A bed and breakfast inn next to a trail
A trail advocate's bed & breakfast offers trail opponents a chance to spend the night next to a trail.
by Craig Della Penna, Associate Broker, The Murphys Realtors, Trailside Team
In the mid 1990s, I authored my first book on rail trails and it was around this time that I started to get more involved in the advocacy end of the rails-to-trails movement. At that time, my wife and I were living in a suburban community in western Massachusetts that right after WWII, went from farms to sprawled-out subdivisions. Sadly, with single-use zoning in effect, it is a place where many residents have to spend nearly a gallon of gas to get a gallon of milk.
We were so smitten by the healthy life style possibilities that came with living near a rail trail, that we started to look for a new place to live that was near a rail trail. Besides, as an advocate, it was important for me to not just "talk the talk," but to actually "walk the walk" so to speak. We also were looking to live in a community that still had a vibrant and functioning downtown. Hmmm... A house close to a trail and have a decent downtown nearby too? A tall order to say the least.
Well, one night while coming back from one of my lectures before an embryonic group of rail-trail advocates in New Hampshire, I decided to stop off in Northampton, Massachusetts, or more specifically, Florence, a village within Northampton. I wanted to see if any houses were for sale near the rail trail. Low and behold, there was. I stumbled upon an old revival style farmhouse that was barely visible from the street, hidden behind years of neglected brush and over-growth. The best part was that it sat eight feet from the rail trail.
We called the realtor the next morning, toured the place and found it to be in even worse condition than it looked from the outside. Nevertheless, we saw the potential and jumped right into a bidding war with three other bidders. We prevailed and in September of 2001, we moved in and started to restore the 1865 house.
We (and a slew of contractors) spent the next fourteen months restoring not only the interior and exterior of the house, but also the grounds outside. This landscape work included the installation of "period gardens" with plants and themes that were common to the Civil War era. Although we had many surprises in the restoration, most of them unpleasant, there one was one interesting oddity.
It seems that in 1868, three years after this house was built, the railroad came to Florence. The railroad was built so close to the house that the railroad officials offered a creative mitigation for the homeowners who were wary of cracked ceilings from the shaking the house was sure to experience. The railroad came in and reinforced all the plaster ceilings in the house with lath-strips nailed every few inches. Below that, they installed canvas ceilings. The thinking was that if the passing trains cracked the ceilings, they would not be noticeable since they would be above the taut, but flexible canvas. When we came onto the scene 130 odd years later and restored the house, two rooms still had these canvas ceilings.
The village of Florence is like many others in southern New England. It was laid out in a grid pattern in the mid-19th Century with houses close together. As you get further from the village center, the feel is suburban with typical 1950s to 1970s era housing. One different feature in our community is that shortly after the railroad stopped running in 1969, some local visionaries suggested that the derelict and trash strewn corridor become a linear park.
At that time, the corridor was filled with trash and neer-do' wells that spent all day drinking or drugging. The idea of converting something bad, into something good, like a bike path (the term "rail-trail" wasn't even invented back then) was a "new fangled idea" and something that not too many people could grasp.
In fact, the woman who owned our house at that time was the leader of the opposition to the idea of a bike trail. She would regularly trot out her then toddlers before the TV cameras and say that their lives would be endangered by the proposed conversion into a trail. She was not alone in that thinking. Most of the neighbors also thought that the construction of a formal path would only invite more bad guys. Well, after several years of discussion, it opened in 1984 and things have not been the same since.
One of the most notable things about New England that most people do not realize is the super-abundance of unused former railroad corridors. There are about 200 projects underway right now within a 100-mile radius of Northampton and Florence. In fact, since the 1960s, there has been over 70,000 miles of former railroad corridor taken out of the nation's inventory and the majority of this mileage is here in the northeast. The network of off-road paths that can be built in eastern New York and New England is simply unmatched anywhere else in the U.S. and they connect where people live, work and play.
