Credit: Roger Farrington



The Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay (NABB) hosted its second annual benefit Wine Auction last Friday, November 2, at The Algonquin Club. Nearly 150 guests, including Beacon Hill neighbors and shop owners, filled the club's second floor lobby and Reading Room for the four-flight wine tasting with both silent and live auctions. A portion of this year's proceeds will benefit The Women's Lunch Place on Newbury Street.

Co-chair Roberta Orlandino with Jeffrey Heighton, Bowdoin Street, and Jennifer Hill, owner of Blackstone’s on Charles Street.

Elizabeth and Michael McCord, West Cedar Street.

The Zoning and Licensing Committee of the Beacon Hill Civic Association voted unanimously to waive its standing vote of opposition for the proposed renovation of an uninhabited unit on the fourth floor of 130-132 Charles Street at a meeting Tuesday night.

The vote came in response to a revamped plan presented by resident Vince Lorusso and his architect Patrick Hickox. The new plan calls for the installation of a skylight in the roof to provide light to unit 3, a step that makes the space livable without significantly altering the building's appearance or profile. The previous plan for the renovation, which failed to gain the approval of the committee, had included dormer windows and a small deck accessed by French doors at the rear of the building, neither of which were part of the new plan presented on Tuesday.

"We decided we could make a number of concessions to address the concerns for privacy and noise," said Lorusso, who explained that developing the fourth floor unit was important for accommodating the needs of his growing family.

Neighbors and abutters in attendance reacted positively to the new plan, and seemed to welcome a step that would increase the building's livable space without increasing resident density. Several neighborhood residents came forward to express their enthusiasm for the project and their appreciation for the Lorussos' sensitivity to their concerns.

Hickox agreed that the dialogue among the neighbors had been constructive. "It pushed us to a level of design that we wouldn't even have considered to begin with," he said.

The plan also calls for the building of a staircase to connect the two units and the construction of a roof deck.

For the fifth year, the Beacon Hill offices of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage are assisting Community Servings with their annual “Pie in the Sky” fundraiser program.

More than 150 Boston area restaurants and caterers bake and donate pies, which are then sold for $25 each. Proceeds benefit the clients of Community Servings, a non-profit organization that delivers complimentary meals to homes throughout eastern Massachusetts where individuals with acute life-threatening illnesses are unable to shop or cook for themselves. Each pie sold will enable Community

Servings to feed one client lunch, dinner and a snack for a week.

Neighbors can choose from five types of pie, including apple, pumpkin, sweet potato, pecan and diabetic apple. Pies can be ordered now through November 14 by calling the Coldwell office at 617-723-2737 or online at www.pieinthesky.org. The pies can be picked up on Wednesday, November 21, at the Coldwell office located at 48 Charles Street between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.

“We encourage all neighbors to buy a pie,” said Roni Boyles, director of public relations for Coldwell Brokerage, which is no stranger to community service. Last year, it donated more than $700,000 to non-profit organizations, said Boyles.

To add incentive and raise more money, the various Coldwell branch offices are competing to see who can sell more pies, said Boyles. “It’s fun and we get to give back to the community.”

Because there are so many different businesses donating pies, customers don’t know who made their pie until the pick-up date. Neighbors can only request the type of pie, not who makes it. “It makes picking up your pie a surprise,” said Boyles. “It seems more like Christmas than Thanksgiving.”

Blackstone’s of Beacon Hill will begin selling the second of ten ornaments in its mystery ornament collection early next month. The first person to solve a final puzzle created by the store, using clues etched on each ornament, will win $2,000 and the chance to reveal a message locked in a vault at Cambridge Trust.

The shop will offer two ornaments, crafted by German artist Mario Friedrich, each Christmas for five years. This December, Blackstone’s will sell an ornament created last year as well as a new design. In honor of its 25th anniversary, the store will also give customers the first chapter of a fictional story relating to the ornaments. “This is a fun tradition to start at Blackstone’s,” said co-owner Jennifer Hill. “Customers can build upon it with family and pass it through the generations… As you put ornaments on the tree each year, you can tell the stories.”

This year’s ornament was designed by Friedrich’s twin sister, Sharon. It contains word puzzles, number games, and mysterious anagrams. “Families can sit and solve it together,” said co-owner Mark Duffield. The store supplies each buyer with a grid to add clues to each year.

At the stroke of midnight on Christmas Eve, five years from now, the president of Cambridge Trust will open a vault at the bank and reveal a special message. The bank will have added silver and gold coins to the vault each year, resulting in the $2,000 prize.

The Last Shepherd and Tales of the Tenth Ornament, written by Duffield, follows a reporter who is sent to watch the destruction of a fictional Blackstone’s. He looks back into the store’s history, and learns about a young couple that used to run it. “They find the world is changing,” said Duffield. “There is development everywhere in Boston... Blackstone’s is the only mom and pop store left, and it loses money.” Then, a mystery man arrives at the store with a bag of magical ornaments, giving the couple a way to make more money.

“There are many, many wonderful Christmas stories out there,” Duffield said. “We decided to take elements of those and build on the themes – love, faith in others, overcoming personal difficulties, staying true to oneself.” The book was named after a valued customer with the last name Shepherd.

One day when Duffield was planning the story, noted cartoonist Don Sherwood walked into the store and agreed to provide illustrations. Sherwood is known for drawing newspaper comic strips including “Dan Flagg,” “Terry and the Pirates,” and “The Phantom,” and has worked with Hanna Barbara, the company responsible for the Flintstones and Jetsons cartoons.

