at Shakespeare & Company.

The Arthur S. Waldstein Amphitheatre, seen here during last season’s production of Romeo and Juliet, is one of three outdoor theaters at Shakespeare & Company.

“We have some long-term board members who have been around the block a few times in terms of financial ups and downs, and even they see this as a turn into all new territory,” she said. “We now have the opportunity to expand education programs — including our nationally recognized Shakespeare in the Courts program — and to focus on our Center for Actor Training, which requires highly skilled faculty.”

There are other developments as well, said Stevenson, noting that Shakespeare & Company, named by Newsweek as one of the top outdoor theater companies in the country, is now the new home to six sculptures created by noted philanthropist Harold Grinspoon. Each more than 30 feet high, the sculptures create a new attraction on the property that visitors can enjoy year-round.

Then there’s the 2026 schedule, which includes a limited run of Midsummer Dreamers, a two-person interpretation of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Matthew Barber’s Fireflies; and a production of Twelfth Night.

Goodberlet said that, while large institutions such as Tanglewood, Shakespeare & Company, and the Mount are in many ways the foundation of Lenox’s arts and hospitality base, this sector has many moving parts, with the emphasis on moving.

“You always put together a plan, you make assumptions, and you work through the details and consider a lot of scenarios and how things will work. But it’s all theory until you actually start putting it into practice.”

Indeed, while there are some constants, there is always change and new additions to the landscape, all of which contribute to the overall Lenox vibe.

These pieces include Lyon-Joseph’s restaurants, which, in addition to fine dining, provide jobs to people of all ages, but especially young people. She said she’s diligent about providing not just a paycheck, but learning experiences on many levels.

Indeed, she recently took her leadership team to the Gramercy Tavern in New York City’s Flatiron District to get a first-hand look at how that landmark establishment provides customer service, and to learn from what patrons experience.

“The Gramercy Tavern is known for their hospitality,” she said, “and I wanted my team to see what it’s like on the other side of that, so they can take it home and have that amazing experience.”

As for Lyon-Joseph’s latest endeavor, it involves renovating an 1853 landmark, as well as opening another restaurant, in this case one focused on contemporary new American cuisine.

“I love old antiques, and I’ve spent the past year and a half collecting things that are going to be placed in the restaurant,” she explained, listing, among other things, a telephone from the early 20th century that will carry a sign that says ‘Call Mom.’

“We’re a very serious restaurant in terms of our menu and our wine list, but our approach is very whimsical; we don’t take ourselves too seriously,” she told BusinessWest, adding that she’s expecting to open later this month.

 

Designs on Growth

Hayden brings a diverse background to her new role as shop owner and entrepreneur.

Indeed, she worked in publishing for many years, and later as an assistant to Doug Trumbull, Academy Award-winning film director and visual effects producer, before studying interior design at the New York School of Interior Design and then working for local designers.

She became the on-site manager of the Anne Selke store on Main Street in Lenox, named after the interior designer who created, and later sold, the Pine Cone Hill and Dash & Albert brands of home décor.

When the store that was created to showcase those brands closed in October 2024, Hayden sensed the disappointment among customers and those in the community and decided to take an entrepreneurial plunge and open a similar outlet at that location, taking her career in a different and rewarding direction.

Lenox at a Glance

Year Incorporated: 1767
Population: 5,095
Area: 21.7 square miles
County: Berkshire
Residential Tax Rate: $9.85
Commercial Tax Rate: $14.37
Median Household Income: $85,581
Median Family Income: $111,413
Type of Government: Select Board, Open Town Meeting
Largest Employers: Canyon Ranch, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Kimball Farms
* Latest information available

“I have always had a love for color, design, and merchandising,” she told BusinessWest. “Opening Home on Main gave me the opportunity to stretch those creative inspirations and knowledge. I can merge this creative side with my administrative skills — because a retail business heavily relies on both when you are the sole owner.”

Home on Main opened in January 2025 and recorded a solid first year thanks to a a wide range of brands, including Pine Cone Hill and Dash & Albert, and products ranging from rugs — there’s a ‘rug library’ that affords individuals the opportunity to take out samples and see how they look in their homes — to candles, diffusers, and pillows.

Hayden said she attracts a broad base of customers that include local residents, those with second homes in and around Lenox, and those vising the community and taking in all it has to offer.

“Once Tanglewood opens, the population swells — it’s a big draw,” she explained, adding that, like other businesses in town, she struggles during ‘shoulder season,’ but understands the year-long pattern of business and plans accordingly.

Shortt, as noted earlier, worked in finance for many years before moving to Lenox in 2010, when he purchased an inn and spent seven years renovating it and then operating it before selling it in 2022.

He then put his focus on renovating the former retail space at 21 Housatonic St. into something he said was lacking in Lenox, a versatile event space that could host everything from weddings to company retreats to nonprofit events.

Opened just over a year ago after an extensive, two-year renovation that included construction of a commercial kitchen, the Belvedere has become a popular alternative for all types of gatherings.

“We’ve done birthday parties, weddings, rehearsal parties, corporate meetings, product launches, baby showers, bridal showers, a little bit of everything,” Shortt said, adding that the facility’s first year was solid, and the business now has a firm foundation on which to build.

“We got our legs under us, and we had a large number of various events,” he noted. “The thing that was great was … you always put together a plan, you make assumptions, and you work through the details and consider a lot of scenarios and how things will work. But it’s all theory until you actually start putting it into practice and have all those different types of events to make sure it comes together.

“And it did — we’ve proven it out in various scenarios and ways, and we’re very pleased,” he went on, adding that, for year two, the goal is to continue adding events, especially meetings and other corporate uses.

“Those typically happen outside the summer season and usually happen in the middle of the week,” Shortt explained. “So those events are additive — they don’t take away from weekend social events.”

The Belvedere is just one of dozens of businesses contributing to the Lenox ‘brand,’ one that has stood the test of time and continues to grow, evolve, and make this community a truly unique destination.

Lee Strives to Be More Than a Gateway

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Community Spotlight Special Coverage

Community Spotlight

An architect’s rendering shows the various buildings and parcels to be developed at the Eagle Mill complex in Lee.

 

Jeff Cohen says he was “looking for something to do.”

That was how the long-time developer, lawyer, and one-time police officer casually described how he began what has become a 14-year journey (and counting) to redevelop the Eagle Mill in Lee, one of the oldest paper mills in the country.

It certainly hasn’t been an easy journey — “I have lot more gray hair now than when I started,” Cohen said — but the Eagle Mill canvas, if you will, is filling in, and there is more on the drawing board for this parcel bordering downtown.

Indeed, nearly 60 units of affordable housing are in the process of being leased, and should be occupied next spring. Meanwhile, roughly 150 more units are planned, as well as commercial space, in subsequent phases of the project, including a recently announced plan for 69 units of affordable housing on property across the street from the Eagle Mill.

As these different phases of the project unfold, the impact on Lee, its downtown, its business community, and different constituencies searching for affordable housing will only grow.

Alex Heddinger

Alex Heddinger

“Our walkable downtown is lined with one-of-a-kind shops and restaurants, many family-owned for generations, and there’s a real sense of connection among the people who live and work here.”

“This is going to create a village at the north end of town,” Cohen explained. “As you drive from the Berkshires through Lee along Route 20, there will be a great-looking community, and there will be lots of people on the street. This is going to enable Lee to attract people who want to work in and around the town, it’s going to put more kids in the schools, and it’s going to enhance the businesses in town and probably create opportunities for new ones.”

Redevelopment of the Eagle Mill complex is one of many converging stories in this community of almost 6,000 people. Others include:

• A slight cooling of its housing market, which was one of the hottest in the state just a year or two ago. Town Manager Chris Brittain said the market has returned to something approximating pre-COVID days, before prices exploded amid the surge of remote work and strong interest in rural settings from which to do it;

• Ongoing efforts to encourage development of other mills in Lee, and there are many of them — the community was once home to two dozen mills making more paper than anywhere else in the country;

• Progress toward construction of a new and much-needed public safety complex — groundbreaking is slated for next month — as well as discussion of converting the historic fire station into a community space;

• Continued efforts to make this community, known as the ‘Gateway to the Berkshires,’ more of a place to stop, dine, shop, recreate, and more, rather than being a gateway to other, better-known destinations, including Lenox, Stockbridge, and Pittsfield; and

• Some new restaurants and other small businesses that are certainly helping in these efforts to make Lee more of a destination.

“Our walkable downtown is lined with one-of-a-kind shops and restaurants, many family-owned for generations, and there’s a real sense of connection among the people who live and work here,” said Alex Heddinger, a Lee native who became executive director of its Chamber of Commerce this past spring. “We also have one of the most diverse dining scenes in the area — Mexican, Indian, Peruvian, French, pizza, new American, pub fare, diner classics, and even a Burmese restaurant.

Brooke Healy

Brooke Healy

“When it comes to affordable housing, many people have preconceived notions about it, but it can really impact everyone — from families to young professionals just starting out in their career like I was.”

“Lee has a way of making visitors feel right at home,” she went on, adding that one of the goals moving forward is to make business owners feel at home as well.

For this latest installment of its Community Spotlight series, BusinessWest takes an in-depth look at Lee and the many intriguing storylines converging there.

 

Milling About

Cohen told BusinessWest that he and his wife moved to the Berkshires in 2012, and soon thereafter, he became fascinated with the Eagle Mill and the prospects for developing it.

The property had been abandoned since 2008, he said, adding that the various buildings were in poor condition when he acquired them, but still historic. He contracted with an architect and started meeting with various groups in town to get a sense “for what could be attractive to the town and be profitable for me, and that’s how it started.

“I’m not the type of person who buys something and says, ‘here’s what I’m going to do,’ and then present that to whomever is going to approve it,” he explained. “My style is a little different; I try to work with people in the neighborhood, various town officials, and various interested community groups to get a sense for what’s going to pass muster.”

It took several years to identify the preferred use, he said, adding that various uses, including a 100-room hotel and a Faneuil Hall-type retail market, were considered. Overall, it’s been a long, difficult journey, made much more complicated by the pandemic, but pieces to a complicated puzzle are coming together, starting with phase 1 — 56 units of affordable housing in the two original mill buildings, the Union Mill and the Eagle Mill.

Phase 2 includes 44 new apartments at the eastern end of the site; phase 3 is another new building with 35 units of housing and 4,000 square feet of retail, with construction slated for 2028 if all goes as planned; phase 4 involves redevelopment of the historic machine shop building for commercial and retail use, including a restaurant; phase 5 will consist of five condominium townhouses on the Housatonic River; and phase 6 will be 69 more units of affordable housing on the corner of West Center and Canal streets.

Cohen described the sum of these parts as game-changing, and Lee Town Planner Brooke Healy agreed.

“These new units will provide a boost to our downtown business owners and stores,” she said. “You’ll have people walking up and down Main Street — the restaurants are going to get a boost, the stores are going to get a boost … and while some people will work in Lee, others will work in surrounding towns, meaning this will benefit not just Lee, but the Central and Southern Berkshires.

Healy speaks from experience when she said many workers in the Berkshires face lengthy commutes between their jobs and housing they can afford, and the Eagle Mill project will be a difference maker in this regard and make a huge dent in the demand for housing, especially the affordable variety.

“I took this job about a year ago, and it took me a few months to find housing that was less than an hour away; I’m very lucky to live close to downtown Lee,” she told BusinessWest. “When it comes to affordable housing, many people have preconceived notions about it, but it can really impact everyone — from families to young professionals just starting out in their career like I was.”

Meanwhile, there are several other mills that remain vacant or mostly vacant, Healy said, adding that the town is working on revamping zoning bylaws and other strategies for making these mills more “developer-friendly.”

Lee at a Glance

Year Incorporated: 1777
Population: 5,788
Area: 27 square miles
County: Berkshire
Residential Tax Rate: $11.25
Commercial Tax Rate: $11.25
Median Household Income: $41,556
Median Family Income: $49,630
Type of Government: Open Town Meeting
Largest Employers: Lee Premium Outlets; Onyx Specialty Papers; the Landing at Laurel Lake; Oak n’ Spruce Resort in the Berkshires; Big Y
* Latest information available

The town recently collaborated with UConn students to create a site reuse assessment and master plan for three mills — Columbia Mill and Greylock Mill, both on Columbia Street; and Greenwood/Mountain Mill on Forest Street, which was recently sold by the town at auction.

“When a lot of the current bylaws were written, most of these mills were still functioning, and people didn’t really think about the next steps if these mills were to ever go out,” she explained. “Looking forward, we have some mills that are not being used, and there’s been some discussions with the owners of those properties to make sure they know the town has their interests in mind and will help in any way it can.”

 

Progress Report

Brittain told BusinessWest that Lee’s current fire station, a granite and marble structure built in 1912, was designed for horses, not 21st-century firetrucks.

Which means the town has had to special-order trucks to fit into the doors of this facility. And they just barely fit.

“The last one had five-eighths of an inch clearance on either side,” he said, adding that a few mirrors have been lost over the years.

Wider doors are just one of the myriad design elements to a new, 37,000-square-foot public safety complex, said Brittain, adding that the facility, with a projected price tag of roughly $32 million, will bring the Police, Fire, and Building departments under one roof on the site of the former Bull’s Eye Pub in downtown Lee. And, as noted, the town is in early-stage talks concerning what to do with the current fire station, also downtown.

These developments are just some of the emerging stories in the community’s eclectic downtown, which is just a few miles off Exit 10 of the turnpike, a unique asset that has certainly helped the town’s efforts to promote tourism, while also attracting other types of businesses, such as biotech and enterprises such as Sharp Sterile Manufacturing and Boyd Biomedical, both on Pleasant Street, just off the turnpike exit.

Getting back to the downtown, visitors pass through on their way to Tanglewood and other Lenox attractions, as well as Pittsfield, said all those we spoke with, adding that the goal is to get them to stop along the way — or, better still, make Lee the destination.

There’s a growing list of reasons for doing so, said Heddinger, adding that there is a good mix of restaurants, including some recent additions, such as the Station Gastropub, so named because it’s housed in a former train station.

“Downtown has restaurants, shops, several different kinds of businesses, a park where we stage events, and much more,” she said, adding that this central business district is more than a place to drive through on the way to somewhere else.

Brittain agreed. “We’re seeing a lot more people dining and staying here than we used to, and our hotel and restaurant taxes reflect that,” he said, adding that the growing number of restaurants, and the diversity of those offerings, is a big reason why. “More people are stopping and enjoying the downtown area on their way to Tanglewood or the Norman Rockwell Museum, or whatever.”

Meanwhile, the town is developing strategies for bringing more businesses to the community, such as the “Friend-Lee Approach to Business” marketing campaign, which Healy described as a work in progress, likely to be ready for the new year.

“We’re trying to break down the barriers for developers and residents interested in owning businesses,” she explained. “We want them to able to come in and have conversations face-to-face with various departments and understand what is needed to open a business.

“It can very overwhelming to try to open a new business,” she went on, adding that the campaign will likely ask the question ‘why Lee?’ and then focus on the town’s many attributes — from recreational facilities to that turnpike exit to proximity to other destination communities.

It’s all part of an effort to promote this Gateway to the Berkshires, but also make it much more than that.

Assessment Reveals Youth Substance Use Trends in Berkshires

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Health Care Healthcare News

Mixed Signals

 

 

The South Berkshire Community Health Coalition (SBCHC), a program of Railroad Street Youth Project, has released findings from the 2025 Prevention Needs Assessment (PNA) Survey, providing a timely snapshot of youth substance use and behavioral health in South Berkshire County.

The biennial survey — administered to public school students in grades 8, 10, and 12 — serves as a tool in measuring the community’s effectiveness in supporting youth well-being and preventing substance use. This year’s results reveal a concerning upward trend in alcohol and cannabis use among youth, reversing nearly a decade of progress.

“These numbers are somewhat of a mixed bag,” said Laura Rodriguez, director of SBCHC. “We’re definitely seeing the longer-term effects of the pandemic — particularly how substance use became more normalized in homes. And that’s where the solution starts: with us. We need parents, families, and trusted adults to step into leadership roles in shifting norms and expectations. This isn’t something young people can navigate on their own.”

“We’re definitely seeing the longer-term effects of the pandemic — particularly how substance use became more normalized in homes. And that’s where the solution starts: with us. We need parents, families, and trusted adults to step into leadership roles in shifting norms and expectations. This isn’t something young people can navigate on their own.”

Among the key findings from the 2025 PNA, alcohol use is rebounding. After declining for several years, alcohol use among South County youth began to rise in 2021 and is now the most commonly used substance. Among students who were in grade 8 in 2021, 30-day alcohol use rose by 87% by the time they reached 10th grade in 2023. For 10th-graders in 2021, rates increased by 84% by the time they reached 12th grade in 2023.

The parental role in alcohol abuse may be shifting as well; 25% of all surveyed students that reported using alcohol in the previous year got it from home with parental permission.

Meanwhile, from 2021 to 2025, 30-day cannabis use almost doubled across all surveyed grades. This surge is strongly linked to increasingly permissive attitudes among parents and shifting social norms around cannabis, highlighting the crucial role adults play in shaping youth behavior.

Similar to the alcohol findings, 13% of all surveyed students that reported using cannabis in the previous year got it from home with parental permission.

There were some positive trends in tobacco use. Encouragingly, e-cigarette use among 12th-graders dropped from 29% to 13% from 2021 to 2025, and cigarette use fell from 7.3% to 3.7%. Meanwhile, after a peak in 2021, reported depressive symptoms among youth declined in both 2023 and 2025, which SBCHC attributes to more robust school-based mental health supports and youth-centered prevention efforts.

 

Community-driven Solutions

The SBCHC works with youth, schools, parents, and regional organizations to design and implement coordinated prevention strategies rooted in local data and lived experience. Efforts are focused on reducing risk factors — such as youth isolation and low perception of harm — and building up protective factors like strong peer networks, accurate information, and consistent adult engagement.

