The next round: Effort to make Wright Tavern a pub faces key hurdles
Making Wright a working tavern again would require adequate funding and the blessing of its owner — First Parish in Acton.
Tom Wilson is walking a tightrope.
As he pursues his vision of returning Wright Tavern to its historical legacy as a gathering place in Acton — as the Minute Men did in 1775 — Wilson, chair of the Wright Tavern Legacy Trust, finds himself treading a fine line between preservation and business development.
Nowhere is this more evident than in his dealings with the Community Preservation Committee, whose mandate is to consider grant applications to fund historic preservation, open space and recreation, and affordable housing.
Wilson and the CPC are seesawing about how much funding is appropriate, and to what purpose. Meanwhile, making Wright a working tavern again would require the blessing of its owner — First Parish in Acton.
The CPC has provided about $500,000 to stabilize the tavern structurally with steel beams, but the committee has declined to fund Wilson’s proposals to install a new heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system and upgrade the tavern’s electrical service to 400 amps from the standard 200 amps.
The latter improvements are in service of Wilson’s desire to serve food and drink once again in the tavern, which the committee did not see as historic preservation.
Commerce concerns
In a meeting last November to consider Wilson’s $250,000 grant request, which included the electrical and HVAC upgrades, CPC board member Nancy Nelson summarized the committee’s concern that “portions of the request seem aimed at building out modern interpretive exhibits, a brewery concept, and increased commercial activity, rather than address core historic preservation needs.”
Nelson questioned how the CPC could separate preservation from business investments in the Legacy Trust proposal. Board member Jeff Collins said the electric upgrade to 400 amps “appears more related to the proponent’s long-term business plan than to preservation,” and said he was “reluctant” to recommend funding the upgrade.
The CPC sent Wilson back to the drawing board.
On January 5, Wilson returned with a scaled-back $130,000 funding request. It still included $42,000 to upgrade the tavern’s electric service to 400 amps, but only $20,000 to assess the current HVAC system rather than replacing it.
The CPC remained unconvinced and approved only $81,200 to cover the cost of bringing the tavern’s wiring up to code; there is consensus that the current wiring poses a hazard. That grant will come before Acton residents for a vote at Town Meeting in late April.
“Some people don’t necessarily think we should be doing what we’re doing with the building,” Wilson said. “They want a more limited use: Why do you need to have all this extra stuff?”
Financial sustainability
Wilson, however, is convinced that serving food and drink is essential not only to restoring Wright Tavern’s role as a community gathering space but also to bolstering the tavern’s ability to sustain itself economically.
“Most museums can’t make it selling tours,” Wilson said. “Most really good museums have some sort of restaurant or bar. … It provides income they need that the town can’t afford.”
Mimi Graney, Acton’s economic vitality manager, said the National Trust for Historic Preservation has a program called Main Street America that presents awards to communities that preserve commercial districts by preserving the economic engines that built them.
“That’s exactly what the Wright Tavern folks are trying to do,” Graney said.
Wilson recently secured a $521,000 National Park Service grant that he hopes can be used to upgrade the electrical system to 400 amps. The NPS grant is for three things: repairing and repainting the tavern’s exterior; improving the electrical system; and upgrading the water system.
“We have to pay a very large sewer improvement fee and realign the water pipes. It’s going to be $88,000,” Wilson said. “The fee goes into a fund for maintenance and upgrade to the sewer system so it doesn’t whack [Acton] taxpayers, but it’s a lot of money. We’re a little startup non-profit.”
Wilson is facing perhaps an even bigger challenge to his plans for the tavern than the CPC represents.
First Parish in Acton owns the tavern and charges the Wright Tavern Legacy Trust $50,000 annually in rent. First Parish has not yet signed off on Wilson’s plans and has not indicated when or how that decision might be made, except in general terms.
‘Our values and mission’
“We are working toward making sure their vision aligns with our values and mission,” said Rev. Jennifer Johnson, who leads First Parish.
“What we’re doing right now is learning from the Wright Tavern Legacy Trust more specifically what that vision will look like,” she said. “They’ve taken some new directions. We’re still in the learning and discernment stage.”
Asked directly whether Wilson’s plan to serve beer brewed in the equivalent of a home brewery in the basement of the tavern is the main sticking point for First Parish, Johnson declined to say one way or the other.
“Our focus is less on ‘yes or no’ [to serving beer] and more on working together on a vision that’s well aligned for all of us,” she said.
Wilson is OK with that.
“We, too, want this thing to work in a way that supports the values of the church and what the church stands for,” he said. “This hasn’t gotten resolved, but it will over time, because really good people, very caring people, will work together to make it work.”
