Before the city and developers demolished it early last year, there's no doubt that after decades of neglect and decay the Northampton State Hospital had become a creepy place.
Downright scary, even.
Vast stretches of the rambling brick walls were covered in vines. The first floor windows were boarded up, and the upper stories stared out blankly toward the encroaching woods. A sapling grew out of a chimney. Ornate air shafts protruding from the slate roof peaks were often mistaken for watch towers.
Still, of all of Northampton's architectural and historical gems, Old Main, the original building on Hospital Hill, moved me the most. It was no surprise when I heard it was the number one requested topic at the Forbes Library.
Walking its meandering circumference, my friends and I had dozens of conversations about how the building affected us. We shared endless speculation over what life must have been like inside. Shock therapy. Lobotomies. Straitjackets. Padded walls. Rooms crammed with patients, all in a drug-addled haze. A lot of people expressed absolute certainty that the building was too far gone and too full of ghosts ever to be brought back to life.
My argument was that it was only neglect that made the buildings frightening, and that if they were given the attention they needed, the refurbished architecture, materials, craftsmanship and history would repay the investment. The space was vast enough to meet many needs, and whatever combination—a hotel, conference center, offices, or condominiums—would generate business and interest in the entire site. Saving Old Main, I'd conclude, would increase the value of whatever else was built there.
Clearly, I was never able to convince the right people.
Many of those who didn't reject me outright were still incredulous. Short of the world's largest haunted house amusement park ride, it was hard to imagine another use for the asylum. Even if it was possible to save Old Main, was it appropriate? Maybe the future of Hospital Hill would be brighter without the building…
Unfortunately, these thorny issues never were part of the dialogue between the public and those in charge of developing the site—Northampton city officials and the lead developers, MassDevelopment.
Instead of entangling themselves with the grey issues of history and mental illness, the city and developers always treated the future of Hospital Hill as a purely practical matter of dollars and cents, bricks and mortar. The historic buildings could only be saved if it could be shown that they would generate enough to pay for the preservation costs. In reducing these complex questions to basic math, the city's and the developers' calculations were off base. They'd treated newly built space and space preserved in an historic building as equal—and the decisions they made based on that flawed arithmetic had catastrophic results.
Whatever their public statements to the contrary, it's clear from the vacant footprint left by the $5.5 million demolition of Old Main that those entrusted with protecting and preserving the historic buildings simply did not believe it possible for a new development and an old asylum to peacefully coexist.
On a business trip this winter, I visited Edgefield Manor on the edge of Portland, Ore. As those who had directed me there had promised, I finally found a place that confirmed my suspicions about Northampton's bad math on Hospital Hill.
From Poor Farm to Pour House
One cold, grey Monday morning in February, I drove 20 minutes from Portland to a place near the town of Troutdale where I'd been told the kind of transformation I'd hoped for on Hospital Hill had taken place. Edgefield Manor's commanding facade stands by the road, looking across a vineyard-covered hillside and down the Columbia River Gorge, as it has done for nearly 100 years. I'd been worried I might miss it, but that would have been impossible.
I pulled over to the side of the road and took the building in. It immediately reminded me of Old Main. Beyond the vineyards by the side of the road, the huge, three-story brick building with verandas, dormers and a slate roof had the authority of a chateau. The water tower standing behind it, looking like some War of the Worlds invader, hinted at the bigger complex beyond the trees. Smiling suns were painted above each of the building's dormers and on the bright red signs by the road.
The sign by the road now read "McMenamins Edgefield." When it was built in 1911, the institution was called the Multnomah County Poor Farm.
It was built, literally, as a farm, with fields, barns, cows and a huge brick manor building that housed its residents. "Poor" was the catch-all term to cover those who could not earn a living "in consequence of bodily infirmity, idiocy, lunacy or other cause," as the farm's mission statement read. For generations, children in and near Troutdale were threatened with being sent to the poor farm if they didn't behave. In the '70s, when funding dried up, the residents were sent elsewhere and the buildings were left to deteriorate. In the '80s, county politicians and local business people sought to bury the stigma beneath bulldozers.
But then something unusual happened. The original buildings were saved and reused. The farm became a destination.
The tree-lined drive invited me to take a closer look.