Current strategies include Youth Education for Action, a youth-led approach that includes the Peer Health Educator Program and Restorative Prevention Fellowship, providing students in both Southern Berkshire and Berkshire Hills regional school districts with tools to lead prevention efforts in their schools.

Parents and caregivers are also being equipped with tools to shift community norms. SBCHC’s Kitchen Table Talks peer model creates space for candid conversations and encourages adult community members to challenge permissive attitudes toward youth substance use.

The SBCHC recently offered a free Kitchen Table Talks facilitator training on Sept. 10 at Great Barrington Family Resource Center, and on Saturday, Oct. 18, it will offer an Invitation to Change training from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Berkshire South Regional Community Center. These evidence-based workshops are designed to help parents and caregivers respond constructively to a young person’s substance use, reduce conflict, and foster positive change.

“Our strength is in collaboration,” Rodriguez said. “Parents, educators, neighbors — every caring adult in this community has a role to play in prevention. This is not just a school issue or a family issue — it’s a community-wide call to action.”

Railroad Street Youth Project is dedicated to empowering young people in Berkshire County by providing them with the tools, support, and opportunities they need to lead healthy, fulfilling lives. RSYP’s programs focus on youth development, education, workforce training, and substance use prevention.

Carr Hardware Is a Chain — and an Institution

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Bart Raser looks over the Carr Hardware location on North Street in Pittsfield.
Features Special Coverage

Hammer Down

Bart Raser looks over the Carr Hardware location on North Street in Pittsfield.

Bart Raser looks over the Carr Hardware location on North Street in Pittsfield.

While he admits to practically growing up at the Carr Hardware store in Pittsfield, working beside his father, Marshall, during the summer and school vacations, Bart Raser says he had no real interest in living in the Berkshires or making the family business a career.

That all changed when, while he was working in Boston and studying for his MBA, his father became ill with cancer. Raser came home — meaning to the store on North Street — for what he thought might be several months.

“Instead, I kind of fell in love with it and never left,” he said. “It’s a good business. It’s been fun … and it’s still fun. It’s great when you can wake up and love what you do every day.”

Indeed, working beside his father, who was very active in the business until recently (and until he was in his mid-90s), Raser has helped write the latest chapters in an intriguing story that began almost a century ago when Sam Carr put his name over a hardware store that would soon become, and always has been, an institution as much as a place to buy paint, nails, and, more recently, a leaf blower.

An institution that has not only been part of the fabric of the community — in Pittsfield and now several other cities and towns where it has locations — but a force in those communities, with Raser and many of his employees getting involved on many different levels.

“If it wasn’t for our community, we wouldn’t be here, so we support a ton of organizations, we encourage our people to get involved, and we supply our people with the time, and the money if it’s needed, to get involved.”

“It’s a big part of our culture — we’re a community business,” he said. “If it wasn’t for our community, we wouldn’t be here, so we support a ton of organizations, we encourage our people to get involved, and we supply our people with the time, and the money if it’s needed, to get involved.”

As for the business itself, it has evolved and expanded its reach — moving into equipment rentals and a strong online component, and adding stores across Berkshire County and then beyond, with a location in Avon, Conn.

And there are certainly opportunities for more of this expansion, said Raser, especially as Baby Boomers move into retirement and look to sell some of the remaining small, independent stores still to be found in the region.

Bart Raser and his father, Marshall

Bart Raser and his father, Marshall, have grown Carr Hardware to a six-location chain (and counting) over the past 30 years.

“The challenge in our industry is there’s a lot of folks who own hardware stores who are late in their careers, and their kids have no interest in working the kind of hours that are required in retail today,” he explained. “And the business is not easy — it’s capital-intensive, the margins are tight, the competition is tough … you have to work hard.

“So there are plenty of opportunities today, and there are probably more coming,” he went on, adding that plenty of people are looking for such opportunities. “There are a lot of folks who want to buy these stores.”

With that, Raser — who now has his own children working summers and vacations doing everything from making deliveries to assembling grills — effectively summed up the state of this industry as well as the challenges and opportunities facing this nearly century-old business. For this issue, BusinessWest talked at length with him about all that and much more.

 

A Lightbulb Went Off

As he walked through the Pittsfield store with BusinessWest, Raser passed a row of snow throwers, an item that was in short supply and very hard to get at the height of the pandemic, but not so much the past few years.

“We have plenty of them … it hasn’t really snowed in two years,” he said with a voice that blended frustration with hard reality and an inability to do anything about it. “Let’s hope that changes this winter.”

Weather is just one of the myriad issues and challenges confronting those in the hardware business, a sector that, like many others in retail, has undergone tremendous change over the past few decades, in everything from the scope and nature of the competition — Sam Carr didn’t have Home Depot, Walmart, or Tractor Supply to contend with — to how business is done and what is sold or rented, from baby chicks in the spring to bounce houses.

“There’s all kinds of competition, and that competition has changed over the years,” he explained. “When I first came back, Sears was the big competitor, and that’s certainly evolved. Meanwhile, online is a huge competitor, Home Depot, Walmart, local chains — Rocky’s and Aubuchon — and the independents; there are several of them in the Berkshires.”

Like all Pittsfield-based businesses, this one had to cope with the downsizing of GE in the early ’90s and the huge impact it had, and still has, on the city’s central business district. And, like all retail businesses, this one faces the challenge of finding enough talent for its stores.

“The challenge in our industry is there’s a lot of folks who own hardware stores who are late in their careers, and their kids have no interest in working the kind of hours that are required in retail today.”

Before getting to all that, let’s go back to the beginning.

Calvin Coolidge was patrolling the White House when Sam Carr, a North Adams native who was working for someone else in the hardware sector, decided to go into business for himself. He started in a storefront just a few blocks down North Street, and eventually moved his venture into what had been a Sears Roebuck location, and before that a car dealership, at 547 North St., and the Carr name has been over the door ever since.

In 1962, Marshall Raser, who was already in the hardware business in Quincy with his brothers, met Sam Carr and decided to expand, if you will, into the Berkshires.

“My dad bought Carr Hardware, his brothers stayed in Quincy, and he ran Carr Hardware; together, they were all partners,” Raser noted, adding that the expansion into other Berkshire-area communities began in the ’80s with locations in Lee and Great Barrington. Eventually, what would become a chain had a presence in North Adams as well, before the venture moved into other area markets.

Including Avon in 2019, a Connecticut expansion that certainly wasn’t planned.

“I went in to buy their fixtures, and I walked out with the keys,” he said, referring to a store that was closing its doors, only to open again with a new name over the door. The search for fixtures was prompted by Carr’s purchase of an independent store in Longmeadow and the need to relocate it to make way for a Big Y expansion, a move that brought the chain to Enfield, Conn., a store that would close after seven years of operation.

 

Nailing It Down

As he talked about the company’s past expansion efforts — and also what might happen in the future — Raser referenced the attrition rate in this business, which has grown steadily higher over the years, even within his own family; indeed, in addition to the Enfield store, which suffered from a poor location, a store in Great Barrington operated by his cousins eventually failed, to be replaced by one opened by Bart and Marshall Raser.

employees take part in downtown Pittsfield’s annual spring cleanup

As part of Carr Hardware’s long tradition of being involved in the community, employees take part in downtown Pittsfield’s annual spring cleanup.

To survive and thrive these days, hardware ventures need several key ingredients, he said, starting with size. Indeed, chains have an enormous advantage over single, standalone stores when it comes to buying power and economies of scale, Raser said, adding that this is one reason why he is continually looking for expansion opportunities.

Meanwhile, a diverse portfolio of products and services is another must, he noted, adding that the company’s equipment- and event-rental business is a good example of such diversity.

“Rental is an important part of our business now,” he said. “If you had told my dad or Sam Carr that we would be renting bounce houses and cotton-candy machines, they’d think we were crazy, but it’s a great part of our business.”

The same can be said for small-engine repair and even the sale of chickens, which started in three of the stores several years ago and remains brisk.

Meanwhile, a large, effective online presence is also a must, and Carr has achieved that as well.

“It’s such a small part of our total volume, but it’s such a fast-growing piece; it grew by more than 100%,” he explained, adding that, while there’s a large volume of returns, consumers are becoming ever-more comfortable with buying hardware online.

Still, when it comes to most projects and products, consumers still need advice, which is why in-store service from qualified experts is another key to success, and Carr features that as well.

As for size, as he noted earlier, Raser said he’s continually looking for growth opportunities, but they have to make sense, and he isn’t looking to grow just for the sake of growth.

“I’ve walked away from far more than I’ve bought,” he said of stores that come on the market, adding that everything has to be right with an acquisition candidate, from the location to the condition of the store to the price, obviously.

“In many cases, people value their business for more than it’s really worth; with these small businesses, there are emotional connections, and they’re multi-generational,” he noted. “We have a lot of things we look at when considering an acquisition, and the biggest is culture, but the metrics have to make sense as well.

“We’re willing to go where there’s opportunity,” he went on, when asked where the company might go next. “But ideally, we would like to fill in the map; it would be great to have something between Great Barrington and Avon.”

Meanwhile, in the communities where it already has a presence, the company makes getting involved a huge part of its culture.

As Raser noted earlier, this is a top-down proposition. He has served, and continues to serve, on a number of different boards, and the company not only encourages employees at all levels to get involved, it gives them the wherewithal — the time off and whatever else they need — to do so.

“If they’re passionate about being a volunteer firefighter, or they want to coach a soccer team, or get involved in Little League, whatever their passion is, we really encourage them to do that,” he told BusinessWest. “And we’re happy to help them support the organization — that’s our starting point.”

It’s just one of many traditions, carried on for almost 100 years now, that promise to continue for decades to come.

 

Pittsfield Focuses on the Future, Not the Past

By
The return of First Fridays at Five
Community Spotlight

Community Spotlight

Mayor Peter Marchetti says several projects in various stages of development should help ease a critical housing shortage in Pittsfield.

Mayor Peter Marchetti says several projects in various stages of development should help ease a critical housing shortage in Pittsfield.

Starting early in his career in financial services at Pittsfield Cooperative Bank, Peter Marchetti, like many of his colleagues, made it a point to get involved in the community.

He donated time and energy to everything from the United Way to youth bowling; from Pittsfield Community Television to the Pittsfield Parade Committee.

But starting in the late ’90s, he took that involvement to a higher plane, running, successfully, for a seat on the City Council. In 2011, he sought to take things to a still higher level, running for mayor, only to lose a very tight race. After a hiatus from elected office, he returned to the City Council, and in 2023 launched another bid for the corner office, this one successful.

When asked why, he indicated that there was still much work to be done as this city of roughly 44,000, the largest in the Berkshires, continues its transition from being, in essence, a company town — in this case General Electric — to a city with a far more diverse economy, and one that has moved on from GE in every way, including a reimagining of the huge, mostly undeveloped tract that was its massive transformer-manufacturing complex.

“I saw our city at a crossroads, where we have the opportunity to reinvent ourselves; there are many people who still look at us as the old GE manufacturing community. I think we have some opportunities to turn the corner, and I wanted to lead that turnaround,” said Marchetti, who retired from Pittsfield Co-op as senior vice president of Retail Banking Operations. Ten months into his first four-year term, he can cite progress on several fronts.

These include the William Stanley Business Park, created at the GE site, where work is set to commence on a 20,000-square-foot facility that will provide room to grow for many of the startups that now call the Berkshire Innovation Center home.

And also the city’s downtown, still evolving from the GE days, where new businesses have landed and much-needed housing initiatives are taking shape (more on these later).

Beyond Marchetti’s first year in office and his emerging agenda, there are plenty of other developing stories in Pittsfield, many of them taking place downtown, where several issues and trends are colliding, and where that ongoing process of evolution continues.

The expansive downtown area, while now home to several new business and with a falling vacancy rate, continues to experience fallout from the emergence of remote work and a broad decline in daily foot traffic, which is impacting many hospitality and service-oriented businesses.

“Downtown has shifted away from some of our larger companies that would have people here during the day and out for lunch, grabbing coffee, or going out to a bar after work. Now that they’re remote, we’re definitely in need of people downtown regularly. The addition of housing in our downtown will make that difference.”

This decline has been one of the driving forces in the return of First Fridays at Five and other events geared toward generating additional foot traffic, while also helping to inspire efforts to redevelop some downtown properties into housing, which is in short supply and thus a negative force in economic development and business growth.

Indeed, like other communities facing this challenge, Pittsfield is looking at ways to convert office and retail spaces into housing — opportunities that will help meet the need for housing while also bringing back some of the vibrancy lost to remote work.

The return of First Fridays at Five

The return of First Fridays at Five has helped bring more foot traffic to downtown Pittsfield.
Photo by Autumn Phoenix Photography

“Downtown has shifted away from some of our larger companies that would have people here during the day and out for lunch, grabbing coffee, or going out to a bar after work. Now that they’re remote, we’re definitely in need of people downtown regularly,” said Rebecca Brien, managing director of Downtown Pittsfield Inc. (DPI). “The addition of housing in our downtown will make that difference.”

Jonathan Butler, president and CEO of 1Berkshire, the county-wide economic-development agency, agreed.

“I think it’s naive to think that everyone is going to go back to 9-to-5 at the office,” he said. “So what we’re doing throughout the Berkshires, with downtown Pittsfield being a centerpiece of this, is looking at the housing crisis, how we can get more housing built, and looking at some of this commercial space in our downtown.”

For the latest installment in its Community Spotlight series, BusinessWest turns its lens on Pittsfield, a city that continues to move on from its GE-dominated past and put the focus squarely on the present and future.

 

Progress Report

Marchetti grew up in Pittsfield, and, like everyone his age who did, he has fond memories of life in the city when GE was bustling and employing north of 10,000 people, most of whom would be spending their paychecks in a thriving downtown dominated by all kinds of retail, including several large department stores.

Like his immediate predecessors in the mayor’s office, Marchetti stresses a need not to look back, but to instead continue turning the pages on an ongoing evolution.

“People can’t find quality housing in the rental market that is desirable enough for them to stay here. Or, when you’re recruiting and looking to bring transplants to the region, they’re not able to buy a home at a price point that’s realistic, or find quality rental housing that meets their expectations. That’s a huge issue for us.”

He noted progress in many corners of the city, including the former GE site. Once a huge and imposing mass of concrete, the site is being made less intimidating and more ready for redevelopment, one parcel at a time.

Indeed, the parcel known as site 9, has been “completely rehabilitated,” said Marchetti, meaning there has been landscaping and other improvements designed to make it shovel-ready. Meanwhile, $500,000 in grant funding has been received to do the same for sites 7 and 8.

Plans are also moving forward for the construction of a new facility near the innovation center, one that will accelerate new-business development in the park, he noted.

“We have several businesses that have started in the innovation center, and they’re running out of space at that location. This is their opportunity to expand and allow space to be cleared up for additional incubator companies.”

Meanwhile, there has been progress on the housing front, the mayor said, noting that, like most Berkshires communities, Pittsfield is suffering from a shortage of housing, especially of the affordable variety, which is making it increasingly difficult for many to live — or stay — in the city, while also impacting businesses already facing challenges with building and maintaining a workforce.

First Fridays at Five is just one of many initiatives undertaken by Downtown Pittsfield Inc.

Rebecca Brien says the return of First Fridays at Five is just one of many initiatives undertaken by Downtown Pittsfield Inc. to bring foot traffic, and vibrancy, to the downtown area.
Photo by Autumn Phoenix Photography

Within the downtown, there are two projects in early-stage development. One involves conversion of the Wright Building on North Street and an adjacent shoe store, formerly home to a candlepin bowling alley and several offices and shops, into roughly 30 units of affordable housing. The other involves redevelopment of the White Terrace apartments, which will bring another 25 to 30 units online.

Meanwhile, two transitional housing projects are slated to be underway in the coming months, and plans are being forwarded for conversion of a former elementary school into housing, said Marchetti, who said projects currently in the pipeline will add another 100 units, but the city needs another 250 to 300 units, minimum, to meet the growing need.

“The hardest part of bringing new housing online is the millions of dollars it costs to redevelop these properties,” he said, adding that the price tag for the Wright Building project exceeds $17 million.

Butler concurred, but noted that housing is critical to Pittsfield’s ongoing efforts to reinvent itself and sustain the businesses that now call it home.

“Housing is the issue contributing to the workforce problems facing employers today,” he explained. “People can’t find quality housing in the rental market that is desirable enough for them to stay here. Or, when you’re recruiting and looking to bring transplants to the region, they’re not able to buy a home at a price point that’s realistic, or find quality rental housing that meets their expectations. That’s a huge issue for us.”

 

Downtown Developments

Additional housing is expected to bring more vibrancy and new opportunities to the downtown area, said Brien, noting that there are already several initiatives in various stages of development to bring more foot traffic to the area.

One has been the return of First Fridays at Five, which is an amalgam of the former Third Thursday and First Friday Artswalk events, aimed at bringing back what Brien called a “street-festival vibe.”

Pittsfield at a glance

Year Incorporated: 1761
Population: 43,927
Area: 42.5 square miles
County: Berkshire
Residential Tax Rate: $18.45
Commercial Tax Rate: $39.61
Median Household Income: $35,655
Median family Income: $46,228
Type of Government: Mayor, City Council
Largest Employers: Berkshire Health Systems; General Dynamics; Petricca Industries Inc.; SABIC Innovative Plastics; Berkshire Bank
* Latest information available

“We started small,” she said, referring to what was essentially a one-block initiative that started in May and featured everything from musical performers to a small-vendors market; from a beer garden hosted to Hot Plate Brewing to restaurants with on-street dining.

In September, the concept grew with something called Taste of Pittsfield, which featured additional music, dancing, art, food trucks, and activities stretched over another block, from Park Square to Columbus Avenue.

That larger footprint will be used next year, said Brien, adding that the goal moving forward is to continue to add new draws, such as a car show, to bring individuals and families into the downtown and let them experience all that is happening there.

