Nothing like your new home catching fire to determine who your friends are and clarify priorities.
Dr. Jordan Quinn had moved into the one-time rectory next to the former Saint Anne's Church in Turners Falls with her husband, John Anctil, and her children. She is a therapist, and Anctil is the head of the Swift River Group, who are working to revive the old Strathmore Paper Mill on the nearby canal and turn it into a multi-use film institute and production facility.
Anctil had purchased the church and rectory to act as a base camp for the development crew working on the mill, and the upstairs of the rectory was going to be his family's home. For over a year before they'd moved in, they'd sanded and refinished the floors, stripped the wallpaper and painted the walls. They had only been living there about 10 weeks when a fire broke out in their son's bedroom.
Luckily, when the fire was discovered, Quinn and Anctil were meeting with architects in the church. They were actually discussing fire exits, sprinklers and compliance with the fire code for a planned renovation of the chapel when their son, Aiden, ran into the meeting yelling, "Fire!"
Anctil emptied a number of fire extinguishers onto the flames, but the fire had grown by the time the fire department arrived. Though the fire was mostly contained to the bedroom, the smoke and water damage made the house inhabitable. Damage was estimated at a cost of between $100,000 and $150,000. Other than Anctil's seriously singed head of hair, no one was hurt.
Since taking on the former Strathmore Mill two years ago, this is Anctil's second fire between the mill and church properties. Shortly after Swift River Group purchased it, a former worker at the mill set one building ablaze, demolishing it. As with that disaster, Anctil and Quinn have remained positive about Turners Falls and what they hope to achieve. While the family has relocated to a furnished apartment in Greenfield, they still spend most of their time and thought on the other side of the river in Turners. They hope to return to their home this year.
"It wasn't the worst thing to ever happen to me," Quinn said later, "but it was pretty awful. For a little while, the universe stopped. The thing that amazed me was how, before I'd even gotten over the shock of what had happened, I found I had a whole network of friends to fall back on. People like Denise [Dipaolo] over at the restaurant [Ristorante DiPaolo] were just amazing. They found out what we needed and they got it for us. Until something like this happens, you have no idea. To have only been here a short time, but to still find you have a support system is really incredible."
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The brick church and rectory stand on the corner of 7th and J streets, just off the wide Avenue A that runs through the heart of Turners Falls. Coming from the south, driving past the strip mall and grocery store, these buildings are the first glimpse you get of the historic downtown. The church, which was built in 1885, was vacated several years ago as the region's Catholic diocese consolidated, and given its prominent position, there was some concern about what would happen to it.
As her husband focuses on transforming the mill, Quinn's attention has been on turning the church into a concert venue.
"We want to keep the building as historically intact as we can," she said. "My former house was built in 1750, and the one before that 1860. I'm a big lover of history and historical properties. So we want to keep it as much as it is as possible. However, it will be a concert venue, and it's a big space with big acoustics, so we do need to do padding and tiles [to manage the sound]."
She plans to have headline acts performing on the weekends and other local events (like ballroom dancing classes) during the weekdays. She also intends to keep the facility available for weddings and wakes (a working title of the venture is "Weddings, Wakes and Wonderful Music.") As much as she and her husband brainstorm about possible money-making ventures for the buildings, though, she's also eager for the building to function as part of the downtown community.
"I really believe & in respecting your neighbors, so we want to keep it a really mellow folk, blues, jazz venue," she said. "The thing I like most about it is having local acts. We'll always have someone local open for an out-of-town act, and in addition to the main venue up here in the church, we're planning on having a pub downstairs where it's almost exclusively local music. Denise of DiPaolo's has said she's open to helping out with any food we might have going on."
In addition to the upstairs venue, Quinn plans to use the church's expansive basement for something more like a bistro, possibly opening out onto 6th street with an outdoor patio. Their optimistic projection for completing the job is the fall of 2009, but more realistically, they anticipate a spring 2010 opening. Depending on the success of what happens in the church, Quinn and Anctil may eventually move out of the rectory and turn it into a restaurant or bed and breakfast.
Quinn has been working with Northampton-based architect Tristram Metcalfe to help her envision the transition from place of worship to one of celebration. There is a shallow balcony at the back of the church where a large pipe organ stands, but Metcalfe is looking into extending the mezzanine along the sides of the church, while still protecting the integrity of the vibrant stained glass along the walls.
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The Town of Montague, of which Turners Falls is a part, has been very supportive of the plan, and Quinn and town planners have met regularly to discuss it. She's been impressed with their enthusiasm. "They've been really good to me," she said, "helping me with the zoning, the parking, and how to make this happen. They've been full of ideas. We spent a lot of time yesterday talking about different arrangements for the parking and ways that other local businesses could possibly share spaces, or rent them to us."
Quinn is now waiting for a special building permit, which should be ready in a month or so, and she and Anctil have been busy applying for historic tax credits to help fund development.
In addition to her love of community and music (she used to perform professionally as a vocalist), she has other goals for the project. After riffing through potential names for the pub ("Sophisticated Monkey" is her husband's favorite), she said, "The big thing, though, is economic stimulus."
Quinn grew up in Waterville, Maine, and even though it had Colby College, "the mills in my town had closed down—Scott Paper was there—and a lot of the big businesses had gone. It was not thriving. Growing up, stores were always closing, and as I got older, in came the Wal-Marts and Home Depot, and adios downtown."
It was Turners Falls' downtown that first got her excited about moving from the eastern part of the state to the Connecticut River valley. "Its downtown is so cool, and it should be thriving. I like the brick sidewalks and the buildings. Downtowns bring the community together and give it character and identity. It's worth spending more on local businesses if it preserves your downtown. You have to. We've got to take care of each other."
Quinn became a licensed therapist, going back to school in her 30s, offering support to families who had lost a child. Though she's been working in the field for years, "Lately, it's been very hard to disengage," she said. "I've been sucking up all their pain. So [when this opportunity came along] I thought, well, I used to be a professional blues singer, a concert pianist, and I play the flute. So, I thought, let's go back to music. To be corny, when I started thinking about that possibility, it made my heart sing."
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A panoramic tour inside the former Saint Anne's church is available here.