Throughout the Northwest, the McMenamin brothers have established some of the finest brew pubs in the country, often taking up residence in rehabilitated funky old buildings. A number of such places are spread throughout Portland and elsewhere along the Oregon coast, but Edgefield dwarfs them all. Even after being well acquainted with brew pubs in preserved buildings, I wasn't prepared for the enormity of what had happened here: the place looming behind the trees was much too big to be just a pub.
According to the McMenamins' literature, a guiding notion in redeveloping the poor house was that they wanted their reuse "to be a down-the-rabbit-hole experience." Even when you wandered the grounds sober on an overcast morning, the place had a sense of magical realism to it, like something out of a Marquez novel infused with epicurean tastes. Popping out of vibrant flower beds were brightly painted signs pointing to a hotel, a formal restaurant, a family pub, several different bars, a brewery, a winery, a distillery, a spa, a golf course, a movie theater, a dance hall, and flower, herb and vegetable gardens. In a tranquil environment completely free of telephones and televisions, I found an array of architecture, horticulture, microbrew and art to hold my attention.
Color and creative activity were apparent everywhere—professionals hard at work, all in the service of providing a rejuvenating retreat full of options to enhance their guests' leisure. Arborists worked busily in the limbs of the trees, pruning away, and gardeners marched from their shed across the property, following their wheelbarrows to their next project. Brewers were up early, too, squashing around in their boots and minding their hops and their machines.
Every path I followed and building I went into was adorned with lush illustration and artwork. Many buildings had murals inside and out. Most halls and rooms had framed work hanging, but there were also details on the ductwork and pipes and around doors and windows. While heavy on whimsy (animals and caricatures smiled through curling vines), the artists also embraced the building's history.
Everywhere I looked, Edgefield wore its history on its sleeve. From the photographs and painted portraits, the eyes of those who lived and worked in Edgefield before these more recent glory days followed me about.
The Path Not Taken
As with so many institutions of their kind, the stories of Northampton's State Hospital and the Multnomah County Poor Farm follow similar paths.
The Poor Farm was built when the living conditions at the first poor house, built closer to downtown Portland, were deemed deplorable by activists of the day. As with the Northampton State Hospital, the new building's design and magnificent natural setting were intended to be therapeutic, and a daily regimen of labor in the fields was intended both to teach meaningful skills and to allow residents to pay their way.
In its heyday, the Poor Farm's residents produced enough to feed themselves, the county jail, the hospital and the juvenile home, and they turned a profit. But over time, the population swelled from the original 211, and it became more of a storage facility than a place of healing. By the 1930s, it became Edgefield Manor and began also serving as a home for seniors. More buildings were added. During the Depression, the resident population was at its largest, with 600 residents.
After it was abandoned in the '70s, only the manor's power station was kept in use as the local jail's laundry, and the rest of the site fell into ruin. The sprinkler system in the main manor building froze and burst, pouring water over the walls and floors. Vandals broke in with spray paint cans and paint ball guns and did their worst.
As with Old Main , local historians mounted a campaign to find the building a buyer capable of redeveloping it, but this is where the manor's and the hospital's stories diverge.
Unlike Northampton's leaders, Troutdale's elected officials resisted the tantalizing ease of the plan urged by those higher up. Multnomah County politicians wanted to see the manor demolished and the land sold to private developers.
In a first attempt to put an end to the issue, the Troutdale mayor refused to sign a demolition permit, and a second demolition effort was thwarted because disposal of the roof tiles would have exceeded the county's budget. Instead of paying for reports to justify the wrecking ball, Troutdale Council worked to delay demolition as long as possible, hoping someone with a vision and a budget might step forward.
Mike McMenamin, vacationing in the area with his family, first visited the site in 1988. In 1990, after refusing an initial bid, Multnomah County sold him Edgefield for $500,000.
From the start, the McMenamins' vision was that Edgefield would become a small village retreat offering art, music, food and lodging, with no smoking, telephones or television. But banks didn't share the vision and weren't interested in lending at first. Investing their own profits from their handful of other pubs, the McMenamins started with the building that had recently housed the jail's laundry, and after more than a year of renovation, they opened it as the Power Station Theater and Pub in October, 1991.
Though in the best condition of all the buildings at Edgefield, the power station still needed considerable work to its roof and interior, but perhaps its greatest challenge was its location. From the road, the power station stands behind the manor, and at that time, the much bigger manor building had become as creepy and imposing because of neglect as Old Main had grown to be.