And there is quite a bit in that category, she told BusinessWest, adding that downtown continues to change, evolve, and present a solid mix of anchors (the Colonial Theater and Barrington Stage Co.), long-time businesses such as Carr Hardware and Museum Outlets, and new or relatively new additions, such as Hot Plate; Thistle and Thorn, a gift shop; Witch Slapped, a “haven for all things metaphysical and mystical”; and the Plant Connector, which has a mission “to connect people to the joy of plants and foster a thriving green community.”

Meanwhile, the roster of restaurants continues to grow and evolve, she went on, listing a new steakhouse in Hotel on North; BB’s Hot Spot at the Lantern Bar, a Jamaican restaurant on North Street; and Marie’s North Street Eatery and Gallery, a contemporary deli located in the historic Shipton Building.

This mix is succeeding in making downtown more of a destination for locals and tourists alike, Brien said, adding that one challenge moving forward is to grow a steady pace of foot traffic that extends well beyond First Fridays and other event days.

Another challenge is sustainability, she went on, adding that DPI has created educational opportunities for business owners with the goal of helping them work on, though not necessarily in, their businesses to help ensure continued success.

“Stability is something we need to be focused on, with both existing businesses and the businesses that are coming in,” she explained. “We had a grant opportunity for some of our existing businesses this past summer that enabled them to work with a consultant on such things as marketing and workflow and accounting systems. And next year, we’ll be offering some co-op marketing dollars. We’re great at telling people downtown that we’re here, but we need to make that sure that word is getting out beyond us.

“And in January, we’ll be offering seminars on things like how to read a P&L sheet and how to use Facebook,” she went on, adding that DPI is committed to providing members with educational opportunities to help ensure that they thrive.

That’s just one of many examples of how leadership in this community, on many different levels, is indeed focused on the future and not on the past.

 

Lee Builds on Status as Gateway to the Berkshires

By
Kathy DeVarennes
Community Spotlight Special Coverage

Community Spotlight

Kathy DeVarennes

Kathy DeVarennes says there is a downside to Lee’s white-hot housing market: a shortage of affordable homes for working-class families.

 

Chris Brittain says the report wasn’t exactly surprising, but it was still quite eye-opening.

Indeed, by the time the Boston Business Journal listed Lee as one of the three hottest housing markets in the Bay State last August — along with Edgartown on Martha’s Vineyard and the gateway city of Lowell — most in this community didn’t need to be told just how hot things were in town.

They already had plenty of direct or anecdotal evidence to that effect.

“People have been buying homes for well above the asking price,” said Brittain, Lee’s town administrator, noting that the median home value in Lee was $256,000 five years ago, $370,000 a little more than a year ago, and nearly $400,000 last June, one of the largest upward swings in the state over that time.

He said the surging prices are in part a reflection of the run-up in value of vacation and second homes, but also the product of supply and demand; there is limited supply, and demand has been soaring, in Lee and most other Berkshires communities, in the wake of COVID and the growing popularity of remote work. He speculates that Lee appears at the very top of the list because home values are generally lower — although the gap is certainly closing — than in neighboring communities such as Lenox and Stockbridge, which are also hot markets.

Surging home prices are not the only intriguing development in Lee, said Brittain, noting some real headway in the long-anticipated, scaled-down project known as Eagle Mill, which involves new construction and conversion of some of the town’s many former paper mills into a mixed-use development featuring housing, retail, and a restaurant.

There’s also movement with plans to create a new public-safety facility downtown, on the site formerly occupied by the Department of Public Works, which is moving to a commercial property on Route 202 that the town has acquired. The price tag for the various phases of the initiative is roughly $37 million, he said, adding that the DPW will likely be moved in the spring, with demolition of those properties to follow, and construction of the new public-safety facility to likely commence in the spring of 2025.

“We started to see people wanting to move to move rural areas. During COVID and right after it, I knew of people who would put their house up for sale, and by the end of the day, they had five offers over what they were asking, and people hadn’t even come to look at the house; they just wanted to get out of the city.”

Meanwhile, there was more talk about how to celebrate the town’s 250th birthday, coming up in 2027.

And there is continued bounceback from the difficult COVID years, with travel to Lee and other Berkshires communities returning, and many different types of hospitality-related businesses doing as well as, if not even better than, they were before the pandemic, said Kathy DeVarennes, director of the Lee Chamber of Commerce, which recently celebrated its own milestone — 100 years in operation.

She said the business community in Lee is large, diverse, and resilient, with ventures ranging from Prime Outlets Lee, just off the Mass Pike exit into town, to High Lawn Farm, a third-generation dairy farm and creamery approaching its own centennial that has become a real destination for visitors, to an eclectic mix of businesses along Main Street that give it a unique flavor.

Businesses like the Starving Artist Café & Creperie, which offers organic, vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free menu options for breakfast and lunch.

Owner Emmy Davis, who opened the café in 2012, said one of its traditions, and main attractions, is a Sunday brunch served all day. During this time of year, there are some travelers coming to brunch, as well as some with second homes in town coming in for the weekend, but it’s mostly locals.

“During the summer, though, it’s crazy; on Sundays in the summer, there’s often a line out the door,” she said, adding that visitors will stop in on their way to one of the many attractions only a few miles away, from Jacob’s Pillow in Becket to Tanglewood in Lenox. “There’s a lot going on constantly, so there’s a lot more people.”

Lee’s iconic downtown

Lee’s iconic downtown, which boasts an eclectic mix of stores and restaurants, continues its comeback from COVID.

And brunch at the Starving Artist provides an effective snapshot of what businesses generally see and when they see it, she said, adding that travelers pass through or stay at some of the many inns and hotels in the community all year round, but summer and fall are obviously the busiest times.

For this latest installment of its Community Spotlight series, BusinessWest looks at how all of these factors are coming together to create even greater vibrancy in the community known as the Gateway to the Berkshires.

 

Staying Power

When Bob Healey and his wife, Olia, started talking about buying the historic bed and breakfast on Main Street in Lee, the one created from a schoolhouse built in 1885, some thought they were … well, “crazy,” Bob said.

After all, they were both just 23 years old. Meanwhile, the year was 2009, and the region was still trying to dig out from what became known as the Great Recession.

“It certainly wasn’t the best time to be thinking about doing something like this,” he said, adding quickly that he and Olia believed in the property — and they believed in themselves. And they found a lending institution, Lee Bank, to believe in them as well.

As a result, they’ve been able to write more history for a property that was barely saved from the wrecking ball and then successfully moved one block — a feat many didn’t believe was possible — and is now an important part of Lee’s iconic downtown.

They call it the Chambery Inn, named after the town in France from which five nuns were sent to staff the school, and it has become a fixture, with 10 rooms, many featuring original blackboards from its days as a school.

“We have these city people coming in and paying cash for homes that used to be the homes of working-class families that sent children to our schools. Prices have skyrocketed, and that makes it more difficult for young families to find affordable housing to purchase.”

Healey, like Davis, said downtown is thriving at present, making an almost full recovery from the traumatic COVID years.

“We have an absolutely amazing Main Street,” he said. “It’s a town of 6,000 people, and we have more than 60 eateries. As the Gateway to the Berkshires, the location is really key, and it’s kind of an iconic American Main Street.

The comeback, and continued evolution, of Main Street is one of the major developing stories in Lee, with the other being the housing market, which might have cooled off a little, but still remains quite hot.

“COVID had a lot to do with it,” said Brittain, who had served the town in several different capacities over the years, including stints as moderator and town clerk, before becoming interim town administrator in 2021 and then losing the interim tag. “That’s when we started to see people wanting to move to move rural areas. During COVID and right after it, I knew of people who would put their house up for sale, and by the end of the day, they had five offers over what they were asking, and people hadn’t even come to look at the house; they just wanted to get out of the city.”

The surge, which is still ongoing, has been good for sellers, but there is certainly a downside to Lee’s housing boom, said both Brittain and DeVarennes, noting that it’s now much harder to find something that would be considered affordable in town.

A recently retired school teacher, DeVarennes said the lack of affordable housing can be seen in decreasing enrollment in the community’s schools.

“We have these city people coming in and paying cash for homes that used to be the homes of working-class families that sent children to our schools,” she said. “Prices have skyrocketed, and that makes it more difficult for young families to find affordable housing to purchase.”

The Eagle Mill project will create 128 units of market-rate housing, but there is a definite need for more housing, especially in the affordable category.

Lee at a glance

Year Incorporated: 1777
Population: 5,788
Area: 27 square miles
County: Berkshire
Residential Tax Rate: $11.83
Commercial Tax Rate: $11.83
Median Household Income: $41,566
Median Family Income: $49,630
Type of Government: Representative Town Meeting
Largest Employers: Lee Premium Outlets; Onyx Specialty Papers; the Landing at Laurel Lake; Oak n’ Spruce Resort in the Berkshires; Big Y
* Latest information available

“It’s a subject that comes up a lot in town,” said Brittain, noting that many of the younger professionals and blue-collar workers in Lee are increasingly finding themselves priced out and with limited options if they desire to stay in this community.

 

Getting Down to Business

But while it’s becoming more difficult to live in Lee, the growing number and variety of businesses — and that includes a new Starbucks in the site of a former Friendly’s near the turnpike exit — make it an ever-more inviting place to visit, said those we spoke with.

Foot traffic may not have fully rebounded to pre-pandemic levels, said DeVarennes, but the community, with its location just off exit 10, certainly lives up to the Gateway nickname. Indeed, people pass through on their way to better-known destinations like Stockbridge and Lenox, but they also often stop and stay — for a few hours or a few days.

And there is plenty to see and do, such as High Lawn Farm, where families can see a dairy farm in operation and also get ice cream and buy butter, cheeses, and other products.

“If you go on a weekend during the summer, it’s packed,” DeVarennes said. “It’s a wonderful place and a real destination.”

Meanwhile, the town’s iconic downtown continues to thrive, she added, noting that it has a deep mix of stores and is easily walkable.

“There are quite a few good restaurants and businesses,” she said, adding that there is great stability — many businesses have been there for decades — but also a fairly steady stream of new and intriguing businesses.

That includes a new yoga studio that will soon open its doors and a comic-book store recently opened by Davis’s husband, Ryan.

“Since we’ve opened, a lot of people have been psyched because there’s nothing in the Berkshires like it — you have to go to Northampton to find something like this,” she said, adding that the store, like many of the businesses on Main Street, appeals to local residents, but becomes part of the draw for visitors.

Healey agreed.

“It’s a very nice Main Street to walk, but it’s also a Main Street where you won’t find a lot of franchises and such,” he said. “It’s really mom-and-pops with a lot of character.”

Added Davis, “we have a great little community of downtown businesses — everyone supports one another. And the more the merrier in downtown; more businesses bring more people to the area to hang out.”

Over the years, Lee has seen a steady source of reasons to come and hang out. And live, year-round or during the summer and on weekends. And tackle remote work. And start a business.

All of that makes it a draw — and, now, one of the hottest real-estate markets in the state.

As It Marks 175 Years, MountainOne Strives to Be the Berkshires’ ‘Go-to Bank’

By
Banking and Financial Services Special Coverage

Peaking Their Interest

Bob Fraser (left) and Matt Lauro

Bob Fraser (left) and Matt Lauro

 

Bob Fraser acknowledged there’s a good deal of real estate between the Berkshires and the Bay State’s South Shore. He knows because he traverses that distance regularly.

But for the somewhat unique financial-services institution known as MountainOne, which can trace its roots back to 1848, having bank branches and other facilities on opposite ends of the state, with nothing in between, really … works.

“It has worked out well for us,” said Fraser, MountainOne’s president and CEO. “In the Berkshires, we have tended to be more of a traditional retail, community-based bank, and on the South Shore, we are much more commercially oriented. We do a lot of construction lending in and around the Greater Boston markets, and we also do commercial lending; we have a pretty strong group of commercial lenders.

“In the Berkshires, we see ourselves being able to fill a void, with a high level of expertise in commercial lending within Berkshire County and surrounding areas,” he went on, adding that this void has been created through large regionals either moving their headquarters from the Berkshires (as Berkshire Bank did) or expanding in other areas — leaving what Fraser considers opportunity for his bank in their wake.

Actually, there are many things that work for MountainOne, besides these differing focal points on either end of the state, including that aforementioned strong focus on commercial lending; the diversity of the business (there is an insurance division and an investment arm); its size — large enough to handle the needs of most businesses but small enough to provide a brand of personalized service — a strong focus on technology and how to use it to better serve customers, including a new digital platform for commercial customers to go live this month; and even the name, which doesn’t tie it to one community or one region and now has strong brand recognition in the Western Mass. region, with a mascot — actually, a ‘spokesgoat’ — named Mo.

“Being headquartered in the Berkshires, we want to be seen as the go-to bank for commercial accounts and borrowers throughout Berkshire County and the surrounding areas in Western Mass.”

MountainOne, now with roughly $1 billion in assets, will continue to maximize these various strengths and qualities and work to attain greater market share in both regions it serves, especially in the Berkshires, said Matt Lauro, senior vice president of Commercial Lending, noting that, like the rest of Western Mass. — and the state, for that matter — the region is overbanked.

But it is also, in his view, underserved to some degree.

“There aren’t enough banks that are servicing large commercial clients, or commercial clients as a whole, that are really focused in Western Massachusetts,” he said. “You do have players that are primarily focused here, but there is a void resulting from the larger regionals that have tended to pull back on lending capabilities in Western Mass., and it has left C&I clients, and larger commercial-development clients, with less service than they’ve had historically.”

Added Fraser, “being headquartered in the Berkshires, we want to be seen as the go-to bank for commercial accounts and borrowers throughout Berkshire County and the surrounding areas in Western Mass.”

Both Fraser and Lauro noted that the bank’s strong roots, diversity of services, and strong track record in the Berkshires will serve it well during what can only be described as a time of challenge and uncertainty — when it comes to the economy, banks, and the foreseeable future.

Bob Fraser

Bob Fraser says MountainOne can grow as effectively through online banking as it can through geographic expansion.

“This environment we’re in … I’ve never experienced so much uncertainty as to where we’re headed,” Fraser said. “And an environment of uncertainty makes decision making so difficult, whether it’s running a bank or running your company; it’s incredibly challenging to feel confident about what the next few years are going to look like.”

For this issue and its focus on banking and financial services, BusinessWest talked with Fraser and Lauro about MountainOne and what can and should come next for this bank as its marks an important milestone.

 

Scaling the Heights

Team members at this institution are known as colloquially as ‘mountaineers.’

And on Sept. 19, all of the MountainOne offices will close at 1 p.m. so that the mountaineers can attend a celebration for all employees marking the bank’s 175th anniversary.

There will be much to celebrate, said Fraser, listing a rich past, and a potential-laden future, for the reasons cited earlier.

The institution can trace its roots to 1848 in North Adams, when it was known as Hoosac Bank. Fast-forwarding considerably, Fraser noted that, in 2000, Hoosac Bank and Williamstown Savings Bank came together to create the holding company to be called MountainOne Financial, which became the mutual holding company for those two banks.

“If you’re a sophisticated business owner, you understand that you don’t need a branch at the end of your street; you need a relationship manager, a loan officer who is going to be at your business when you need him, to speak with him, to work with him.”

And in 2007, South Coastal Bank, headquartered on the South Shore, merged its holding company into MountainOne’s holding company, creating what Fraser, formerly president and CEO of South Coastal, believes is the first three-bank mutual holding company.

“We’ve seen a lot more of that now, but MountainOne was the first to actually do it,” he said, adding that, over time, the three banks have been merged into one entity under the Hoosac charter and rebranded as MountainOne. Additionally, Hoosac Bank had owned two insurance agencies, which were merged under the name MountainOne Insurance Agency, while the investment division was rebranded MountainOne Investments in 2013.

Today, MountainOne has some combination of bank branches, ATMs, insurance offices, and investment offices in six communities, three on each end of the state: Quincy, Rockland, and Scituate on or near the South Shore, and North Adams, Pittsfield, and Williamstown in the Berkshires.

When asked if there was future expansion under consideration in the Berkshires region — and, if so, where — Fraser said it’s possible, but what is more likely is continued commitment to advancing internet banking capabilities that allow banks to serve customers more efficiently, with less reliance on brick-and-mortar facilities.

“The world is changing,” he explained. “You don’t need as much of a physical presence in a specific geography as you did before to manage and serve a business customer’s banking needs.”

Lauro agreed.

“If the client is in the surrounding area, we are wherever the client is,” he explained. “Wherever the client is, we are happy to be there, to work with them; that has been our opportunity, and it’s a big thing for us. If you’re a sophisticated business owner, you understand that you don’t need a branch at the end of your street; you need a relationship manager, a loan officer who is going to be at your business when you need him, to speak with him, to work with him.”

Matt Lauro

Matt Lauro says the considers the Berkshires to be overbanked but its commercial customers underserved, leaving opportunity for MountainOne.
Staff Photo

And this is what MountainOne brings to the table, Fraser said, noting that, despite the ability to serve clients through the use of technology, commercial banking is a “personal relationship-oriented service,” said Fraser, noting that MountainOne boasts lending professionals like Lauro and Richard Kelly, also a senior vice president of Commercial Lending based in Pittsfield, who are focused on the region and its economic health and well-being.

“Our vision, at the end of the day, is to help ensure the economic vibrancy of the community,” he said. “And by doing that — by supporting local businesses and entrepreneurs — we’re helping to fulfill that mission.”

 

Economies of Scale

As he talked physical expansion — new branches — in other communities within the Berkshires, Fraser told BusinessWest that it would be “challenging to invest in a branch location in a market that has a declining population base and is already overbanked,” and that the bank’s strategy is, as he said, geared more toward technology.

But he noted quickly that the Berkshires has seen an uptick in population in the wake of the pandemic, with some choosing more rural areas over larger cities, as well as some demographic shifts, with more young people moving to the area, and a surge in entrepreneurship, in part because of COVID and how it prompted many to pursue long-held dreams of working for themselves.

And all of these trends are certainly positive signs for the Berkshire County market and its business community.