Each day begins with pretty much the same scenario. Starting at around 5:30 a.m. or the crack of dawn, joggers and power walkers pass by. By 7:30 a.m., the dog walkers are out and by 8:00 schools kids pass by. In fact, scores of kids. Most are walking, but a substantial number are on bikes and even a smattering use roller blades. So many kids here walk/bike/blade to school that I hazard a guess and say one or two school buses aren't needed because of this safe route to school.
Around 8:30 a.m., a number of utilitarian bikers ride by— people biking to work. In the mid-day, the users are mostly retirees and mothers pushing baby carriages. The dog walkers are back out late in the afternoon. Finally, the evening strollers, joggers, and walkers pass by. My wife, who is a dedicated power-walker, is on the trail twice a day for a two-mile walk with our Scottish Terrier, Ivan.
On weekends the complexion of the path changes. There are more bicyclists, who tend to be tourists, but the local joggers, power-walkers, strollers, and dog walkers still are out there in force. To call these facilities bike-paths is a misnomer. In fact, to call them recreation trails is a misnomer too. They are true transportation facilities. The city has come around to this realization as well because a few years ago they began plowing the trail in the winter, so it can be used for the transportation use as a "Safe Route to School."
After the restoration of our house, we were honored when we received both the city's Historic Preservation Award and shortly after that, our work was featured on House & Garden Television's (HGTV) acclaimed series, "Restore America."
During the restoration, we decided to go one-step further and open a bed & breakfast. We call it Sugar Maple Trailside Inn. SMTI is the first bed & breakfast in New England that sits next to a rail trail— and also heavily markets to the bicycle tourism industry.
Our house was one of the closest houses ever to have a railroad built next to it— and it is certainly one of the closest houses to sit next to a rail trail. In addition, as an advocate, it is a just a perfect place to offer up complementary room nights to people fearful or concerned about the rail trail in their community. We make only weeknights available to trail opponents however because we want these people to wake up to the laughter of children biking to school&emdash;as they remember, but probably don't see anymore in their community.
Many people living in suburban-style developments, as we used to, probably feel a longing that cannot easily be explained. I think it is the longing for neighborhoods like those many of us grew up in. Places where you knew your neighbors, places with porches, certainly places with sidewalks.
This longing can also be explained by the lack of quality "third" places in society today. The first place is your family life. The second place is your work place. The third place is the place where people meet outside of the first two places. The third place experience in many lucky communities today is the pathway known as a rail-trail. This longing for the third place is why these projects are so successful. And it is one of the reasons we love living next to our rail trail.
Craig Della Penna is the Executive Director with Norwottuck Network, an Associate Broker with The Murphys Realtors, Trailside Team, as well as the Owner of Sugar Maple Trailside Inn in Florence, MA.
For 12 years, Craig marketed rail freight and operated New England’s largest and most successful railroad-owned, transloading facility—Railroad Distribution Services, Inc. For seven years, he worked for Rails to Trails Conservancy as their New England Field Representative focusing on the policy end of building rail trails as well as public outreach. Today he is a successful Realtor, the fist realtor in the US specializing in the sale of property near to rail trails.
Having given well over 1,200 lectures in 21 states and Canadian provinces, Craig is one of the countries most sought after motivational speakers on the economic development, tourism, and community development aspect of rail-trails, and their leveraging small amounts of public dollars to redevelop forgotten or derelict lands into treasured places. He is also the author of five books and numerous op-ed/guest editorials on the value of smart growth development, and rail-trails. In their 10th anniversary issue, THE RIDE MAGAZINE named him as the most effective advocate for rail-to-trail conversions on the eastern seaboard. He has also written the forward to three other books on rail trails and has been featured as a case-study in five books for, creative marketing, 21st century branding, etc.
He and his wife Kathleen, operate an award-winning bed & breakfast in a restored, Civil War era house where the restoration was so extreme, it was featured on HGTV. The house sits 8 feet from one of the earliest muni-built rail trails in New England. And within 150 miles of his house sits the densest network of former steam RR corridor in the US. He also is reassembling the longest rail trail in the Northeast. The Mass Central Rail Trail, which runs 100+ miles from Boston to Northampton, Mass. This directly connects with 17 other trails over the 104+ miles. And he publishes the most widely read, free monthly eNewsletter about trails.
Contact: [email protected]
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