Stockbridge Selectman Mary Flynn brought us together with the advice: “before you touch a bylaw, clearly define the problem and make the minimum change possible to solve it. The people have to approve a bylaw, and they must understand exactly what they are being asked to approve; what problem it will solve, and what impact it will have.”
With that in mind, Mary Flynn, Jeff Parsons (a Berkshire Cottage owner and grandson of the builder) and I sat down with a few others to define the problem. The Berkshire Cottages were being destroyed. How do we save them?
We had starting points. Lenox was working on the same problem, and we knew what the most common adaptive reuses were: schools, private clubs, and inns. Plus one condo in Lenox and one in Stockbridge.
To make the solution Stockbridge-specific, we asked exactly what were we trying to save? For Stockbridge, it was always history and its physical characteristics. Therefore, the most important elements were the house itself, the visual relationship between it and the road, and maintaining low density. Those made Stockbridge look as it did; made it so loved and livable.
The Great Estate bylaw made preservation of the Berkshire Cottage mandatory, controlled density with limited adaptive reuses, and preserved the Gilded Age Great Lawn – that space between the Cottage and the road, that is, preserved an historic viewshed.
If I remember correctly, we appended a list. I think we used mine, but it is easy enough to compile, since by definition, a Berkshire Cottage was built before WWI.
The bylaw was enthusiastically approved. The Town realized then what we cannot afford to forget now: the economic base of Stockbridge is inexorably linked to preservation of our history, our open space and low density, and even Rockwell’s vision of us.
The bylaw was short-lived. Te Marians of the Immaculate Conception, owners of Eden Hill, a Berkshire Cottage, challenged it. The bylaw was struck down. It is a matter of record and can be checked, but if memory serves, it was deemed spot zoning.
For a time, we had no Great Estate bylaw. Rumor had it that the bylaw was resurrected and rewritten for the benefit of Elm Court development. True or not, it became a part of Stockbridge Zoning Bylaws – altered but not entirely. What seemed a victory for Elm Court was not acceptable to the next owner/developer of a Berkshire Cottage.
Next issue: Desisto and the current proposed bylaTrain tracks at Lower Bowker’s Woods.