Indeed, as they talked about the next chapters in MountainOne’s history, Fraser and Lauro noted that, independent of what is happening with the economy, interest rates, and other factors, there are many reasons for optimism when it comes to broadening the book of business and gaining additional market share.

Some of this has to do with COVID-related population surges, demographic shifts, and that aforementioned surge in entrepreneurship, the size and scope of which are still to be determined. But much of it comes down to what the bank can bring to the table beyond what all banks can provide — money.

“Hospitality is the number-one industry, and we’ve been involved in a number of projects involving hospitality-related businesses, but we also have a number of commercial accounts that involve meaningful employers and well-known companies in the Berkshires,” Fraser said. “And I think there’s a greater opportunity for us over time to continue to expand in that market as we see younger entrepreneurs establishing roots in the Berkshires. Businesses may be looking for an entity that is based in the Berkshires, is local, and obviously has a commitment to the region; we’ve been here since 1848.

“Being a mutual organization, we can look a little bit longer-term strategically than if we were a stock-owned company,” he went on. “It’s just a different business; we can be patient and look beyond the next quarter or two quarters — we have that luxury.”

Elaborating, he said MountainOne has experienced lenders who understand business and what it takes to succeed and can step into the role of adviser as well as banker.

“We’re not just a vendor that is providing you a product, which is the loan,” he told BusinessWest. “We’re also a resource. It’s a relationship, and it’s probably the most unique relationship a business will have. Anyone can sell you something — we’re the only relationship where we have to get what we sold you back.

“Another aspect of it is that we really enjoy this part of the business — it’s in our DNA,” he went on. “We love being with our customers, and we love understanding their businesses. We love talking about what we know, what we’re thinking about, and sharing those ideas.”

 

Mo-mentum

As for Mo the mountain goat, he’s the perfect spokesperson for the bank, as detailed in a bio on its website. “Goats are tough,” it reads. “They turn challenges into opportunities every day, and even in the most demanding, unforgiving environments, goats know how to adapt and thrive.”

MountainOne has done a lot of that over the past 175 years, and that collective work has put it in a position where it can turn challenge into opportunity and scale new heights — in all kinds of ways.

Lenox Looks to Build on Momentum in Tourism

By
Jennifer Nacht
Community Spotlight

Community Spotlight

 

Jennifer Nacht

Jennifer Nacht says Lenox’ tourist economy largely rebounded in 2022.

 

Heading into the high season for tourism in Lenox, Jennifer Nacht didn’t believe this community, home to Tanglewood and dozens of other popular cultural institutions, could do much better than it did last year when it came to filling up rooms at its large portfolio of hotels and inns.

Turns out, she was wrong.

Indeed, a seemingly insatiable appetite on the part of the public for some fun time off away from home, coupled with the relaxing of three-day minimums at many of those lodging facilities, has pushed the numbers even higher, said Nacht, executive director of the Lenox Chamber of Commerce, adding that, in many respects, Lenox started turning the clock back to 2019 last year.

“Last year was so busy,” she said, to the point where she wasn’t sure if 2023 could surpass it, but things are trending that way. “In talking with the inns, everyone is booked; they’re finding that people are waiting a little longer to book, but by Wednesday of the weekend ahead, the inns are getting completely booked up.”

Still, while the inns and hotels, many of the restaurants, and nearly all of the numerous outdoor attractions staged a full recovery in 2022, many of the theaters and galleries continue to make their way back, said Jaclyn Stevenson, director of Marketing and Communications for Shakespeare & Company, which operates on 33 acres in Lenox.

“In talking with the inns, everyone is booked; they’re finding that people are waiting a little longer to book, but by Wednesday of the weekend ahead, the inns are getting completely booked up.”

She told BusinessWest that most theaters struggled somewhat last year, with few if any sellouts, as the public was still wary about COVID-19, especially early in the summer.

“We didn’t have terminally light crowds, but the people just weren’t here — it was still a building year for theater,” said Stevenson, who also sits on the Lenox Cultural District Steering Committee. “Visitors were coming back to the Berkshires — outdoor recreation had a banner year — but a lot of the theaters and music venues still struggled; it didn’t feel like we were fully back to normal and where we wanted to be. It felt like we were at 75%.”

Early indications are that theaters will likely improve on last year’s numbers, she said, adding that ticket sales are climbing higher.

“We had a good year in 2022, but it was a rebuilding year,” she explained. “I’m feeling better about 2023 — our ticket-sale numbers are mirroring 2017, which was a good year for us.”

As summer commences, Lenox will look to build on the momentum it gained from last year, while also leaning on the lessons learned during the pandemic and the opportunities created by it, especially in the broad realm of outdoor dining, which was in many ways new to the community and came of age during that time.

Meanwhile, the chamber will continue to build on its multi-faceted efforts to market the community and bring people to it by spotlighting the myriad things to do and many ways one can fill a day — or several days — while visiting (much more on that later).

For this, the latest installment of its Community Spotlight series, BusinessWest takes an in-depth look at Lenox and how its economy, dominated by tourism, has made it most of the way back from the depths of the pandemic and is looking to set the bar still higher in the months and years to come.

 

Coming Attractions

Nacht knows all about being a business owner in Lenox. She was “one of the gang,” as she put it, the owner of the Scoop, an ice-cream and candy shop on Church Street, which she eventually sold to cryptocurrency tycoon Ryan Salame in 2021; he now owns several businesses in the community.

“I had skin in the game,” she noted, adding that, by then, she was already managing the chamber as well, putting the 40-year-old institution back on a path to better fiscal health and a more effective execution of its mission, which she described this way: “to be a full-service marketing firm for our members.”

And when she says full-service, she means it.

Shakespeare & Company

Shakespeare & Company has a robust slate of performances scheduled for 2023.

“If a member comes in and needs help with graphic design, we’ll do that, too,” she said, adding that, mostly, this work as a marketing firm involves promoting the community, its events, its cultural institutions, and a whole lot more. It does this in a number of ways, including a weekly email blast sent to a growing list of subscribers now numbering more than 1,700.

A quick look at the most recent missive, under the headline “All the Good Stuff to Know This Week from the Lenox Chamber of Commerce and Its Members,” reveals just how much is going on in this community as summer beckons.

There’s the start to the Lenox Farmer’s Market on Church Street, the Lenox Loves Music Sunday series in Lilac Park, the Lenox Wine Fete, which took place on June 3, the Summer Lenox Art Walk, set for June 10-11, a Community Conversation at the Lenox Library titled “The Impact of the Pandemic on Mental Health and How to Manage Moving Forward,” a performance of Dear Jack, Dear Louise at Shakespeare & Company, the Berkshire Mountain Distillers’ Summer Food Series, and performances of What the Constitution Means to Me, featuring two-time Tony Award-nominated actor Kate Baldwin, at the Berkshire Theatre Group’s Unicorn Theater in Stockbridge.

Then there are reminders about some of the region’s attractions, many opening for the summer, including the Mount, Edith Wharton’s home; the Wit Gallery; and ‘ghost tours’ of Ventfort Hall in Lenox, home to the Gilded Age Museum, as well as looks ahead to the Jackson Browne concert on Aug. 31 at Tanglewood (tickets went on sale June 1) and other events.

“We had a good year in 2022, but it was a rebuilding year. I’m feeling better about 2023 — our ticket-sale numbers are mirroring 2017, which was a good year for us.”

The list goes on and on. There’s even a reminder about wellness clinics offered by the Berkshire Humane Society.

The email blasts are part of just part of the chamber’s work to bring people to the region, said Nacht, adding that, while there are some service businesses and representatives of other sectors, the vast majority of the chamber’s 136 members are focused, on one level or another, on tourism and hospitality. They include hotels and inns, restaurants and taverns, theaters, art galleries, bookstores, summer camps, and more.

And while most of the chamber’s work on behalf of these members falls into the category of marketing, there are other initiatives as well, said Nacht, including work with town officials on business-related issues, such as a WiFi bylaw, quarterly meet-and-greets held in conjunction with the chambers in Lee and Stockbridge, and a recently staged job fair designed to help businesses navigate a still-difficult workforce environment.

Lenox at a glance

Year Incorporated: 1767
Population: 5,095
Area: 21.7 square miles
County: Berkshire
Residential Tax Rate: $9.16
Commercial Tax Rate: $13.03
Median Household Income: $85,581
Median Family Income: $111,413
Type of Government: Board of Selectmen, Open Town Meeting
Largest Employers: Canyon Ranch, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Kimball Farms
* Latest information available

“We had 20 tables of members who were looking for summer help, temporary help, permanent help,” she recalled. “And we had more than 100 people show up; it was really successful event — many of our members actually hired people from the job fair.”

Overall, though, most members are successfully “staffed up,” as she put it, thanks to returning college students and other applicants. And they will need to be as a summer that promises to be even better, from a business standpoint, is poised to begin.

 

Staging a Comeback

For the theaters and music venues, there is still some rebuilding to do from the pandemic, Stevenson told BusinessWest, adding that, while 2022 provided some steps in the right direction, there is certainly room for improvement in the upcoming season.

“Last year was tough,” she said, “and there was a lot of guesswork throughout the season: ‘who are we talking to?’ ‘Who’s here?’ Who wants to come?’”

Elaborating, she said COVID was still on the public’s mind, especially earlier in the summer, when the numbers of cases were still running high. Meanwhile, and as noted earlier in that rundown of all that is happening in Lenox and surrounding towns, there is a lot to do there, and individual venues and attractions are competing with one another for the time and interest of residents and visitors. And in 2002, “it felt like the crowds we were competing for were small and finite.”

There were other issues last summer, including weather — a windstorm cost Shakespeare & Company two performances, Stevenson said, adding quickly that the outlook for 2023 is positive, not just for theaters and other performance venues, but the region in general, as visitation continues to rebound from the COVID years.

Shakespeare & Company recently launched its new season with the two-person show Dear Jack, Dear Louise, she noted, adding that there is a full and intriguing slate of performances slated for this year. The first Shakespearian offering is a rendition of Henry VI Part 2, billed as The Contention. “Henry VI is said to be the inspiration for Game of Thrones, so we’ve been leaning on that a lot.”

Coming later in the summer are August Wilson’s Fences, featuring horror-movie icon (think Candyman) Tony Todd; Golda’s Balcony, a play about Golda Mier; a stage reading of Hamlet featuring Christopher Lloyd; and, in the outdoor theater, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with a “late-’70s music spin,” she added.

Overall, there is a little something for everyone, a well-worn phrase that could also be applied to Lenox itself, said both Stevenson and Nacht, noting many new restaurants downtown and, overall, a calendar full of events and things to do.

In short, a community that took some huge strides toward making a full recovery from COVID is looking to take even more in the year to come.

Summer Happenings 2023

By
Special Coverage Tourism & Hospitality Travel and Tourism

Let’s Have a Ball

Summertime is a great time to get away, but in Western Mass., it’s also a great time to stick around and enjoy the many events on the calendar. Whether you’re craving fair food or craft beer, live music or arts and crafts, historical experiences or small-town pride, the region boasts plenty of ways to celebrate the summer months. Let’s start with Hooplandia — a major basketball tournament that’s been a long time coming, as you’ll find out starting on the next page, but one that promises to grow even bigger as it returns year after year. After that, we detail 20 more recreational and cultural events to fill in those summer days. Admittedly, they only scratch the surface, so we encourage you to get out and explore everything else that makes summer in Western Mass. a memorable time.

Tipping Off a Tradition

After Delays, Hooplandia Finally Gets a Chance to Shine >>Read More

Fun in the Sun

There’s Plenty to Do in Western Mass. This Summer >> Read More

 

Lee Bank Foundation Distributes $70,700 in Second Grant Funding Round

By
Berkshire County Daily News

LEE — Lee Bank Foundation has awarded $70,700 to 13 Berkshire area organizations for their second-round of 2022 community funding. Recipients were awarded grants ranging from $1,000 to $12,500 to support their local programming. Included in the awards are a series of Arts Access Grants for arts and culture organizations to expand access to programming for underserved audiences.

The following organizations received funding from Lee Bank Foundation:

• Berkshire Black Economic Council;

• Berkshire South Regional Community Center;

• Berkshire Bounty;

• Community Health Programs;

• Construct;

• Elizabeth Freeman Center;

• Flying Cloud Institute;

• Goodwill of the Berkshires and Southern Vermont;

• Link to Libraries; and

• South Community Food Pantry

Additionally, Arts Access Grants of $1,000 each were awarded to Berkshire Theatre Group, BODYSONNET, and Norman Rockwell Museum.

The deadline for the next round of 2022 Foundation funding is September 1st. The application and more information can be found on the Community Impact section of Lee Bank’s website (https://www.leebank.com/community-impact/donations-sponsorships.html)

To be considered for grant awards, applicants must be a (501)(c)(3) nonprofit organization. The Foundation is focused on funding programs that work to bridge income and opportunity gaps in our region. Funding requests should reflect one or more of Lee Bank Foundation’s primary focus areas:

• Education and literacy;

• Food security and nutrition;

• Economic growth and development;

• Health and human services;

• Mentorship, internship and “school to work” initiatives; and

• Arts and culture

Applicants are only eligible for funding once in a 12-month period.

The Mount’s 2022 Summer Lecture Series Kicks Off on July 11

By
Berkshire County Daily News Education Events Tourism & Hospitality Travel and Tourism Work/Life Balance

LENOX — The Mount, Edith Wharton’s Home, announced its 2022 Summer Lecture Series line-up. Now in its 29th year, the Summer Lecture series brings leading biographers and historians to the Berkshires. This year’s series includes journalist and New York Times bestselling author Kati Marton, Pushcart prize-winning poet Ravi Shankar, and Syrian/Jordanian thought leader Luma Mufleh, among other notable speakers. 

Lectures will be held outdoors under an open-air tent on Mondays at 4 p.m. and Tuesdays at 11 a.m., beginning July 11 through August 30. To view the full line-up and purchase tickets, visit EdithWharton.org.

“We have a fascinating mix of narratives about historical figures and contemporary underrepresented voices in this year’s lineup,” said Patricia Pin, The Mount’s Public Program Director. “We are looking forward to welcoming our community back to The Mount for what promises to be an engaging season of meaningful storytelling.” 

  • July 11 and 12: Grace M. Cho, author of Tastes Like War; 
  • July 18 and 19: Victoria Kastner, author of Julia Morgan: An Intimate Biography of the Trailblazing Architect 
  • July 25 and 26: Luma Mufleh, author of Learning America: One Woman’s Fight for Educational Justice for Refugee Children.
  • August 1 and 2: Ravi Shankar, author of Correctional: A Memoir;
  • August 8 and 9: Susan Branson, author of Scientific Americans;
  • August 15 and 16: Chad Williams on “The Voice of W.E.B Du Bois”
  • August 22 and 23: Ann McCutchan, author of The Life She Wished to Live;
  • August 29 and 30: Kati Marton, author of Chancellor: The Remarkable Odyssey of Angela Merkel.

For more information, visit EdithWharton.org

EforAll Berkshire County Awards Prizes to Accelerator Companies

By
Daily News

Entrepreneurship for All (EforAll) Berkshire County awarded nearly $10,000 in prizes to the Spring 2022 Business Accelerator Cohort at a recent awards ceremony held on Zoom.

The celebration and gala began with remarks from state Rep. Tricia Farley-Bouvier, who emphasized the robust public-private partnership that supports EforAll’s regional efforts and lauded the efforts of the 12 businesses that completed the program.

The class speaker, Rachel Hailey of DEI Outdoors was chosen by her colleagues and shared many of the lessons of the program for future EforAll participants.

The awards were granted as follows:

  • Jenny Gitlitz of Berkshire Family Advocates received the Paula Buxbaum Award, established in honor of a member of the Fall 2021 cohort who died in a car crash in October 2021. The award is granted to an individual making a career pivot and incorporating a social mission into their business;
  • $1,000 to Rachel Hailey for DEI Outdoors;
  • $2,300 to Deirdre Horan (Great Barrington) of Dri Ocean Products;
  • $2,500 to Jackye Stoddard (Hudson, NY) for Hierba Buena Foods; and
  • $3,500 to Elizabeth Heller (Pittsfield) for The Kids Super Journal.

The virtual event was also simulcast on Pittsfield Community Television. The recording is available to view here:  https://youtu.be/yTeFMsVcB-4 

EforAll’s next accelerator class will begin in September; applications are due at www.eforall.org before August 25.

 

 

 

COVID Sparks a Surge in Entrepreneurship in the Berkshires

By
Berkshire County Special Coverage

Walking the Walk

Mindy Miraglia was inspired to launch Berkshire Camino by her treks in Northern Spain.

The COVID-19 pandemic has provided many individuals with the motivation, opportunity, and time to pursue their entrepreneurial dreams. That’s certainly been the case in the Berkshires, where new ventures launched, or set to be launched, include a new brewery, a guided-hikes venture, and a treasure-hunt concept that introduces consumers to area businesses.

Like most of those people who find themselves walking the Camino de Santiago — the pilgrim trail (actually, several different trails) that end at the Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela — Mindy Miraglia was at a crossroads in her life.

Indeed, after many years in advertising and market research, subsequent burnout, and some time working at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health that didn’t end well, she was trying to figure out what could — and should — come next for her.

So, like hundreds of thousands of people each year, she decided to walk the Camino, also known as the Way of St. James, to pause, reflect, and maybe, just maybe, find an answer to her question. And as she tells the story, the Camino — and, specifically, her experiences on the 250-mile trek across Northern Spain — became the answer.

Sort of. Let’s just say it’s a work or progress. Or a business in progress.

It’s called Berkshire Camino LLC, which specializes in guided hikes through the Berkshires, many of which take people from community to community and are thus patterned after what Miraglia experienced in Spain on her two treks on the Camino.

“If you want to get romantic about it … we felt that there was never going to be a better sign from God that it was time to make a change.”

But that was not the original plan. Instead, she wanted to create hostels — the lower-cost, dorm-like hotels that are an important part of the Camino experience — in the Berkshires and thus bring a different type of accommodation for tourists to that market. But reality, in the form of skyrocketing real-estate prices, as well as a lack of capital and few options for obtaining it, has kept that dream in check — at least for now.