"Does it worry you, opening a new restaurant and pub that no one can see behind a rotting brick building on a small country road?" a journalist asked Mike McMenamin at the time.
"It worries me a lot." he admitted.
But after the McMenamins began advertising the Power Station in those other pubs around Portland and western Oregon, people got curious about Edgefield. The Power Station was a success from opening day. Warm rooms with booths, books and paintings are all tucked around a magnificent main bar room with a vaulted ceiling blanketed with murals. Families were welcome, and it fulfilled the McMenamins brothers' vision that it be a place where people like their mother would want to meet their friends.
As comfortable as the Power Station was, visitors often wandered off, beer in hand, into the still vacant Edgefield complex. Seeing what had been done to one building, they began to look past the neglect and decay of the manor and other buildings on the site, and share in the vision of what the place could be.
Of all people, their financial angel came in the form of a bank loan officer who got inspired visiting the site. Suddenly the McMenamins had the investment funds needed to start bringing the manor back to life. They repaired the rotting porches, installed a restaurant in back, and turned the majority of the building into a vast, rambling hotel with family rooms and smaller, cheaper hostel rooms. The hotel is the heart of Edgefield, and its return to vibrancy was managed with a surprising level of love and respect.
A Past Honored Enriches the Present
Though their marketing literature emphasizes the light-hearted attitude that pervades the place now, in redeveloping the Edgefield manor building, the McMenamins did not shy away from serious issues surrounding its past. Facing the wide, institutional halls with doorways wide enough to fit a wheelchair or gurney, another developer might have despaired at creating warmth in the existing interior, and gutted it.
The McMenamins responded with an army of artists.
First a band of bagpipe players marched around the manor and inside in a public ceremony, playing Amazing Grace to ward off any bad mojo that had come to roost.
Then, during the renovations, 12 artists guided by few rules were let loose to decorate the building. They were given access to photographs, letters and other historical documents, and former residents and employees of Edgefield were invited to lunch with them and inspire their work. The halls, stairwells and doors of the hotel are covered with scenes from the Columbia River Gorge, Troutdale, the Edgefield farms when they were working, and portraits of many of the residents.
Each room has been given a name, and the doors all feature an illustration explaining the name's origins. Many rooms have portraits of people who stayed or worked at Edgefield, along with details from their lives. One room has the portrait of a large, bald, bearded man reclining and looking thoughtfully into the light. Around the room are details of his life:
"When 92-year-old William Isaac Griffin came to live at Edgefield in 1952, it was a homecoming of sorts; for as a younger man, he had farmed a 270-acre chunk of land that later became part of Edgefield's farm operation…
"William and his brother arrived in Oregon in October, 1881. Settling first in the Portland area, William worked as a teamster, trucking goods by horse and wagon from the eastern reaches of the county down into the Willamette Valley.
"For many years, William also worked as a commercial salmon fisherman, plying this trade at Bradford's Island in the Columbia River, a spot now covered by the lake behind Bonneville Dam."
Another has the text of a letter from a former orderly. Dated November 8, 1944 and addressed to the superintendent, Mr. Johnson, it begins,
"Dear Sir,
I don't like to write this type of letter to you but under the circumstances it's the only thing left for me to do.
Mr. Johnson I was arrested this past Friday night in Portland and in court the following morning I was fined $20.00. I am now at "Rocky Butte" serving out my time."
The writer continues, asking for a final paycheck, promising never to get in such trouble again, and pleading for a job when released. The letter is lovingly reproduced above the bed along with a wandering ribbon with a Victorian decoration. By the door out of the room is the story's conclusion: "Edgefield Superintendent O.A. Johnson promptly paid the letter writer the requested back pay, but declined his offer for rehire."
The newly opened pool hall in the manor's basement is named after Lucky Staehly, and at its entrance is a huge painting portraying the tanned, jovial guy in the wheel chair who raced the local kids on their bicycles, romanced the women, and shot a mean game of pool.
By respectfully representing the people who lived and worked at Edgefield, and allowing the public to walk the grounds and halls of an early 20th-century poor house, the McMenamins spin a deeper magic than just by creating a supremely groovy beer garden. They've turned a place that wanted to be forgotten into one that encourages locals to remember and reflect. With art and inspiration, hand-crafted beer or wine in hand, they've created a place that both celebrates Troutdale and invites careful reflection on how we as a society confront the issues that face us all: poverty, aging and mental illness.
