Long before it was known as the Appleworks, the sprawling warehouse at 325 Ayer Road had a colorful history and deep roots in Harvard’s agricultural past. In its early days, back in the 1950s and early ’60s, the future temporary Town Hall was the bustling nerve center of Hawbuck Orchards, one of the largest apple growers in the Nashoba Valley, a region famous for the quality and quantity of its apples.
Last week, the Press explored the history of the former apple warehouse through its rise and fall as an agricultural center and its subsequent struggles with town officials over multiple zoning violations.. This week we continue the story, in the second of this two-part series.
Enter Bill Cory
The Appleworks of today was the brainchild of Harvard businessman Bill Cory, who lived on Westcott Road and had a beguiling vision for the old warehouse. Undaunted by the zoning and access issues and the building’s deteriorating condition, he saw the potential for something nobody had seen before: a mixed-use enclave of commercial, industrial, and office space, with maybe a restaurant thrown in for good measure.
Cory was nothing if not resourceful—he seemed to know everybody in town and everybody knew him—so he bought the building in 1984 and set about remaking it. Week after week, newspaper stories chronicled his appearances before the Planning Board, the Board of Health (BOH), the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA), and the Board of Selectmen. He brought along sketches prepared by Harvard designer Dave Durrant, and ambitious plans to eliminate the loading dock in front and create a green space between the building and Ayer Road. In back of the building would be a new loading dock, with plenty of room for trucks to turn around, and parking for about 30 cars. There would be more parking in front and on the north side of the building for customers and clients of Cory’s tenants. But Cory needed at least five variances and a special permit from the ZBA to make it all work.
Town officials supportive
In general, town officials were supportive, reflecting a shared belief that Cory’s plan, if successful, would be the best possible outcome for the town and its fledgling commercial district. Not everyone agreed that all the variances were necessary, or should be granted, especially some abutters, who protested that Cory was getting special treatment. But in the end, the ZBA ruled in Cory’s favor, giving him the go-ahead he needed.
And go ahead he did, although he was still unclear about the nature of his future tenants. Early on, Cory said most of the space would be devoted to long-term storage, with the rest occupied by offices and a handful of retail establishments. Then there was talk of a bank, a daycare center, an indoor swimming pool or some other sort of recreational facility. That idea was a long shot, he acknowledged in news reports, because of the septic capacity such facilities required. By March 1985, he had his first actual tenants: his own business, Cornucopia, which sold high-end Early American reproduction furniture, Grafax, Inc., a distributor of engineering equipment and supplies for the design, drafting, and printed circuit industry, and accountant John Reedy, who still has an office in the building.
On the land across Ayer Road—23 acres Cory called Applewood Park—he had several business tenants sharing a house, and 400 apple trees leased to a local orchardist.
By November 1985, four more tenants were in place, and 20 percent of the building’s rentable space was spoken for. The roof was fixed, a new loading dock was in the works, and Cory’s dream was slowly taking shape. But there was a hitch: the building’s existing septic system was approved for only 20 occupants, and that limit had already been reached.
In December, Cory went to the Board of Health, asking for permission to expand the septic system to accommodate more occupants. He was told to wait until spring to do the required deep-hole tests. Then he went looking for the system and found that tree roots had destroyed it. So it was back to the BOH for a permit to allow immediate emergency repairs, which he got, but the board would not allow reconstruction beyond the capacity of the original system. Cory was stuck with the 20-person limit.
For their part, the selectmen went on record in support of Cory’s petition, urging the BOH to come up with a “creative solution,” and encouraging him to seek a special permit to build a new, enlarged septic system behind the building. And eventually, with the ZBA’s blessing, that’s what he did.
New tenants
New tenants materialized, including the first of several doctors’ offices and Luv-a-bye Baby, a retail store catering to the baby-gift crowd. The building was never fully rented, but the warehouse space was filling up, and Harvard Machinery rented one space, then spread to adjoining rooms in the interior. Over the next decade, a partial list of tenants includes doctors, dentists, accountants, designers, Optelec, Quanterra, Braintree Rehab, assorted start-ups, and even the U.S. Army.