But Miraglia, at the advice of mentors assigned to her by the nonprofit EforAll Berkshires, has pivoted and now leads a number of guided hikes within the Berkshires through a venture that is not yet profitable but showing some forms of promise.

Overall, she can find countless ways, and phrases, to compare the rugged challenge that is the Camino to that of starting and growing a business.

Mike Dell’Aquila and Sara Real

Mike Dell’Aquila and Sara Real found the inspiration, and the time, to launch Hot Plate Brewing during the first year of the pandemic.

“It’s a hero’s journey,” she said of the trek in Spain, but also entrepreneurship. “You put yourself onto that path, and you have to overcome challenges and see who you are.”

Miraglia is part of what many are calling a surge in entrepreneurship in the Berkshires, one fueled in part by the pandemic, which left many out of work and looking to start their own business. It left others wanting to leave the city and head for far more rural areas — and, again, start their own business. For still others, the pandemic triggered imaginative ideas for ways to get people out and about, and generate revenue while doing so.

Mike Dell’Aquila and his wife, Sara Real, don’t fit neatly into any of those categories, but in some ways, they encompass all three. They left their condo in Brooklyn for a home in Lenox in July, and are advancing plans to launch Hot Plate Brewing Co. in Pittsfield.

As with all breweries, there’s a story behind the name; in this case, the couple lost gas service in their condo for a period of time just as they were getting serious about transforming this from a hobby to a business. So they famously bought a hotplate so they could continue honing their craft.

There’s more to this story than the name, though, said Dell’Aquila, adding that the pandemic certainly helped provide the motivation — and the time — to take their dream, which has been, well, brewing since 2018, off the drawing board.

“If you want to get romantic about it … we felt that there was never going to be a better sign from God that it was time to make a change,” he told BusinessWest, adding that he and Real were both working day jobs, from home, during the pandemic. Motivated by this ‘sign’ from above, they used the extra hour and half they gained each day from not commuting, as well as Zoom technology, to advance their concept.

They are closing in on a location for their venture and plan to start brewing beer by early next year.

As for Liam Gorman, the pandemic certainly helped inspire his venture, CozQuest, which he bills as “the new way to explore the Berkshires.” It’s a local treasure hunt, as he called it, one that connects consumers and businesses “through their love of community and adventure.”

“The overall demand for services in the tourism and hospitality sector hasn’t changed a lot, and because of that, it’s created opportunities for entrepreneurs to make a run at whatever they wanted to do. We have seen a lot of that kind of activity.”

Using their phones, players solve a puzzle, follow a map, and find and scan a QR code to win a prize from a local business. If a player finds all the prizes, he or she can win some cash. German has created a number of these hunts, in cities and attractions such as Hancock Shaker Village and MASS MoCA, and says the business has developed a loyal following among both players and sponsoring businesses. His plan is to expand the concept and perhaps take it to other markets.

These entrepreneurs and many others are part of an emerging story in the Berkshires. It’s about people finding entrepreneurial energy during the pandemic — and finding ways to harness it.

 

It’s No Walk in the Park

As she goes about trying to grow her venture, Miraglia says there are times when she will actually tell herself that she’s “on the Camino.”

By that, she meant she’s on an arduous journey, one where you’re just trying to get to the next day and really don’t know what’s around the next bend.

“It’s hard,” she said, using that phrase to describe both the Camino and entrepreneurship, which has tested her in every way imaginable.

Indeed, while her concept has drawn interest from adventure seekers across the country and even other countries — not to mention a significant amount of press locally — there have been countless challenges to overcome. These include everything from the weather, which has canceled many hikes, to lingering anxiety about gathering in, or even walking in, large groups, to lingering anxiety about how to generate revenue in the winter months.

Liam Gorman, seen here with his children

Liam Gorman, seen here with his children, believes he’s found a scalable venture in CozQuest.

“I’ve had to refund 15% of my deposits so far because of the weather,” said Miraglia as she referenced a spring and summer of almost incessant rain, adding that these seasons have been challenging enough; winter is a matter that will be decided another day.

Meanwhile, Dell’Aquila, while obviously confident and enthusiastic about his venture, was quite candid about his leap from a steady paycheck to the uncertainty of entrepreneurship.

“It’s definitely terrifying,” he noted. “I vacillate from being super-excited to being super-scared.”

By all accounts, there are more people experiencing these mood swings in the Berkshires these days.

Deb Gallant, executive director of EforAll Berkshire, told BusinessWest that the agency, part of a larger, statewide network that also includes an office in Holyoke, staged its first accelerator program just before COVID-19 arrived in the winter of 2020; it had eight participating businesses. The agency then saw a considerable uptick in applications for the next few cohorts, at the height of COVID, and for all the reasons mentioned above.

“We were really able to spend the quality time needed to put together a business plan, to work on the financial forecast, and do all of that upfront work, so that you’re not just a home brewer with a dream.”

“A lot of people were unemployed, especially those in hospitality,” she explained, noting that many large employers in that sector, such as Canyon Ranch, Kripalu, and others, shut down or curtailed operations. “We had a huge uptick in applications for the next two cohorts.”

The number of applications declined somewhat for the upcoming fall cohort, which she attributes to improved stability at many of those businesses that had shut down partially or completely during the pandemic. But the agency will still have a large cohort, said Gallant, adding there is still a good amount of entrepreneurial activity in this region, which has been reinventing itself for the past 30 years from an economy dominated by manufacturing, and especially General Electric’s massive transformer complex in Pittsfield, to one that is far more diverse and driven in many ways by tourism, hospitality, and the arts.

Jonathan Butler, executive director of 1Berkshire, a multi-faceted economic-development agency, agreed.

From the early days of the pandemic, he noted, he could sense that, while COVID would bring a wide range of challenges to the region, it would also provide some opportunities for the Berkshires as well.

They have come in all forms, he went on, from professionals relocating to the area from urban centers, a migration certainly helped by the growing success of remote working and one that is prompting population growth in cities and towns that have needed such a surge, to an unparalleled explosion in the real-estate market, which has created opportunities and challenges of its own.

And, as noted, COVID has prompted a surge in entrepreneurship, said Butler, adding that it involves both new owners of businesses that failed during the pandemic — there were many, especially in the broad hospitality realm — and a wide range of new businesses as well, many of them fueled by an even greater interest in visiting the area and taking in many types of attractions.

“The overall demand for services in the tourism and hospitality sector hasn’t changed a lot, and because of that, it’s created opportunities for entrepreneurs to make a run at whatever they wanted to do,” he explained. “We have seen a lot of that kind of activity.”

 

Something’s Brewing

For Dell’Aquila, it wasn’t really a matter of whether he and Real would launch their brewery operation. The questions were when and where they would launch.

And COVID helped answer both, but especially the former, he said, adding that it provided the time and impetus to move ahead with their plans. “We were really able to spend the quality time needed to put together a business plan, to work on the financial forecast, and do all of that upfront work, so that you’re not just a home brewer with a dream.”

Now, he and Real are home brewers with firm plans and, hopefully, a location. They are finalizing commitments for investing in their venture from friends and family, exploring possible incentives from local and state sources, and meeting with architects to finalize blueprints for their operation. They also have a slot in the next accelerator cohort for EforAll Berkshire, during which they hope to gain both a better understanding of the local business landscape and garner more feedback and mentoring on their plans and their brand, which they believe will be a solid addition to the local craft-beer landscape.

He said he and Real will bring what he called a “culinary approach” to brewing, with such as offerings as a chamomile-infused blonde ale and a Jalapeno pale ale, in addition to more traditional stalwarts such as Belgian-style farmhouse beers, some classic American pale ales, and an IPA.

Dell’Aquila acknowledged that the Berkshires were already home to a number of solid craft-beer labels, but there is room for more — and more, in his view, creates opportunities for both himself and others.

Indeed, with Barrington Brewery in Great Barrington, Bright Ideas Brewing in North Adams, Shire Breu-Hous in Dalton, and others, the addition of Hot Plate in Pittsfield boosts the potential for what Dell’Aquila called a “beer trail” from the southern part of the county to the northern region.

“One of the things we found when we were really digging in is that there is a lot of excitement and desire for craft beer,” he explained. “And adding more options will only help; to me, density is a good thing.”

While Hot Plate is preparing to launch, CozQuest is looking to build on a solid first year and explore a number of possible growth opportunities, said Gorman, who brings a varied background to his venture. Originally in journalism, he moved to Los Angeles and ventured into television.

After relocating to the Berkshires five years ago in a search for a more stable environment in which to raise children, he became part-owner of the bar Thistle and Mirth and helped reverse its sagging fortunes. He sold his share just prior to COVID’s arrival in the region, and used some of that windfall to start CozQuest, which is in many ways inspired by geocaching, a type of global treasure hunt where seekers use GPS devices to find hidden caches.

“The engagement level has been pretty high; I like to call CozQuest a foot-traffic-building machine,” he told BusinessWest. “It brings people to places they might otherwise not have known about to discover and explore.”

German was a participant in the spring cohort of 2020, and said the experience of working with mentors and other local business owners gave him the confidence to move ahead with the concept, which is currently in what he calls phase 1, where he’s honing the concept and gauging its revenue potential.

The plan is to scale up in all ways, starting with the website, which he built himself. “It looks like someone’s first website, but … it works,” he said, adding that his ultimate goal is to take the concept to other markets.

As for Miraglia, her first 14 months in business have been a learning experience on many levels.

As noted earlier, she did a hard pivot, from hostels to guided hikes, thanks to input from mentors and what she called a “reckoning with reality” when it came to the costs and other challenges or making those hostels reality.

After pivoting and focusing on hikes, she did some proof-of-concept testing in the late summer of 2020, often giving away her product away as she did so. She found that there is promise, but likely more refinement of the business model as she gains more evidence concerning what will sell and generate profits.

Indeed, she’s learned there is considerable interest in private hikes — small groups and even one person going where they want to go and not necessarily on a pre-set course.

As she noted, there have been many challenges and hurdles for this venture. She started it too late to qualify for any PPP money, and has wound up bootstrapping the operation herself, drawing down a retirement fund to do so.

“As a for-profit venture, grant opportunities are scarce,” she said. “I joke that Joe Biden has invested in Berkshire Camino since I’ve invested the pandemic aid that I received as a citizen into the business. He’s welcome to come on a hike with us at no charge.

“My aim is to establish a solid baseline in 2021 that I can use to demonstrate to a lender or investor that this has viability,” she went on, adding that the business is not yet profitable and she is not drawing a salary. “I learned from walking the Camino de Santiago that the journey is long and you take one step at a time, stay present and flexible. Just like in business.”

 

The Finish Line

Miraglia didn’t finish the Camino on her second trek in 2019. She had completed roughly 250 of the 500 miles before she injured herself and was forced to eventually call a halt, pack up, and head home.

She remembers exactly where she had to call it quits, and has plans to go back to back there — 2024, when she turns 60, is the current goal — and finish the walk the Santiago de Compostela.

Between now and then? She has more immediate goals and dreams, especially to take the venture she started to stability and profitability. She is not at all sure she will get there — the road ahead is paved with question marks and uncertainty.

As it is for all entrepreneurs. There are more of them in the Berkshires these days, by many accounts. They’ve launched ventures that have been inspired by, accelerated by, or facilitated by the pandemic — which has provided the time and opportunity to reflect and, and in these cases, move a dream to reality.

 

George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]

Amid Challenges, Cultural Sites in the Berkshires Have Learned Key Lessons

By
Susan Wissler says visitorship is way up
Berkshire County

No Standing Still

Susan Wissler says visitorship is way up

Susan Wissler says visitorship is way up at the Mount — not just from 2020, but from pre-pandemic 2019.

It may not stack up to Edith Wharton’s best novels, but it’s a compelling story.

“We’ve had an incredibly good season, despite the challenge of staying in compliance with the latest CDC and local health recommendations regarding COVID,” said Susan Wissler, executive director of the Mount, Wharton’s former estate in Lenox that is now a hub for all kinds of arts, nature, and cultural programming.

In fact, Wissler said, this year’s visitorship has doubled that of 2020 — maybe not a striking statistic in itself, given the economic shutdown of that spring and a hesitancy among many people to leave their homes for much of the year. But this year’s figures are also 50% higher than they were in 2019.

Part of that success may be attributed to a decision last year to open up the property’s outdoor grounds and gardens for free. “We opened as a public park so people had a place to walk and enjoy beauty and nature in relative safety,” she noted. “We’ve got a pretty big space, and people really appreciated it.”

“We opened as a public park so people had a place to walk and enjoy beauty and nature in relative safety. We’ve got a pretty big space, and people really appreciated it.”

The house itself still requires admission, and Wissler worried people would take advantage of the free outdoor experience and leave. And maybe some did come with that plan — but many felt compelled to go inside, too. Thus, paid visitation topped the previous two years.

So did weddings, all of which were cancelled in 2020, many of them moved into this year. The Mount typically hosts about 12 weddings per year; it will welcome 26 between May and October.

Meanwhile, NightWood — an ethereal, immersive walking experience featuring original music, lighting, and sculptural elements — was a huge hit last winter, bringing in desperately needed revenue with limited attendance and timed tickets; the Mount will stage the attraction again later this year.

Still, the new focus on outdoor space — which included a lecture series under tents this summer — posed its own issues, particularly weeks when it rained and rained. “That has been a huge frustration for all culturals and restaurants, anyone focusing more attention outdoors,” Wissler said. “The weather was a punch in the stomach.”

MASS MoCA in North Adams also offers programming inside and outdoors, and found plenty of success with both in 2021. “June and July were actually our highest-attended months we’ve ever had — and that includes pre-COVID visitorship,” said Jenny Wright, the museum’s director of Communications.

“We had that brief moment after Memorial Day when we were able to lift restrictions — but we do have an indoor mask mandate in place since August 4 and require our staff to be vaccinated. But we’re very fortunate to have the luxury of lots of indoor and outdoor space on our side,” she noted, adding that, in addition to the museum’s wide corridors and spacious galleries making it easy to physically distance, MASS MoCA made good use of outdoor courtyard space this year to stage performances. “We’re very fortunate to have space on our side during this period.”

The museum’s robust artist-residency programs continued throughout the pandemic as well.

“When people are unable to come here, we can still get that story out through our digital programming, whether it’s visual or performing arts.”

“Even before we reinstated our performances, we were housing artists in residence to develop new work. That was the catalyst for us developing new digital programming. That was something we hadn’t done much of before,” Wright said, noting that the museum told artist stories with behind-the-scenes documentaries it then posted online as a way to keep the public connected even when they weren’t in the building. It’s also creating 360-degree virtual tours, starting with its famed Sol Lewitt exhibit, to post to the MASS MoCA website.

“Our mission is to make art … new art that has never existed before,” Wright noted. “When you come here and see that, it’s a powerful experience. But when people are unable to come here, we can still get that story out through our digital programming, whether it’s visual or performing arts.

“For us, it’s really thinking about ways to create multiple points of entry for people, not just the front door,” she went on. “That was something we hadn’t explored in too much depth before.”

Wissler said the Mount found similar success reaching new audiences virtually. “We were really reluctant to get into the pool of virtual programming, but COVID forced us to dive right in — and Zoom programming has been amazing.”

Specifically, events featuring guest authors have been a hit — and found a much broader audience than before. Now, an event that typically drew authors from the mid-Atlantic and New England can bring in guests from pretty much anywhere — and the potential audience has also expanded around the country and even around the world.

“That’s something we’ll continue as we move forward,” Wissler said. “We haven’t found a way to monetize it yet, but from a visitor standpoint, it’s a huge success.”

 

Dramatic Shifts

While many regional destinations and arts organizations shut down completely in 2020, Berkshire Theatre Group (BTG) turned in one of the year’s most notable success stories, creatively staging an outdoor, socially distanced run of Godspell in August in September — the only show featuring Equity stage actors in the entire country at the time.

Nick Paleologos, executive director, said planning for the 2021 season began in late 2020, and the general feeling as the calendar turned was that current health conditions weren’t going to change dramatically until late 2021 or even 2022.

“So we decided to build on what we learned in the summer of 2020, when we did Godspell outdoors. We planned for a modest but slightly more robust outdoor season on both our campuses, in Stockbridge and Pittsfield.”

In Stockbridge, that meant outdoor runs for The Importance of Being Earnest and a newer play, Nina Simone: Four Women, while in Pittsfield, the theater planned a community version of The Wizard of Oz, but with a slightly scaled-back supporting cast. The organization also scheduled a series of outdoor music performances.

“Then, quite suddenly, Gov. Baker decided to lift all restrictions on Memorial Day weekend, and that caught us a little off guard,” Paleologos said. “We had a planned a whole series of protocols, and now, all of a sudden, we were being told, ‘no problem, go back indoors, you don’t have to wear masks,’ all that.”

So the Stockbridge performances were shifted indoors, to the 120-seat Unicorn Theatre, while The Wizard of Oz in Pittsfield remained outdoors, under tents. While it didn’t have to mandate masks, the Unicorn did require them, even though it had recently upgraded its HVAC system.

“We decided on an abundance of caution — we would require masks and suffer any pushback there might be,” Paleologos went on. “But we encountered very little pushback. People were quite happy, even with the protocols, to wear masks for the entire indoor production. We had hardly any complaints. I think they were grateful to be back inside, in an air-conditioned space, instead of outdoors in Stockbridge during the summer.”

Meanwhile, in Pittsfield, attendees didn’t have to wear masks under the tents if they chose not to, and most didn’t.

But another “curveball,” as Paleologos called it, would follow — and, unlike Baker’s decision in May, it wasn’t a positive one. As the Delta variant of COVID-19 emerged and dramatically increased infection rates in a state where COVID had been largely under control, BTG had a decision to make. It was headed into the Nina Simone part of the season and opted to keep that show indoors — but require proof of vaccination for entry.

