Geraldine O’Hagan Receives Annual Beacon Award

By Dan Murphy

During the Beacon Hill Civic Association annual members meeting held Thursday, May 21, at Hampshire House,  Geraldine O’Hagan was the recipient of the 29th annual Beacon Award, which each year, publicly recognizes an individual or group whose leadership is deemed to have made a sustained and significant positive impact on quality of life in the neighborhood.

O’Hagan, who today is the owner of two successful Charles Street businesses, Rugg Road Paper Co., and Paws on Charles, respectively, immigrated from Ireland to the U.S. in the late 1990s to work as a nanny on Beacon Hill. Her original plan was to stay for only six months before returning to Ireland.

“But that never happened,” said O’Hagan, who originally hails from County Mayo, during a recent conversation at Rugg Road.

When she worked as a nanny, O’Hagan was a frequent customer of Rugg Road under the shop’s previous ownership, usually stopping in about once a week to pick up a greeting card or some other small gift item.

“It was such a charming store. It was so well curated, with a wonderful selection of cards and, back then, an impressive selection of handmade wrapping paper,” O’Hagan recalled.

Rugg Road opened on Charles Street in April 1994, after relocating from the Brickbottom Artists Building in Somerville. But the neighborhood stationary shop actually got its start years earlier on its namesake Rugg Road in Allston-Brighton.

When her daughter, Maureen McGrail, was born in 2007, O’Hagan became a stay-at-home mother and remained one until Maureen enrolled in the sixth grade at Newton Country Day. (Maureen, who just graduated from Thayer Academy in Braintree, is headed off this fall to begin her freshman year at Trinity College Dublin.)

“I needed to find something else to do,” O’Hagan recalled of the time immediately after Mauren matriculated to Newton Country Day.

Talking with the erstwhile owner of Rugg Road, O’Hagan learned the business would soon be going up for sale.

“I decided to just go for it,” said O’Hagan, even though she had no prior experience running a business.

Upon first assuming ownership of Rugg Road in May of 2018, O’Hagan recalls how surprised some people who had previously known her as nanny around the neighborhood were to see first her working behind the counter there.

“Do you work here now, too?’ customers would occasionally ask her, only to learn she was now the shop owner.

Families and other people she knew from the neighborhood were quick to support Rugg Road under O’Hagan’s new ownership.

“I already had connections formed in the neighborhood, and it’s such a loyal community, which has helped both my businesses tremendously,” said O’Hagan.

In September of 2021, O’Hagan opened her second business, Paws on Charles, a boutique pet supply store located at 123 Charles St.

O’Hagan, who herself owns Molly, a 9-year-old border collie, along with four cats, credits her daughter, Maureen, for first identifying the need for a pet supply store on Beacon Hill, especially with so many dogs in the neighborhood.

While opening her second business on Charles Street so soon after the pandemic struck took some calculated risk on O’Hagan’s part, the timing turned out to be oddly fortuitous for some unforeseen reasons.

“So many people got dogs during covid, it was kind of to our benefit in a lot of ways,” said O’Hagan.

Paw on Charles has gone to become a two-time Boston Magazine ‘Best of Boston’ winner while flourishing under O’Hagan’s ownership.

Rugg Road settled into its new home at 130 Charles St. last November, after decamping its former longtime home at 105 Charles St. at the end of last July.

While the move put Rugg Road on the same block (but different sides of the street) as Paws on Charles and nearly doubled the previous storefront’s size, O’Hagan admits the relocation to the former Marika’s Antique Shop space came with a bit of apprehension on her part.

Prior to the move, O’Hagan was afraid the shop might lose some of the quaint appeal of its former space. But today, she believes Rugg Road has managed to preserve its initial charm while offering patrons an even wider selection of goods, including the addition of a selection of high-end pens and other writing instruments.

Rugg Road and Paws on Charles also share much of the same customer base, which comes as an added convenience for them, as well as for O’Hagan.

“My clients know if I’m not in one store, I’m in the other, so they come find me. My stores are so close, I can just hop back and forth,” said O’Hagan, adding that many of the customer interactions she normally has likely wouldn’t happen if her stores were located any farther apart.

Tourists visiting Charles Street are often surprised to see O’Hagan working double-duty when they visit both businesses.

“Do you own every store on the street?” they have asked her on countless occasions.

O’Hagan noted the close camaraderie between shop owners on Charles Street, adding that if a would-be customer comes into one of her stores seeking an item she doesn’t carry, but that she knows another business in  the neighborhood has in stock, she’ll gladly send them there – and vice versa.

“People are trying to work together and attract more people to Charles Street, and also work together on more collaborations,” said O’Hagan, who now serves as a board member of the Beacon Hill Business Association.

Russ Gaudreau, long-serving chair of the Beacon Award Nominating Committee, noted that the award had more interest, as well as more nominees, this year that ever during his tenure. But O’Hagan stood out as someone who was supported by both Beacon Hill’s residential and business communities, whereas in the past, nominees have been supported by either one or the other, but not both.

 “I think that the depth and breadth of her support as considerable from both the business and residential communities,” said Gaudreau. “It shows how well known and deeply respected she is in the neighborhood.”

Echoing the sentiments of the Civic Association’s Executive Director, Patricia Tully, Gaudreau noted that O’Hagan is always willing to pitch in at any community event, such as neighborhood cleanups.

“She’s a frequent helper, and someone who can always be counted on to help out,” said Gaudreau.

Gaudreau also noted O’Hagan’s “long-standing policy of hiring local residents,” especially neighborhood high schoolers and Suffolk University students.

“She’s very popular,” added Gaudreau. “People just like her, and they think she runs two very good businesses.”

In an email, Tully wrote: “I have known Geraldine since I moved to the neighborhood 13 years ago. I knew she was special from the moment I met her. She is always so welcoming and happy to see you.

“Geraldine has been and continues to be a wonderful addition to Charles Street with her positivity, generosity and spirit. Her redo of the former Marika’s Antique store is a jewel on the corner of Revere and Charles. We are so glad to have her two stores here!” added Tully.

Meanwhile, O’Hagan said she was “very surprised and honored” when Tully recently called to notify her she had been selected to receive this year’s Beacon Award.

“It’s just crazy because I came here years ago to work as a nanny, to then living in the neighborhood, to owning two businesses in the neighborhood, to now being recognized as an addition to the neighborhood with this award,” O’Hagan humbly said.