The Destination Business
Some in Troutdale initially expressed concerns as to whether it was appropriate to turn a former refuge for the poor into a resort for the middle class.
But by shining a bright, flattering light on Edgefield, the McMenamins helped the town fundamentally change its attitude toward the institution. A place built originally for one sector of the public no one wanted to be a part of was now available to everyone to visit and enjoy. And the locals didn't just visit.
Edgefield employs an army. Working alongside the gardeners, brewers, wine-makers, and distillers and the hotel, pub and spa staffs, artists have their studios and shops, too; there's a potter's shed on the site, and elsewhere a glass kiln. Tim Hills, a full-time historian for the McMenamins, gave me a tour of the grounds and provided the bulk of background information for this story.
A formidable roster of local musicians performs every week at Edgefield and other venues in Portland, all promoted with well-illustrated posters and fliers done by local designers. Rich, hand-rendered illustration is a hallmark of the McMenamins' aesthetic, whether it's in their brochures, on their fliers, or adorning the walls of their establishments. It would be a mistake to dismiss the artwork as mere decoration, though.
The beautifully illustrated brochures the McMenamins leave on tables in their 50 or so establishments across Oregon and Washington feature all the buildings they've transformed in those places. All are interesting antique structures that make you want to travel distances to enjoy them. Ever hear of McMinnville? They've got what looks to be an amazing hotel, occupying the corner of a city block, with a rooftop bar and restaurant. Forest Grove is the home of the McMenamins' Grand Lodge. I never visited these places, but I've got the brochures pinned to my wall, and I hope to one day.
It may sound like a simple strategy, but it can be shocking how bland and off target some marketing can be.
On May 16, 2008, there was a groundbreaking ceremony on Hospital Hill, newly named Village Hill. Present, the developers' press release said, was a veritable "who's-who of city and state officials, community leaders, area entrepreneurs and local residents."
"Move over: 90210, 01060 is going to be the hot new place to live, work and play," Robert L. Culver, MassDevelopment president and CEO, is quoted as saying. "With more than 60 new homes and apartments in the pipeline and a comprehensive multi-media marketing campaign in place, Village Hill is poised to become a center for inspired living in Northampton."
The comprehensive multi-media campaign thus far seems to comprise a logo, a slogan ("Community. Commerce. Culture."), and a website for Village Hill, Northampton (www.villagehillnorthampton.com). The website only has one actual picture of the hill. In the News section, for some reason, there's an image of the Smith stables. Equally odd, in the Business Neighbors section, there's a picture of the Smith Art Museum. Under Contact Us, there's a picture of the Michelson Gallery.
Every other image on the site is a piece of generic stock photography of buildings, people and places I've never seen before. The website for this "multi-pronged marketing campaign to promote the project throughout the northeastern U.S." doesn't even have a map of where in the northeastern U.S. the hill is located.
Instead, the site uses words to paint its pictures: "Village Hill Northampton is a planned development that has transformed a hilltop site into a thriving and vital neighborhood offering the best of community life. …Each home offers inspired architecture, quality craftsmanship and environmentally-friendly features." Investors, businesses and tenants are invited to come to Northampton because it is "a small city of 30,000 people [that] offers easy access to Springfield, Albany, Boston, Hartford and New York City and is a 45-minute drive from Bradley International Airport."
I don't know what the best use for Old Main would have been, and I'm not suggesting a McMenamins East on Hospital Hill would have been the ideal solution. But I bet, had anyone asked, they would have found Northampton full of more compelling ideas than the housing development across the street from a high-security industrial complex that's being built.
There remains ample land on Hospital Hill for something visionary to be built that might begin to have the draw and resonance of the former landmark. But it would be foolish to expect new tricks from the old dogs who have gotten us this far. In more than a decade of trying, they haven't yet come up with anything that can distinguish Northampton from any other town that's 45 minutes from Bradley.
The politicians, community leaders and business people in charge of the development on the hill have gotten the houses and industry they were looking for. The developers have honored the city and the committee overseeing the project by naming the streets in the "village" they've built after a former mayor (Musante Drive) and a committee member (Moser Street). Now may be the time for the public to reclaim Hospital Hill and create something that honors the rest of us and is truly worthy of celebration.