“Again, we braced outselves for a backlash which never came,” he said, adding that the theater did have to turn away a few people who did not carry that proof with them, even though they claimed to be vaccinated. But in most cases, those patrons requested a credit for a future performance rather than their money back, and other patrons thanked Paleologos for holding fast to the policy, he noted.

“They said the only reason they were there was because of the protocol. I think we’ve gotten to a stage where the issue of concern over spreading the virus has become almost a reflective action; I think people are kind of acclimated to that.”

 

Places in the Heart

The winter-season holiday show at BTG’s Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield will be held indoors, with masks and vaccination required, as well as distancing by placing an empty seat between seated parties.

In other words, the show goes on at this company that has learned not only how to pivot, but that its audience is willing to pivot right along with it.

Paleologos said the various shifts this year have not only made the organization more flexible, but have shown him that the public is willing to adapt as well — and that bodes well for any future ‘curveballs.’

“It’s been a real learning experience for us. As we look ahead, we’ve become more nimble with what we do and how we do it.”

It’s just one example of how people are seeking meaningful experiences right now and are, for the most part, accepting of whatever protocols are required to engage in them.

“I think people came out of 2020 feeling starved and lonely,” Wissler said. “They’re thinking about the Mount as a destination — a nice place to meet with friends and socialize. I think people are coming for many reasons other than tourism — it’s a great place to keep up and enjoy personal relationships.”

Wright agreed that the pandemic has driven home the importance of what destinations like MASS MoCA offer.

“After everything that’s happened over the past 18 months,” she said, “it really underscores the importance of the arts and cultural destinations during these difficult times — particularly contemporary art, which is not just reflections of the moment we’re in, but can present us with a view of what’s possible. And I think people really need that right now.”

 

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Lenox Goes All Outdoors to Save Tourism Season

By Contributor
Jennifer Nacht
Community Spotlight

Community Spotlight

By Mark Morris

Jennifer Nacht

Jennifer Nacht says a heavy focus on outdoor experiences last year helped Lenox weather the economic impact of the pandemic.

For the past year, the town of Lenox showed what happens when uncertainty meets a can-do attitude.

Despite the formidable challenges of COVID-19, Town Manager Christopher Ketchen said, Lenox residents and businesses have been remarkably resilient.

“Throughout the pandemic, our residents demonstrated how much they love our town,” Ketchen said. “They make their homes here, and our businesses are invested in their customers and their community.”

What began as a normal year of planning events at the Lenox Chamber of Commerce was suddenly derailed in March. Once they realized the pandemic was going to last more than a couple months, Executive Director Jennifer Nacht said, chamber members and town officials quickly met to put together a plan to salvage at least some activity for Lenox.

“We went through each season and developed a general outline of things we could do,” Nacht said. “Even though we did not know what the year was going to look like, we were able to turn around some great activities.”

Like many towns, Lenox encouraged restaurants to offer tented outdoor dining and allowed them to expand outdoor seating into public parking spaces. The town also added covered dining terraces in public spaces around town.

“The select board lifted alcohol restrictions so people could bring a bottle of wine to Lilac Park, for example, where we had set up a dining terrace,” Nacht said.

“You couldn’t get a parking place at the trailheads in town. Even obscure trailheads that were once known only to a handful of locals were crowded.”

Some developments last spring were rough. In May, the town learned that, due to COVID-19 concerns, Tanglewood had canceled its 2020 season. For some perspective on the importance of Lenox’s largest summer attraction, a Williams College study in 2017 estimated the economic impact of Tanglewood to Berkshire County and Western Mass. at nearly $103 million annually.

Because they didn’t know what to expect when Tanglewood called off its season, Nacht said everyone concentrated their efforts on making Lenox a welcome and inviting place. Outdoor dining was a first step that helped to establish a more vibrant atmosphere, and it inspired further activities.

For example, the Lenox Cultural District and the chamber organized Lenox Loves Music, an initiative that featured live music performed at the Church Street Dining Terrace for seven straight Sundays in August and September. It was a hit.

“Because we were able to turn on a dime and get everything set up, we were able to make the outside experience fun,” Nacht said. “As a result, we were better able to weather the financial impact of the pandemic.”

 

Hit the Road

If entry points to walking and biking trails are any indication, Ketchen said the pandemic helped many people discover the town’s outdoor attractions for the first time. “You couldn’t get a parking place at the trailheads in town. Even obscure trailheads that were once known only to a handful of locals were crowded.”

For more than 40 years, Lenox has held Apple Squeeze, a harvest celebration that takes over much of the downtown area with 150 food and craft vendors. The event was canceled for 2020 because of concerns that, even with restrictions, too many people would gather, leading to unsafe crowd sizes.

Lenox Loves Music

Lenox Loves Music was a hit during a time when live music was in short supply.

As an alternative, the chamber and American Arts Marketing developed the Lenox Art Walk and scheduled it for the late-September weekend when the Apple Squeeze would have taken place. Forty artists set up in different areas around town in ‘artist villages,’ which were arranged so no more than 50 people could be in one area at a time. Foot-traffic flow was also designed to keep people moving through the exhibits.

Nacht said the Art Walk received great feedback, and the artists involved loved exhibiting their work. The event also led to phone calls from event organizers from several Eastern Mass. towns who wanted to know how to stage a similar event.

The old adage about necessity being the mother of invention definitely has proven true for Lenox. “We just tried some different things that we probably would have never attempted, or done so quickly, had it not been for the pandemic,” Nacht said.

In the beginning of the summer, traffic in town was about half of what it would be during a normal season. As the weather became warmer and travel restrictions eased around the state, both traffic and business picked up.

“We began seeing more day trippers, many from the Boston area who had never been out our way,” Nacht said, adding that good weather in the summer and fall extended the outdoor season nearly to Thanksgiving.

While lodging in the area was restricted by the number of rooms that could be offered, she noted, from September through November, inn and hotel rooms were booked to the capacity they were allowed.

As the owner of the Scoop, a Lenox ice-cream store, Nacht was one of many business owners forced to move customer interactions outdoors. She found a fun way to adjust.

“We did it sort of Cape Cod style, where people order at one window and pick up their ice cream at a second window,” she explained, adding that, while 2020 was not as successful as previous years, the Scoop still saw steady business throughout its season. Even non-food stores, inspired by all the outdoor activity, set up tents in front of their shops to add to the vitality.

In a normal year, Lenox Winterland is a tradition to kick off the holiday season that features a tree-lighting ceremony and Santa Claus meeting with children. In this very-not-normal year, Winterland was forced to cancel.

Instead of losing their holiday spirit, however, the Cultural District and chamber presented a creative alternative. Local businesses and artists teamed up to decorate 30 Christmas trees, which were displayed in a tree walk through town. Nacht said the inaugural Holiday Tree Walk was so well-received, plans are in the works to expand and make it an annual event.

“Despite the obstacles of COVID, we had a decent tourism business,” she said. “We’ll continue to offer more fun events to keep the vibrancy of the town going and improving.”

 

Passing the Test

Lenox has always been proud of its cultural amenities, such as Tanglewood, Edith Wharton’s house at the Mount, Shakespeare and Co., and others. As those were scaled back, Ketchen said, the town’s outdoor amenities gained exposure they might not have otherwise.

“Once we are allowed to enjoy our cultural institutions to their fullest again, people will also have more awareness of all the recreational opportunities Lenox has,” he told BusinessWest. “That’s a big positive for us as we look to the future.”

While Nacht hopes to see Tanglewood up and running, at least in some form, in 2021, she admits the past year was quite the learning experience. “We are so dependent on Tanglewood, it was an interesting test to see what we could do without Tanglewood there.”

Despite the challenges put on municipal budgets, Ketchen said Lenox was able to pursue several modest infrastructure projects in 2020, such as maintaining roads and public-utility infrastructure. “When folks are ready to come to Lenox for the recreation and the culture, the public utilities and infrastructure will be waiting for them.”

“We began seeing more day trippers, many from the Boston area who had never been out our way.”

In short, Lenox is not only weathering the COVID-19 storm, it’s finding ways to come out stronger on the other side. Indeed, when this community, which depends on cultural tourism, was challenged to find creative solutions to stay afloat, it answered the call. Nacht credited Lenox businesses for making quick and significant adjustments in their operations.

“It was really inspiring to see our businesses make the best out of a not-so-great situation,” she said. “It says a lot about their commitment to our town.”

Undaunted by the near future, Nacht noted several businesses are planning for April openings. And she looks forward to the new year knowing that Lenox can present all the outdoor events that worked well in 2020.

“With knowledge, you just learn to do things better, and we learned a lot last year,” she added. “Once the tulips come out, that’s when we start to see everything come alive again.”

Visitor Economy Takes a Hit in the Berkshires

By
Berkshire Theatre Group managed to present a musical in August
Berkshire County

Culture Shock

Berkshire Theatre Group managed to present a musical in August

It took plenty of creativity — in the set design and elsewhere — but Berkshire Theatre Group managed to present a musical in August when no one else could.

For the folks at Berkshire Theatre Group, things were going according to plan.

A three-year sustainability plan, to be specific, developed back in 2018, said Nick Paleologos, the organization’s executive director.

“We had a checklist of things we needed to do in addition to putting on a decent artistic season in 2019, and we hit a lot of goals. As we hit 2020, we had just two or three outstanding boxes left unchecked, when all of a sudden, in mid-March, our world was turned upside down.”

Versions of that story have been told countless times not only in Massachusetts, but around the country and the world. But for the performing arts, it’s been a particularly tough stretch.

“Starting around St. Patrick’s Day, all we were doing was canceling shows and returning money; we were really in a kind of freefall,” Paleologos continued. “What initially saved us in the short term, and bought us time to figure out how to reimagine our 2020 season, was the Paycheck Protection Program. That was a lifeline, and it accomplished exactly what it was supposed to do — it allowed us to stay in business for those crucial eight weeks in the spring.”

The 2020 season — the BTG was planning eight shows in its three indoor spaces in Stockbridge and Pittsfield — was certainly about to change. “All of a sudden, we had no idea whether we’d be allowed to perform at all,” he noted.

The journey that followed, culminating in live, outdoor performances of Godspell in August and September (more on that later), was a remarkable one, but it’s hardly the robust schedule the venerable company normally puts on. Meanwhile, performing-arts destinations like Jacob’s Pillow and Tanglewood canceled their live slates completely.

It’s a story that affects more than arts patrons; it impacts no less than the entire Berkshires economy, which is so intertwined with, and dependent on, culture and tourism.

Nick Paleologos

Nick Paleologos

“We hit 2020, we had just two or three outstanding boxes left unchecked, when all of a sudden, in mid-March, our world was turned upside down.”

“The visitor economy is definitely a backbone sector for us; it supports a tremendous amount of dollars in the region,” said Jonathan Butler, president and CEO of 1Berkshire, the multi-faceted agency that focuses on tourism, economic development, and business retention in Massachusetts’ westernmost county.

In fact, he noted, visitor dollars spent in the region over the years are approaching the $1 billion mark — and the presence of cultural attractions and other tourist destinations, from restaurants to ski resorts, is a major quality-of-life factor in business owners wanting to set up shop here.

“We were pretty heavily involved in the state’s reopening process — we played a key role in getting some of the museums open and fleshing out guidelines for hotels and restaurants,” Butler told BusinessWest, while 1Berkshire’s website has become an oft-updated clearinghouse of information on the region and its public-health response to COVID-19.

Due to belt-tightening everywhere, including among its strategic partners, 1Berkshire hasn’t operated with the same marketing budget it normally would. “But we have been able to raise enough money to do some things, and we’ve pivoted to a vision of the Berkshires that talks a lot about outdoor recreation, and about our museums and hotel properties that have been able to open.

“We’re talking about the Berkshires as an escape from the city,” he went on. “We’ve been trying to tell the story of the Berkshires as a place people can escape to and enjoy the outdoors. And, honestly, we’re feeling better than we were two or three months ago.”

A few success stories will do that, but stakeholders in the region are certainly hoping 2021 looks a lot different than 2020.

Out and About

Take, for example, Bousquet Mountain, which recently hired a new general manager and announced a series of renovations, including a new summit-to-base triple chairlift and a revamped snow-making system with more than 25 new snow guns, as well as new grooming equipment and a new, more accessible beginner area.

In addition, Pittsfield native and two-time Olympian Krista Schmidinger will partner with Bousquet to further the site’s youth programming, contributing to the Race Club and SnowSports School and assisting with race and school-program design, instruction, and one-on-one opportunities for young skiers. All this speaks to a resort expecting a busy season, even in the midst of COVID-19.

As for Berkshire Theatre Group, it had to fight to get a live production staged — a fight marked by creativity, not animosity. In short, the Actors Equity Assoc. wasn’t allowing any of its 59,000 unionized members to work in 2020 unless the safety of the actors could be assured.

Jonathan Butler

Jonathan Butler

“We’re talking about the Berkshires as an escape from the city. We’ve been trying to tell the story of the Berkshires as a place people can escape to and enjoy the outdoors.”

“We’re an Equity company, so that puts a little crimp in our plans,” Paleologos said. To stage Godspell, Artistic Director and CEO Kate Maguire developed a 60-page manual with detailed safety protocols, including quarantining, physical distancing, and regular coronavirus testing for actors. The actors were to be kept six feet apart at all times — 10 feet when singing — with this spacing and plexiglass dividers incorporated into the set design itself.

Maguire was denied at first, “but she was relentless,” Paleologos said. “She wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

When the company and the union finally struck a deal, BTG became the only company in the entire country performing or rehearsing a musical — a major success, he noted, considering that, just weeks earlier, no one knew whether they’d have a live theater season at all, and most companies nationwide didn’t attempt one, moving instead to virtual performances only.

Meanwhile, many patrons of canceled BTG shows exchanged their tickets for future credits or donated the tickets back as contributions, as a show of support for a company — and an industry — so important to locals.

“This is not a sustainable model going forward, performing under a tent for 50 people,” Paleologos said. “But it was a miraculous success story that was totally unexpected. Our goal was just to be a beacon of hope in an otherwise dismal moment in Berkshire County.”

It’s not the only such beacon.

“It’s too soon to gauge anything in the quantitative sense, but from what I’ve heard anecdotally, in conversations with different sectors in the visitor economy, those that have reopened have done all right,” Butler said. “A lot have changed their model — some hotels have a three-night minimum because of the cleaning expenses of turning over a room, and some businesses are closed a day or two a week to focus on cleaning and sanitizing.”

Last week, Main Street Hospitality Group, which operates several hotels in the region, announced the hiring of a COVID compliance officer, or CCO, who makes monthly visits to each hotel for routine inspections and engagement with staff and leadership. A board-certified physician, the officer strictly adheres to mandates from the state and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and stays informed on the latest public-health advancements in order to advise on any necessary changes to the hotels’ protocols and procedures.

“In addition to several months of strategic planning that led to our initial creation of safeguards, it is equally important to continue evaluating our health and safety practices with the CCO’s help and expertise,” said Sarah Eustis, Main Street’s CEO. “A trusted editor was needed to process the ever-changing breadth of information out there.”

Meanwhile, the hotel group has also partnered with Blue Canary, a company that trains hotels in hospital-level cleaning methods and conducts regular check-ins. Main Street’s housekeeping leaders participated in three days of intensive sessions that focused on best practices and heightened awareness. Attendants were trained in techniques that include longer cleaning times, stronger disinfectants, new cleaning tools, and identifying critical, high-touch areas that require the most attention to ensure guest health and safety.

“This new reality has impacted our housekeeping teams in a huge way,” Eustis said. “Main Street Hospitality is committed to staying at the forefront of this.”

Restaurants have had barriers to overcome as well, Butler said, especially those that depend on visitor traffic at other area attractions. “Some have been able to pivot and focus on a delivery and takeout model, while others haven’t made the transition as seamlessly, and many don’t have the square footage inside to sit too many, and if they’re not able to adapt some outdoor seats, it can be challenging.”

The soon-to-arrive colder weather will force many eateries to become more creative until the state lifts restrictions on indoor capacity — and patrons feel safe enough to eat indoors.

“We certainly understand some businesses will have to make more permanent decisions about their fate. And some businesses, unfortunately, won’t make it to the other side of this,” Butler said. “But the outdoor recreation scene has been very busy — it’s flourishing this summer, and that will continue into the fall.”

Lessons Learned

Paleologos told BusinessWest that banks did a good job easing loan terms for cultural organizations and other nonprofits in the spring, and argues that the next step would be a permanent shift in that direction.

Writing this month in Berkshire Trade & Commerce, he cited a study in Berkshire Blueprint 2.0, an economic-development plan for Berkshire County, showing that jobs in the creative industry grew at a faster pace than in any of the other sectors examined.

“In other words, cultural nonprofits are absolutely central to the Berkshire brand,” he wrote. “The profitability of other commercial industries depends heavily on the success of this county’s theatres, museums, music, and dance companies. Creating new and innovative financial products that contribute to the long-term sustainability of the nonprofit sector must become a top priority for local banks. As an example, sufficiently collateralized operating loans to nonprofits must be offered at the most favorable rates — not the least.”

Meanwhile, Butler added, bringing visitor traffic back to 2019 levels will depend largely on people’s confidence regarding safety, and the public-health metrics on that front have been very good in the Berkshires. “We’re optimistic that will continue and we’ll come out in a stronger place at the end of this.”

That said, there certainly has been a visitor footprint in the Berkshires this year, he went on.

“We won’t have hard data until 2021, and I’m certain it’s going to be down — we don’t have a lot of the key economic drivers, like Jacob’s Pillow and Tanglewood. But on the plus side, we’ve seen a lot of visitation from Eastern Mass.; they see us as the rural side of the state. We’ve had a lot of visitors from Connecticut and New York. Second homeowners have been living here since March, making their Berkshire residence more permanent during the pandemic. All those dollars circulate back into the local economy, which is a good thing.”

Any forward momentum is welcome, Paleologos added. But so much still remains in flux.

