Voters spent nearly an hour of last Saturday’s 4½-hour Town Meeting debating Article 11 on the fate of Bromfield House, the 1915 building on Mass. Ave. next to the elementary school that—until this week—housed the school district administrative offices. The final vote, in which the article was defeated, left the building’s future as unclear as ever.
One factor in the long debate was confusion over what people were voting on. As printed in the warrant, Article 11 would have allowed the Select Board to sell the land “and/or” the house. By the time of Town Meeting, however, the Select Board had decided to sell only the house and to keep the land for future use, probably by the schools. That was the motion Select Board member Rich Maiore put forth. But many people did not realize the motion on the floor differed from the article in the warrant until well into the discussion.
Supporters of the motion argued it was simply bad policy to give up town land, especially in the town center. Nate Finch of Codman Hill Road pointed out the town only owns so much land, and once it is sold, it is gone forever.
Brad Besse of Westcott Road supported the article, but he acknowledged that not having in mind an immediate use for the land made the decision more difficult. Bob O’Shea, who chairs the Parks and Recreation Commission, supported keeping the land and suggested several uses, including a pickleball court, a skate park, or tennis courts.
Other supporters of removing the house and keeping the land argued that if the property were sold into private hands, something unattractive could be built there in the future, because Bromfield House is not within the protected Harvard Common Historic District. The motion called for a two-year window, ending in May 2023, to find a buyer willing to move Bromfield House. But, asked for his own estimate of the likelihood of being able to sell the house for removal, Maiore said he thought it was about 50-50.
Opponents of the measure, on the other hand, preferred selling the house and land together, so that Bromfield House would be preserved in its present location as a private residence.
Tony Schwarzkopf of South Shaker Road asked Maiore what the fair market value of Bromfield House might be, if sold where it is. Maiore said real estate agents had given the committee estimates ranging from $400,000 to $800,000. Money from the sale, Maiore said, would have to go for educational purposes, according to Margaret Bromfield Blanchard’s will. (Money from the trust she set up was used to build the house as a home for the headmaster of the Bromfield School.) If, on the other hand, the house is sold for removal, Maiore said, the selling price would be “nominal.”
As a public building, Bromfield House is not currently subject to property taxes. But if it becomes a private residence, the Bromfield House Committee estimated it would bring the town about $10,000 to $12,000 a year in property taxes, no matter whether it is in its present spot or somewhere else in town,
Several people expressed concern that no one would buy the house for removal, and it would be demolished. Jim Lee of East Bare Hill Road opposed the article, saying, “What we’re really being asked to vote on today is to destroy the house. … [W]e’re going to punt this down the road two years, until the house falls into disrepair and you cannot sell it. And then you’re going to say, ‘Well, we have a wreck of a house. … we’ve got to destroy it.’”
Bev Rodrigues of Old Littleton Road, whose father grew up in the house and whose grandfather lived there while he was the Bromfield School headmaster, made the final plea for keeping the house in its current location and selling it as a home: “I think we need to not let ourselves be enticed into a ‘yes’ vote just to be done with the issue. There’s a viable option to sell the house and property intact to a private owner.”
The motion failed to achieve the two-thirds majority needed to sell town property. It did not appear to have achieved even a simple majority, although no count was made. Select Board members said when the warrant was approved that, if Article 11 failed, they would bring the matter up again at Fall Town Meeting in October.
The fate of Bromfield House was apparently an issue that had drawn quite a few people to Town Meeting; after the vote there was a moderate exodus.