In mid-1988, Whitlow’s Café opened for business on the north side of the building, giving Harvard its first sit-down restaurant in seven years. The muffins, sandwiches, and salads at Whitlow’s drew a steady clientele, and the BOH-imposed twelve-seat limit didn’t seem overly oppressive. To conserve water, it was mostly take-out, and what was eaten inside was served on paper plates. Cory was delighted, but the location was not ideal and Whitlow’s didn’t prosper for long, nor did several successors in the same spot.
Now retired, Bill Cory lives in Clinton and is full of stories about the Appleworks. He is clearly proud of what he accomplished there, but nothing seems to please him more than talking about Bushels, the restaurant he and his wife Sherry ran at the Appleworks after other eateries had failed. In the early 1990s, Cory’s plans for the building were fractured. The friendly Waltham bank that had provided loans every step of the way had been closed and taken over “by the Feds,” Cory says; heavily in debt, he declared bankruptcy to protect his other assets from the FDIC, which took control of the building. Cory was no longer in charge, but he and Sherry made a stand at Bushels; she did the cooking and welcoming from behind the counter while he handled purchasing and public relations. “Sherry became famous for her soup,” Bill boasts: “We served a different soup every day, and on Fridays either clam or corn chowder, all from old family recipes.” Famously gregarious, Bill was frequently seen holding court at a side table, bantering with old friends and newcomers alike. He and Sherry kept Bushels going for six or seven years, Cory recalls, and you get the feeling he’d still be there if he could.
Although his Appleworks venture ended badly, Cory has no complaints about his tenants, and only praise for the bankers who believed in him and for most of the contractors who worked on the building. And he is still grateful for the support he received from fellow businessmen like realtor Peter Warren, who brought him a couple of good tenants but refused to take a commission because he wanted to help the building succeed. “That was 20 years ago, but I haven’t forgotten,” Cory says.
Coming up in the world
Today’s Appleworks looks about the same as it did when Bill Cory left it, but that’s not to say nothing has changed. Nick Deane, who has owned the building since the late 1990s, is proud of the 150 kw solar array that went up on the roof several years ago and provides an estimated 30-40 percent of its electric use, he says. After a heavy, wet snowstorm the following year, a section of that array collapsed, along with part of the drift-laden roof in back. But the company that designed it, Borrego Solar Systems, has designed a new configuration that will rearrange part of the array on the roof and mount another section of solar panels on the ground in back. Asked about other new plans for the building, Deane says he doesn’t foresee much change in the tenant mix. The main drawback at Appleworks is limited parking, and Deane can’t see a way around that. He has tried to get land for more parking, he says, but negotiations with neighbors have been fruitless. There is room for parking across Ayer Road, but no way to make a safe pedestrian crossing there, he says. And while he would like more parking options, Deane doesn’t see parking as an insurmountable problem, given the building’s other advantages.
One of these is Greg Murphy, the full-time maintenance manager at Appleworks, who Deane credits with keeping his tenants happy and the building in good condition. And the tenants themselves have proved to be an enhancement. Deane cites the new Pilates studio (right next to the future Town Hall) for its notably attractive décor, which gives the whole building a boost, he says.
Nick Deane’s company, Deane Redevelopment, of Boston, specializes in rehabilitating old properties, so he is well aware of the pitfalls involved. But he seems confident that despite its troubled history, Appleworks is on firm footing today. “I’m just so glad to see it coming up in the world,” he says.
Next: Government Center
It’s hard to imagine what Bud Doe would think of the current plan to move town offices into part of his old apple storage warehouse while Town Hall is being rebuilt. The new temporary Town Hall will occupy space in the earliest part of the building, where Hawbuck Orchards started its ascent sixty years ago. In many ways, the selectmen’s choice of the Appleworks over several alternative locations is unwittingly apt: a new use for an old building that has reinvented itself just as Harvard has since the days when the town’s fortunes and the apple harvest were one and the same.