“We can’t guarantee, by the time we get to next summer, we’ll be in a situation where we’ll be able to have shows indoors again,” he said. “The good news is, having had this experience, being able to find a way to do it outdoors, maybe we could incorporate a hybrid model, under tents and indoors. A lot is up in the air at this point, depending on how fast a reliable vaccine comes on the market and how much public confidence there is at its safety and efficacy.”

He noted that the theater business goes back to an amphitheater cut into the hillside at the Parthenon 2,500 years ago — and likely before that.

“From then up to now, the bedrock of our business is people coming together in a single place to have a shared experience and to learn a little bit about what it is to be a human being,” he said. “That’s what we do.”

That’s what the Berkshires do, too, bringing people together every year for an array of activities, many of which have been curtailed in this year of COVID-19.

But the show will go on, eventually — with or without plexiglass.

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Historic Properties Take Center Stage in Lenox

By
Community Spotlight

Community Spotlight

A $50 million renovation will transform Elm Court, on the Stockbridge line, into a new resort.

Historic properties are getting a second act in Lenox these days.

Take the $60 million expansion and renovation at the former Cranwell Spa & Golf Resort. The Miraval Group, a subsidiary of Hyatt Hotels, purchased the property in 2016 for $22 million and has transformed it into a high-end wellness resort, called Miraval Berkshires Resort & Spa, featuring 102 guest rooms and suites, and a luxury, 46-room hotel, Wyndhurst Manor & Club.

Set to open in May, the complex known as Miraval Berkshires is the third Miraval property nationwide, following its flagship in Tucson, Ariz. — named among the top 20 destination spas in the world last year by Condé Nast Traveler readers — and a second location in Austin, Texas, which opened last year. Hyatt acquired Miraval in 2017, and Wyndhurst Manor & Club is part of Hyatt’s Destination Hotels brand.

The 29,000-square-foot spa in Lenox “was conceived to excite all five senses and encourage mindfulness and introspection,” according to the company, and will include 28 treatment rooms, an indoor/outdoor lounge pool, separate relaxation rooms for women and men, a salon, a sauna, a steam room, a retail boutique, and a courtyard that evokes “a sense of harmony with nature.”

The neighboring Wyndhurst Manor & Club, a renovated Tudor-style mansion built in 1894, will offer a more traditional hotel experience, but guests there can purchase day packages for Miraval.

“We are excited to continue the Miraval brand’s expansion with the upcoming opening of Miraval Berkshires, as well as to welcome Wyndhurst Manor & Club to the Hyatt family,” said Susan Santiago, senior vice president of Miraval Resorts, in a release. “These two properties will offer distinct and memorable travel experiences, and we look forward to inspiring once-in-a-lifetime, transformative experiences for all guests who visit our Miraval and Wyndhurst resorts in the heart of the Berkshires.”

Then there’s the Elm Court estate on the Stockbridge-Lenox line, constructed in 1886 as a summer cottage for William Douglas Stone and Emily Vanderbilt. It completed a series of renovations in 1919 and evolved into an inn in the ’40s and ’50s, hosting dinners, events, and overnight accommodations. It was eventually placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

These days, Travaasa Berkshire County is working on a $50 million renovation of the property to develop a new resort there, featuring 112 rooms, including 16 existing suites in the Gilded Age mansion. After a series of starts and stops, including a holdup in land court in Lenox and a pause for infrastructure improvements to the roadway and water and sewer lines, the project is now moving forward.

“Travaasa Berkshire County’s plan preserves and protects a beloved historic property, respects community character, conserves open space, and contributes to the hospitality culture of the region,” the project website notes. “A tasteful, responsible commercial use of this property by a financially healthy organization will revive a dormant estate, create living-wage hospitality jobs at all skill levels, and maintain the property on town tax rolls.”

Even the Mount, Edith Wharton’s English manor-style home during the early part of the 20th century, is making news these days. Her classic novel The Age of Innocence is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, and to mark the occasion, the Manor is displaying Wharton’s personal copy of the book.

“We have many, many of her works that either have bookplates or her signature — or both, as with this copy — and so, to finally have her own copy of The Age Of Innocence join this collection of her work, it’s amazing. It’s incredible,” Nynke Dorhout, the Mount’s librarian, told Northeast Public Radio recently.

Looking Ahead

Lenox is much more than its historical properties, of course. It’s also long been renowned for its cultural and recreational attractions, from Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, to Shakespeare & Co., to the town’s collection of rustic inns and bed and breakfasts.

But the business community has seen new energy in recent years as well, with projects like a Courtyard by Marriott that opened in 2017 and features 92 rooms with panoramic views, an indoor pool, a large patio with firepits, a restaurant, and a 12,000-square-foot event space; the relocation of Morrison’s Home Improvement Specialists Inc. from Pittsfield and its adaptive reuse of a blighted building that had been vacant for 10 years; an apartment conversion at the Walker Street Residences by the Allegrone Companies; and the construction of Allegrone’s headquarters and co-working office space using green design and technology in a building on Route 7.

Lenox at a glance

Year Incorporated: 1767
Population: 5,205
Area: 21.7 square miles
County: Berkshire
Residential Tax Rate: $12.10
Commercial Tax Rate: $14.78
Median Household Income: $85,581
Median Family Income: $111,413
Type of Government: Board of Selectmen, Open Town Meeting
Largest Employers: Canyon Ranch, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Kimball Farms
* Latest information available

To address an aging population, town officials created a first-time-homebuyers program in 2016 in partnership with four banks that offers up to $10,000 in down payments to qualified applicants. They also changed zoning requirements to make it easier to build new apartments and condominiums or convert older housing stock into appealing residences, as well as adopting a Complete Streets policy that will make the town eligible for state funds to improve connectivity for pedestrians and bicyclists.

Meanwhile, to encourage companies to move to Lenox or expand, town officials have been focused on a five-year open-space plan that was adopted several years ago. In addition, the Berkshire Natural Resources Council, the regional land trust, has been working to develop a regional trail network with a long section passing through Lenox.

Add it all up, and this town of just over 5,000 is looking decidely to the future, while continuing to celebrate and restore its rich past.

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Stockbridge Boasts Local Flair, Year-round Activity

By Kayla Ebner
Community Spotlight

Community Spotlight

Margaret Kerswill (left) and Laureen Vizza in front of their Main Street shop, Mutability in Motion.

When Margaret Kerswill talks about her favorite part of the town of Stockbridge, she doesn’t mention a restaurant or the relatively low property-tax rate — she talks about the positive vibe and sense of community in town.

Although Kerswill’s favorite local shop is undoubtably Mutability in Motion, a store she owns with wife Laureen Vizza that sells crafts from more than 50 artisans in the U.S., the first thing she mentioned was the culture of the town.

“That’s the absolute joy of Stockbridge itself,” she said. “You see it in every aspect of Stockbridge, whether you’re just out and about for your daily activities like going to the post office. Doing those normal, daily things, you bump into people all over the place.”

And Kerswill experiences this sense of community in more ways than one. As president of the Stockbridge Chamber of Commerce, she regularly attends meetings and finds that several town residents show up consistently, contradicting the typical stereotype for chambers of commerce.

“It’s a great force in the town,” she said. “The more members we have, the more feedback we get, and the more people who can take part in town meetings. It gives us a bigger voice, and it helps us when we come at this as a collective rather than trying to do all the same things, but as individuals.”

She joined the chamber soon after opening her business in town as an opportunity to be a part of a broader marketing reach, hoping to create relationships with other local businesses in town.

“The chamber has a much broader marketing reach than I might as an individual business,” Kerswill told BusinessWest. “Because of that much broader marketing reach, when the businesses come together and support the chamber, it can reach even further because those member dollars increase our marketing budget and increase our ability to interact with the town.”

When thinking of a small town that relies on tourism to support its economy, one might assume it turns into a ghost town during the winter months. But this is not the case for Stockbridge. In fact, this close-knit town provides plenty of museums, historic sites, and other activities for those who live there and visitors alike, and most don’t close down during the offseason. While summer and spring typically see the most tourism, Stockbridge still has plenty to offer during the other months of the year.

“We are a town that’s open all year long; nobody closes seasonally,” said Kerswill. “All of our shops are independently operated, and they’re all mom-and-pop shops. Everybody carries something you need; we try not to overlap what we sell. We all have different missions.”

Year-round Fun

And these missions all provide different forms of entertainment, 365 days a year.

Barbara Zanetti, executive director of the Stockbridge Chamber of Commerce, noted that, while Stockbridge currently relies on tourism, the chamber is constantly looking for ways to grow the town and slowly move away from that necessity.

“We are a small community with just under 2,000 residents, but we have so much to offer as far as culture,” she said.

Along Main Street alone, one can find the Stockbridge Library, banks and real-estate offices, the Red Lion Inn, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, the Austen Riggs Center, the Mission House Museum, and many more.

Stockbridge at a glance

Year Incorporated: 1739
Population: 1,947
Area: 23.7 square miles
County: Berkshire
Residential Tax Rate: $10.13
Commercial Tax Rate: $10.13
Median Household Income: $48,571
Median Family Income: $59,556
Type of government: Town Administrator; Open Town Meeting
Largest Employers: Austen Riggs Center; Tanglewood; Red Lion Inn
* Latest information available

Among the most popular is the Norman Rockwell Museum, which celebrates 50 years of exhibits this year. The museum holds the world’s largest and most significant collection of Rockwell art, and provides educational opportunities for those who are interested in learning more about the universal messages of humanity and kindness portrayed in his work.

Another popular destination is Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and one of the world’s most beloved music festivals. The 2019 Tanglewood season included everything from performances by the Boston Symphony Orchestra to showcases for up-and-coming artists.

During the warmer months, outdoor activities abound, Kerswill noted, and suggested visitors take a moment to explore nature in and around Stockbridge.

“Bring your kayak up here, get out on the water, and just let your body de-stress for a couple of hours,” she said. “And then take in the surroundings.”

The natural resources, hiking, and beauty of the countryside are a few things that Zanetti says consistently keep people coming to the area, in addition to the arts and cultural aspects that draw a steady flow of visitors.

And though some activities may slow down during the offseason, Kerswill said few close during the colder months. “There’s just this amazing bit of culture that happens. Whether you live here or whether you’re visiting, you will find something regardless of the time of year.”

Best of Both Worlds

While Stockbridge has the feel of being in the countryside, Kerswill says anything a person could need is only a short drive away.

“We like the small-town New England feel, but you’re also not too far from all the conveniences you need,” she said. “It’s like this illusion of living in the country, but you’re surrounded by everything you need, so nothing is really inconvenient.”

All it takes, she said, is a little bit of research to find a plethora of activities to explore in town.

“I think, unless people really get to know the town, they don’t really realize just how much there is here,” she said. “It’s the best of both worlds, for sure.”

Kayla Ebner can be reached at [email protected]

Massachusetts Renaissance Faire

By

CUMMINGTON – This summer, enter the realm between worlds for a weekend full of fairies, fantasy, and fun.
The Massachusetts Renaissance Faire is coming to the Cummington Fairgrounds for its third season July 26-27 and Aug. 3-4.
The festival promises to transport patrons from the midsummer Berkshires into a magical realm of the past.
With all-day entertainment across five stages, there is never a dull moment. Guests will cheer for their favorite knight at the joust, gasp as ladies dance with fire, laugh with the fairies, be amazed by the magic and enjoy the sweet sounds of Renaissance music.
There are plenty of activities for children and adults to create memories together. They may test their strength against a real knight, listen to stories from a vegetarian zombie, or learn how to write with a quill. Patrons may want to try their hand shooting an ancient missile weapon with sponge ammo, practice their fencing skills with foam swords, or shoot a real bow and arrow.
Guests may visit an encampment from the end of the Hundred Years War, watch a blacksmith turn iron into nails, and cheer for armored knights as they wail on each other with swords.
They may also shop over 50 mystical vendors, discover handmade goods, and meet local artisans.
Whether they be a fearsome knight, a flighty fairy or a scurvy pirate, patrons are invited to show off their best costumes, or buy new pieces from the many talented vendors. Although the many costumed characters make the faire come alive, many guests visit in their 21st-century garb.

MASS MoCA Continues to Expand and Contribute to the Big Picture in the Berkshires

By
An aerial shot of the sprawling, 26-building campus of MASS MoCA.
Berkshire County

Creating Impact

An aerial shot of the sprawling, 26-building campus of MASS MoCA.

An aerial shot of the sprawling, 26-building campus of MASS MoCA.

Anyone who hasn’t been to the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in the past decade might be surprised at how different it is from its early days. From a near-doubling of art space to a growing array of long-term exhibits to a robust music, theater, and festival business, MASS MoCA has become a true driver of Berkshire County’s creative economy — and that’s by design.

Jodi Joseph understands the challenges of drawing visitors to a museum in — well, it’s not the middle of nowhere, exactly, but it’s also a far cry from Boston or Manhattan.

“We have 13,000 residents in town. We bring over 200,000 people to the galleries every year. That’s a hard thing to do,” said Joseph, director of Communications at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, or MASS MoCA, in North Adams.

But it’s an important thing, she added — not just for the museum, but for the entire region’s creative economy.

“People from 75 miles or more from here know this is a place to see art. Within 75 miles, more people know us as a place to see music and performing arts,” she told BusinessWest during a recent visit. “We are finding more ways to draw connections between the performing and visual arts — to let those visual-arts people know we have this dynamic performing-arts program year-round, and get our performing-arts audience into the galleries to see everything here.”

That’s because more time spent here means more money spent in the northwestern corner of the state.

“Overnight visitors spend six times as much money as day visitors,” Joseph went on. “Part of our economic-development agenda is getting people to understand there’s so much to do at MASS MoCA, and we’re just one of several institutions up here. So if you want to come see us and the Clark [in nearby Williamstown], you’re going to have to spend a night, maybe two nights, to get it all in. Every admission here is good for two days. So stay awhile — there’s so much to see.”

Jodi Joseph, director of Communications at the museum.

Jodi Joseph, director of Communications at the museum.

Much more, in fact, than when the museum opened 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago, for that matter. Growth has been a constant in MASS MoCA’s second decade, with the addition of a robust performing-arts and festival business and a massive expansion of floor space to accommodate something unheard of in the early years: permanent exhibits.

Much credit for the former goes to the Chicago-based rock band Wilco, which, a decade ago, became enamored of Western Mass. and saw it as a place to establish a residency and work on side projects. They couldn’t make a connection with Tanglewood work, but when they visited MASS MoCA, they knew they had something. In 2010, the museum launched Wilco’s first-ever Solid Sound festival, a celebration of music and art now held every other summer.

“Thus began MASS MoCA’s foray into a pretty serious concert-festival business,” Joseph said. “It opened the idea of MASS MoCA, this campus, being a destination for music. It was such an exceptional marriage — the fanbase their music attracts was our target audience. There are many other bands we could say that about, but certainly Wilco is in the top 10.”

Today, MASS MoCA presents more than 75 performances year-round, including contemporary dance, alternative cabaret, world-music dance parties, indie rock, outdoor silent films with live music, documentaries, avant-garde theater, and an annual bluegrass festival known as Fresh Grass.

But the museum’s calling card is still modern art — in particular, large-scale, immersive ‘installation art’ that would be difficult to house in conventional museums. The unconventional works form an intriguing counterpoint to the century-old, high-ceilinged mill buildings that house them, which have retained their raw, industrial character over the years, with plenty of exposed brick, ductwork, and concrete floors.

Joseph said visitors appreciate the palpable sense of history they offer — even as MASS MoCA hurtles into its third decade of challenging the status quo.

Maker Space

The 16 acres of the MASS MoCA’s campus — 26 buildings occupying nearly one-third of the city’s downtown business district — form an elaborate system of interlocking courtyards and passageways, bridges and viaducts; a floor-to-ceiling window in one building overlooks the confluence of two branches of the Hoosic River.

By the late 1700s and early 1800s, businesses at or near the site included shoe manufacturers, a brickyard, a sawmill, cabinetmakers, hat manufacturers, machine shops for the construction of mill machines, marble works, wagon and sleigh makers, and an ironworks.

“Overnight visitors spend six times as much money as day visitors. Part of our economic-development agenda is getting people to understand there’s so much to do at MASS MoCA, and we’re just one of several institutions up here.”

In 1860, O. Arnold and Co. installed the latest equipment for printing cloth; large government contracts to supply fabric for the Union Army swelled business, and over the next four decades, Arnold Print Works became the largest employer in North Adams. By the end of the 1890s, 25 of the 26 buildings in the present-day MASS MoCA complex had been constructed, and by 1905, Arnold Print Works was one of the leading producers of printed textiles in the world, employing some 3,200 people.

In 1942, after a period of decline for Arnold, Sprague Electric Co. bought the site, converting the textile mill into an electronics plant, where physicists, chemists, electrical engineers, and technicians were called upon by the U.S. government during World War II to design and manufacture crucial components of some of its most advanced high-tech weapons systems, including the atomic bomb. After the war, Sprague’s products were used in the launch systems for Gemini moon missions, and by 1966 Sprague employed 4,137 workers. But, again, sales eventually declined, and in 1985, the company closed its North Adams operations.

“This campus has always made things,” Joseph said. “Now, what we make is art — performing arts as well as visual art.”

Indeed, when North Adams leaders began discussing a new use for the campus, the Williams College Museum of Art was seeking space to exhibit large works of contemporary art that would not fit in conventional museum galleries — and the idea of creating a contemporary arts center in North Adams began to take shape. With funding from both public and private sources, MASS MoCA opened in 1999.

Banners promote current, temporary exhibits

Banners promote current, temporary exhibits, but MASS MoCA has developed an array of long-term exhibits by prominent artists as well.

The ‘maker’ spirit of the complex extends to putting up the installations, many of which are not as simple as hanging a painting. The museum typically doesn’t hide the process, which can take several weeks, but instead embraces it.

“Because of the way our galleries are situated, we can’t help but put ourselves on view when installing an artist,” Joseph explained. “You might walk through and observe someone charging through the gallery with a forklift. This time of year, we’re moving from one gallery to the next, installing new art, and all that activity is usually on view to the public, in addition to everything that’s already installed in the galleries.”