Duffield and Hill decided to limit the supply of each ornament to about 200, to create more of a personal, special feel. “Initially, we wanted to reveal the final message on our website,” said Duffield, “but we decided we wanted to be able to focus on 200 and make the experience a rich one.”

Each ornament costs $54.95. Considering production costs, said Duffield, the store will probably break even. “The items are very delicate but meant to be heirlooms,” he said. “They are hand-painted with minute details… They’re absolutely gorgeous. In the end this will not line our pockets. All the time and effort is our Christmas present, to 200 people, at least.”

“We hope to stand test of time, to bring enjoyment in the holiday season for everyone, even long after we’re gone” said Duffield. One of the story’s main themes is the importance of leaving an echo, or lasting impression, on the world, and this is Blackstone’s way of doing that, he said. “We hope this will encourage working and reading together, young and old, and teach the lesson that family is important.”

Blackstone’s will reveal the new ornament on December 3rd. At 7 p.m. that day, customers will get the chance to meet Friedrich and have Sherwood and Duffield sign the book.

The Beacon Hill Times follows the progress, or lack thereof, on Cambridge Street through direct observation and interviews with the project’s supervisor John Lepore.

Progress during the week of November 5 - 9

Traffic signals: Best Electric has been on the job every day. It is easy to see that more equipment has been hung from the mast arms, but the signals were still not operating, and won’t be until after NStar comes to finish the work.

Street paving: Getting closer. The new traffic control cabinets have been moved onto the plaza in front of the Hurley Building. This will allow that section of the street to be finished — as long as the weather holds.

Plantings: Mass. Highway has not heard from the city as to what the plan is for replacing the damaged plantings.

Now that another real estate office has moved into a former retail shop — this time it’s Fred’s Video’s old Charles Street space — it’s time to change the zoning on our commercial streets to make professional offices a conditional use at the street level. We have now lost four shops to offices in the past three years.

We have started the ball rolling, with City Councilor Michael Ross’s office writing an amendment to the zoning code that we can use to start the process. The Beacon Hill Business Association and the Beacon Hill Civic Association say there is strong support for such a change, even though it is not unanimous, and the matter is under consideration in both organizations.

This change is important to the quality of life for those who live here and want to continue doing so happily for many years to come. Our two commercial streets are a big reason many of us enjoy living here so much. We can get everything we need without having to get in a car. As important as the streets are for convenience, they are also important to our sense of community. Every time we go to Red Wagon, every stop we make in the hardware store, every impromptu meal we have at the Paramount or Panificio, every time we walk down the street, we meet neighbors, have a chat and realize how lucky we are to live in a village-like community in a large city.

It’s not the law, insurance or real estate offices that bring us to the street. It’s the shops, the restaurants, the nail salons and the grocery stores.

For these businesses to make a go of it, there has to be enough of them. We don’t know what the tipping point is for too many offices, but there is one.

Making offices a conditional use, as we have done with restaurants, means that we who live in the neighborhood have some control over the balance of uses.

Offices don’t need to be at street level, as retail shops do, to succeed. Tourists come to the Hill for its retail charm, not for its offices. The retail shops need both residents and tourists to survive. We already see what happens at the corner of Revere and Charles, especially on a weekend when the two offices at that location are closed. Visitors look at the corner, and while they could look across the street to where Danish Country offers interesting goods and where Panificio would offer visitors lovely refreshment, what they mostly see is the long string of blinds shuttering a mysterious law office where no one ever seems to go. Visitors turn around, believing that nothing else of interest exists beyond them, which is not true.

We are baffled at an office’s desire to be on the street level, since ultimately it diminishes their business. At the risk of sounding like Richard Nixon, we’ll characterize the problem as a domino effect: two many offices occupy street level spaces. Goods and services decline. Beacon Hill becomes less desirable as a place to live. So property values decline, reducing both sales and rental prices. Everyone loses, especially the real estate brokers, who started the decline in the first place.

As it is, the brokers who occupy second floors seem to be doing just fine. Coldwell Banker, Townsend Associates and Ivy Associates, Inc., have long had second floor offices and are some of the more successful brokerages on the street. Those along the side streets, such as Brewster & Berkowitz, also thrive. They had to seek approval as a conditional use themselves, but because the principals were known and respected, they succeeded in getting approval to open that office.

Offices could be allowed on the second floor as of right, with residential uses only above, to preserve vitality at night with people coming and going. Some arrangement should be made for signs and display cases, so that second-floor offices can announce their presence to those who are seeking them. Any office that presently occupies a street level space would be able to remain in place under a grandfather clause, although with a change of ownership or tenant the occupancy would have to be revisited. Some offices, such as Street & Co., have stuck it out through thick and thin over decades. No one can object to such historic fixtures as they.

But one only has to look at Charlestown to find how offices have wrecked a business district. Charlestown once had a thriving commercial district, and it has housing as beautiful as Beacon Hill’s. It has a lovely coterie of young families who care about the neighborhood. But everyone has to have a car because offices crowded out retail, except for an unpleasant shopping mall. Now, a group of Charlestown leaders are trying to remake a commercial district into something more like Beacon Hill.

It is not hard to amend the zoning code. The first step of writing the amendment has taken place. Since Cambridge and Charles streets comprise the only L265 district in the city, they would be the only streets affected. The matter will require a public hearing and eventually adoption by the Boston Zoning Commission.

The residents, the civic association and the business association need to get behind this now to save our commercial streets and preserve the quality of life Beacon Hill’s residents enjoy.