Page 70 - BusinessWest September 19, 2022
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love,” she recalled. “I remember thinking ‘I wish I could buy that building; I wonder if that building is for sale?’”
Today, Royal is living the dream, literally — the one about moving her growing business, the Royal Law Firm, into the Alexander House’s 14 rooms, and the basement as well.
She’s needed a new home almost from the day she moved into her now-former home, leased space in the large office building at 819 Worcester St. in Indian Orchard. She looked at both options, leasing and owning, and decided that the latter made far more sense.
But owning the Alexander House? Like she said, this was a long-held dream come true.
For this issue and its focus on commercial real estate, BusinessWest talked with Royal about how her affection for this historic home became a quest — and eventually a dream realized. We also got a tour, one that quickly revealed why this landmark has been a career-long pursuit for Royal.
At Home with the Idea
Royal said she’s looking forward to being able to walk to the federal courthouse when she has business there, especially when she considers the large amounts of paperwork she traditionally brings with her when she’s in court.
Which ... isn’t very often at all, she told BusinessWest.
“We’re civil litigators ... if I don’t see the inside of a courthouse in a year, that’s not unusual,” she said, adding that location, location, location, the driving force in many decisions concerning real estate, was only a minor factor in this case. It was the property that drove this decision.
Since launch-
ing her own law
firm, Royal has had
lengthy drives to
that federal court-
house. After start-
ing in a small office
on Center Street
in Northampton,
she relocated to
larger quarters on
Pleasant Street, and
remained there
until moving her
headquarters office
— she has satellite
locations in several
other cities — to
a suite of offices
Staff Photo
in the building on
Worcester Street in
March 2020, just
after the pandemic
found its way to Western Mass.
She wasn’t expecting to be looking for a new home so quickly, but rapid growth — tradition- ally put in the ‘good problem to have’ category, although it does present challenges — made a change necessary.
“I knew we were outgrowing our space where we were — I just didn’t expect to outgrow it as quickly as we did,” she explained. “I just casually started looking for something.”
In a nice twist of fate, this casual search coin- cided with the Alexander House being put on the market in June 2021, signaling the start of a new chapter for a home that had seen plenty of history
One of the
14 rooms at the Alexander House has become home to the Royal Law Firm’s main conference room.
and had become historic in its own right. Designed by the prominent architect Asher
Benjamin and built by noted builder Simon San- born, the Greek revival home draws its name from its fourth owner, Henry Alexander Jr., a mayor of Springfield who acquired the property in 1958. But it has another, less-known known name,
the Miss Amy House, derived from Alexander’s daughter, Amy, who lived in the house for many years and was quite active in the community on a number of philanthropic fronts.
The home has had a relatively small number of owners over the years, said Royal, who has come to know the history of the property — she learned in high school that one of the dorms there was
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70 SEPTEMBER 19, 2022
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