She said the complex, for most of its history, has been home to a constant flow of humanity and industry, and the act of creation is as important — and worthy of viewing — as the static display of art.

“Even if you’re not a contemporary-art person, there’s so much to see in the architecture,” she told BusinessWest. “The buildings themselves are art. The fact that we fill them with art and ideas, and made these buildings accessible to the public, is a joyful experience. My grandparents worked here. My mom worked here. That’s real. I love coming to work every day and being in this site where I know my family history looms large.”

Even the performing-arts elements of the museum embrace the process as much as the outcome. For instance, in 2012, rock icon David Byrne teamed up with director Alex Timbers to create a theatrical piece called Here Lies Love — and, rather than perform it only as a finished product, presented it to audiences as a work in progress.

Similarly, just this year, actor Jon Hamm, director Danielle Agami, and Wilco’s Glenn Kotche led a team that developed a piece called Fishing, also performing it as an evolving work to audiences who were then invited to talk about what worked and what didn’t for them.

“It’s a phenomenal exchange — audiences love it,” Joseph said. “In this culture-drenched region, people get really excited about the creative process. Even if you are not the creator, you get to be involved.”

Permanence in Change

The process of developing and expanding an artistic idea has also taken shape on a macro level over the past decade on the MASS MoCA grounds. In 2008, the museum opened its first long-term exhibition, a three-story space housing about 100 works by famed large-scale wall artist Sol Lewitt — a display the Los Angeles Times once called “America’s Sistine Chapel.”

In 2013, the campus opened a previously unused building for a long-term exhibit by painter and sculptor Anselm Kiefer. And in 2017, the museum activated more buildings, almost doubling the previous gallery space from 135,000 square feet to 250,000, and installing permanent works by neoconceptual artist Jenny Holzer, multi-media artist Laurie Anderson (who makes use of virtual reality in her gallery), and James Turrell, whose interactive works make intriguing use of light and space, just to name a few.

The museum installed this floor-to-ceiling window

The museum installed this floor-to-ceiling window to give visitors a view of North Adams and, in particular, the point where two branches of the Hoosic River join up.

“Part of the joy of going to a museum is seeing the permanent collection,” Joseph said. “You might return time and again and see new exhibitions, but you can also visit old works in the collection like they are old friends to you. We never had that at MASS MoCA because we only had rotating exhibitions.

“But in 2008,” she went on, “people started to think about MASS MoCA not just as a pilgrimage site for Sol Lewitt fans, but also as a place where visitors could return and find something new at the galleries, but also have this body of work, this artist’s life work, where they were suddenly becoming experts. MASS MoCA members probably know more about Sol Lewitt than many Sol Lewitt scholars.”

The museum has expanded its community connections as well, such as an educational program that brings in 2,500 students from local public schools several times a year. Partner schools develop a curriculum of class projects based on what the students see at MASS MoCA. An invitational program for promising teenagers actually displays their artwork on the museum walls and provides grants to their teachers to stock their classrooms. One area teacher used the grant to purchase a kiln so students can create pottery.

“For these kids, she added, “seeing their art on the walls beside Sol Lewitt kind of raises the stakes for them.”

Another program, called the Studios at MASS MoCA, has hosted more than 500 artists and writers for residencies up to 10 weeks. Hosted by the museum’s Assets for Artists program, selected artists receive private studio space on campus, in addition to housing, free access to the museum’s galleries throughout the residency, optional financial and business coaching from Assets for Artists staff, and a daily group meal.

As part of its examination of the regional creative economy, the Berkshire Blueprint 2.0, a county-wide economic-development plan, recommended expanding the Studios program throughout Berkshire County, she noted. “I’m not sure how that would work, but it’s a great concept.”

And an exciting one, as MASS MoCA has long been a draw to this small city near the New York and Vermont lines — and from that destination status comes myriad ripple effects.

“We were founded with a two-headed mission,” Joseph said. “One was to present the best art of our time, and the second was to be an economic catalyst.”

It does that by leveraging all this activity — not just the performance and display of art, but its very creation — to develop new markets for artists, spur job creation, strengthen community identity, and even boost property values, all of which Joseph has witnessed and hopes to see continue.

“We’re in one of the most robust real-estate moments in North Adams in my adult life,” she said. “We’re happy to contribute to it — even if it’s one by one.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Berkshire Theatre Group Continues to Impact Generations

By
the Colonial Theatre was reopened in 2006
Creative Economy

Dramatic Effect

the Colonial Theatre was reopened in 2006

Following a $21 million renovation, the Colonial Theatre was reopened in 2006 after more than 50 years of inactivity.

Kate Maguire was out shopping recently, wearing a shirt that proudly celebrated the 90th anniversary of the Berkshire Playhouse in Stockbridge.

“The young girl at the register — she was probably 18 — was stunned. She said, ‘that theater is 90 years old? I had no idea!’ For her, it was ancient history. But she made me realize that, yes, 90 years of theater is a long time.”

As artistic director and CEO of the Berkshire Theatre Group, which puts on performances at venues in Stockbridge and Pittsfield, Maguire has witnessed quite a bit of that history first-hand since joining the organization 25 years ago.

“The facilities represent two iconic sites,” she said. “The Colonial Theatre is the center of Pittsfield — the center of the county.” As for the playhouse in Stockbridge, also known as the Fitzpatrick Main Stage, “considering that culture is the heart of the community in the Berkshires, that is as iconic a structure as any in Berkshire County.”

But while the buildings themselves are iconic, more importantly, each campus has brought countless people to see some of the most remarkable names in the history of American theater, as well as up-and-coming talent, Maguire noted. “It has created a sort of cultural destination for artists and audiences. That’s what the buildings represent.”

They’re also an economic driver, she added, currently drawing about 75,000 visitors a year and contributing almost $4 million to the local economy annually — as well as employing some 600 people in some capacity each year.

Berkshire Theatre Group (BTG) was created in 2010 by the merger of the Berkshire Theatre Festival, housed at the main stage in Stockbridge, and the Colonial Theatre, built in 1903 in Pittsfield. One of the largest arts organizations in the region, BTG oversees the development, production, and presentation of theatre, music, and various other performing arts.

Kate Maguire says involving hundreds of children in productions each year is key to securing BTG’s future.

Kate Maguire says involving hundreds of children in productions each year is key to securing BTG’s future.

The Stockbridge campus presents work at two venues. The 314-seat Fitzpatrick Main Stage, designed by famed architect Stanford White, is a summer-only venue where classical theatre and world premieres are produced. Meanwhile, the 122-seat Unicorn Theatre, open year-round, is home for new and emerging artists, and a space where more experimental, provocative works often finds a receptive audience.

Meanwhile, in Pittsfield, the 780-seat Colonial Theatre — built in 1903 and re-opened in 2006 following a $21 million restoration — hosts family entertainment, comedy, live music, and other events year-round.

Located in the lobby of the Colonial is the Garage, a name that pays homage to its former owner, Berkshire Auto Co. This newest BTG venue, complete with a stage, lights, and sound system, is a dedicated space for local and regional music, comedy performers, and more.

In short, Maguire said, there’s something for everyone.

“I want people to know they’re welcome here,” she told BusinessWest. “They can listen to acoustic musicians or hear a really funny comedian in the Garage, sit with friends, have a drink, then go into the majestic Colonial Theatre and have a completely different experience. Or they might see a rock band on stage, and the following week see an opera performed. It’s a space where people come together from all strata and all walks of life.”

Rich History

The Colonial Theatre opened its doors on Sept. 28, 1903. Built in five and a half months, it boasted pristine acoustics and classic Gilded Age architecture. As was sometimes the custom in that day, the exterior of the theater was designed by a respected local architect, Joseph McArthur Vance, who also designed Pittsfield’s Masonic Temple, the Christian Science building, the superstructure of the Wahconah Park Stadium, Mount Greylock’s Bascom Lodge, and the Mahaiwe Theatre in Great Barrington.

“I want people to know they’re welcome here. They can listen to acoustic musicians or hear a really funny comedian in the Garage, sit with friends, have a drink, then go into the majestic Colonial Theatre and have a completely different experience. Or they might see a rock band on stage, and the following week see an opera performed. It’s a space where people come together from all strata and all walks of life.”

From its early days, the space played host to some of the most notable lights in theater, including Maude Adams, Ethel Barrymore, John Barrymore, Sarah Bernhardt, Eubie Blake, Billie Burke, George Cohan, Irene Dunne, Grace George, William Gillette, Walter Hampden, Helen Hayes, Al Jolson, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, Julia Marlow and E.H. Sothern, Will Rogers, Lillian Russell, Ted Shawn, Noble Sissell, Ruth St. Denis, Laurette Taylor, and Ed Wynn.

the Colonial Theatre

Following a $21 million renovation, the Colonial Theatre was reopened in 2006 after more than 50 years of inactivity.

To the south in Stockbridge, the Berkshire Playhouse was founded in 1928 when Mabel Choate sold the Stockbridge Casino to financier Walter Clark. An organization called the Three Arts Society remodeled the casino’s interior by adding a stage and seating for 450 people, and christened the new theatre the Berkshire Playhouse.

In 1937, the Colonial was renovated with a new marquee, projection room, and two retail stores added to the front of the building. With cinema on the rise, the venue operated primarily for the next decade and a half as a movie theater, although some community performances continued. In 1951, the Colonial closed due to the rise of TV and the decline of touring theatrical companies — and would remain closed for more than a half-century.

Down in Stockbridge, the Berkshire Playhouse was reorganized as a nonprofit organization in 1964 and renamed the Berkshire Theatre Festival. In 1976, the playhouse was added to the National Register of Historic Places. In 1996, the Unicorn Theatre was reopened after a lengthy renovation and became BTG’s official second stage.

To the north, meanwhile, efforts to restore and reopen the Colonial were picking up in the 1990s. And organization called Friends of the Colonial Theatre Restoration was formed in 1994, and public tours in 1997 led to increased community awareness of the venue’s potential. A $2.5 million appropriation in state funding followed, and designation of the facility in 1998 as a National Historic Treasure by the Save America’s Treasures Program of the National Park Service only increased the momentum.

After years of design, planning, and community fundraising, the rehabilitation of the historic theater — and the extensive renovation of the adjacent Berkshire Auto Garage — were undertaken. In 2006, the $21 million restoration was complete, and the theater reopened. The 22-month construction process preserved and reinstalled all historically significant architectural and design features — from the vaulted, gilded entrance to the elaborately decorated boxes and balcony to the custom plasterwork — while creating a modern performance center.

“I feel it’s very important to make sure that the community recognizes the theater as their own,” Maguire told BusinessWest. “The doors were closed for 50 years, and the community got together and put in a lot of hard work and money renovate that theater.”

In a year when the Berkshire Theatre Festival marked its 90th summer season and the Colonial Theatre celebrated its 115th birthday, the community continues to show its support, she added. “We’ve been successful in fund-raising, and certainly a lot of people coming to our shows — we’re very grateful for the attendance.”

Kid Stuff

Maguire might be even more proud, though, of the way BTG engages with children, reaching about 13,000 students with cultural programs each year and putting many of them on stage in any given year; this past summer, about 100 Berkshire-area youth performed in Tarzan of the Apes at the Colonial.

“Imagine how many other kids are coming to these productions,” she said. “We are ensuring the vitality of the future of these buildings. Those 100 kids in Tarzan in the summertime — those kids are going to remember that experience, and make sure that building is here for the next generation.”

She believes that because it’s her own story. Growing up in Lowell, she used to attend performances of Boston Children’s Theatre.

“I was amazed at the quality of work, and it looked like an army of kids were working on these produtions,” she recalled. “Little did I know that, many years later, I’d have the opportunity to create such programming in the community I live in now. Every single doorway I’m walked through has been opened because of theater.”

Maguire wants to open those doors for others today — not just children who might feel a spark to follow a passion for theater, but area residents and Berkshires visitors who become part of a long, rich history every time they buy a ticket.

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

Lenox Looks to Further Boost Quality of Life

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The former Cranwell Spa & Golf Resort
Community Spotlight

Community Spotlight

The former Cranwell Spa & Golf Resort

The former Cranwell Spa & Golf Resort is undergoing a $60 million renovation and expansion by the Miraval Group.

As its town manager, Christopher Ketchen is certainly bullish on Lenox.

“If you’re moving to the Berkshires, Lenox has clearly got to be on your radar for many reasons,” he told BusinessWest, adding that he’s one of the more recent converts. “I made the move here myself from the Boston area four years ago. I’m originally from Alford, and when I moved back to this area, I chose to live in Lenox.”

Lenox may be known mainly — and deservedly — for its cultural and recreational attractions, from Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, to Shakespeare & Co., to the town’s collection of rustic inns and bed and breakfasts.

But a different sort of economic energy has been bubbling up in recent years, from the small businesses, hotels, and motels springing up along the Route 7 corridor to an ongoing, $60 million expansion and renovation at the former Cranwell Spa & Golf Resort. The Miraval Group, a subsidiary of Hyatt Hotels, purchased the property in 2016 for $22 million and plans to transform it into a high-end wellness resort.

Then there’s the new Courtyard by Marriott, which opened last year and features 92 rooms with panoramic views, an indoor pool, a large patio with firepits, a restaurant, and a 12,000-square-foot event space. Meanwhile, the 112-room Travaasa Experimental Resort at Elm Court, which straddles the Lenox and Strockbridge line, is moving forward as well.

Other projects in recent years include the relocation of Morrison’s Home Improvement Specialists Inc. from Pittsfield and its adaptive reuse of a blighted building that had been vacant for 10 years, an apartment conversion at the Walker Street Residences by the Allegrone Companies, and the construction of Allegrone’s headquarters and co-working office space using green design and technology in a building on Route 7.

Chris Ketchen says Lenox is a draw

Chris Ketchen says Lenox is a draw because of its schools, healthy finances, cultural offerings, and a host of other factors.

“The hospitality industry is probably the biggest economic driver locally,” Ketchen told BusinessWest. “Miravar, the Cranwell development, is still in progress, Elm Court is still in progress, Marriott is up and running. As far as new projects coming in the door, there’s nothing else on that scale today, but that could change tomorrow.”

Moving On Up

In some ways, Lenox doesn’t need the kind of business growth other towns and cities do, because its strengths have long lay in both tourism for visitors and quality of life for residents.

“The town has gotten a fair amount of regional and national recognition in recent years for the schools and for the town’s financial practices,” Ketchen said, noting that Lenox is just one of two Massachusetts municipalities west of the Connecticut River whose finances have AAA ratings from Standard & Poor’s, the other being Great Barrington.

Meanwhile, “our schools are knocking it out of the park year after year in terms of their recognition at both the federal Department of Education and various statewide rankings. The high school ranked number four by U.S. News & World Report, the annual benchmark rating a lot of districts measure themselves by, so a very attractive place for families to locate and make a home.”

Lenox at a glance:

Year Incorporated: 1767
Population: 5,025
<strong>Area: 21.7 square miles
County: Berkshire
Residential Tax Rate: $12.14 
Commercial Tax Rate: $14.98
Median Household Income: $85,581
Median Family Income: $111,413
Type of Government: Board of Selectmen, Open Town Meeting
Largest Employers: Canyon Ranch, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Kimball Farms

* Latest information available

Not wanting to rest on its laurels, Lenox residents recently approved an appropriation to work with regional agencies to update the town’s comprehensive master plan. “The Planning Board is undertaking that as we speak,” Ketchen said, “and we’ve created a housing production plan through the affordable housing committee, so we’re tackling those issues in a thoughtful way moving forward.”

The state seeks 10% of housing units in any town to be affordable, but in Lenox, the current level is just over 7%, based on the 2010 Census.

The town has also been undertaking significant infrastructure improvements in recent years, the latest announcement being a $9 million, federally funded widening and improvement of a stretch of Walker Street, in addition to water and sewer improvements there.

“We’ve been investing heavily in infrastructure through aggressive capital-improvement programs,” Ketchen said.

To address an aging population — the median age of residents is 51, reflecting a trend in other towns in the Berkshires — town officials created a first-time-homebuyers program in 2016 in partnership with four banks that offers up to $10,000 in down payments to qualified applicants. They also changed zoning requirements to make it easier to build new apartments and condominiums or convert older housing stock into appealing residences, as well as adopting a Complete Streets policy that will make the town eligible for state funds to improve connectivity for pedestrians and bicyclists.

Meanwhile, to address a dearth of of market-rate apartments in Lenox, Allegrone Companies completed a renovation last year of the 1804 William Walker House, transforming it into eight market-rate apartments.

The Whole Package

To encourage companies to move to Lenox or expand, town officials have been focused on a five-year open-space plan that was adopted several years ago.

“With our proximity to employment centers in Pittsfield and also Springfield and Albany, there are options for workers who want to make Lenox their home.”

“We have an open-space and recreation plan that was really well-conceived by the Conway School in conjunction with our Land Use Department, and we’re a few years into executing that plan to preserve open space,” Ketchen said, noting projects like a major improvement to Lenox Town Beach at Laurel Lake last year. In addition, the Berkshire Natural Resources Council, the regional land trust, has been working to develop a regional trail network with a long section passing through Lenox.

Add it all up, Ketchen said, and this town of just over 5,000 residents has plenty to offer.

“With our proximity to employment centers in Pittsfield and also Springfield and Albany, there are options for workers who want to make Lenox their home — and it’s a wonderful place to make a home,” he told BusinessWest. “The town is well-managed financially. We have outstanding schools, libraries, and community center. For a town of our size, we’re providing a lot of services for residents of all ages. Our public-safety and public-works operations are some of the best in the business.”

He added that the town’s tax rates are low — $12.14 for residents and $14.98 for businesses — and relatively stable from year to year.

“Couple that with the employment opportunities and the outstanding municipal and educational programs, the arts and cultural amenities of the region, and the recreational opportunities — put that together, and you have a very attractive package.”

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]