Raze old tavern, panel suggests

With the Marion Tavern at Grandview Farm deteriorating across from the Town Common, a committee charged with studying new uses for the landmark is recommending that the selectmen consider tearing it down.

Restoration costs could exceed $4 million, more than twice originally expected, making the work impossible without an infusion of tax dollars or private money, the Grandview Farm Use Committee told the selectmen last week. As an alternative, the committee suggested that the town raze the Burlington-owned complex and replace it with a replica that could incorporate some salvaged elements, like the pine floor boards and beehive ovens.

Having worked to save the property for nearly five years, the committee delivered the report without enthusiasm. "Let me state clearly and without any confusion that this committee first and foremost would like to see the facility restored," cochairman Nicholas Rubino said. The recommendation drew immediate protest, including from some dissenting committee members.

"I just can't believe that the town will let this old, historic piece of property be razed," committee member Hope Paulsen said. "Once that's gone, your history's gone, and it's nothing but a copy."

Those on both sides of the vote - which was 7 to 4, with one abstention - said they hoped the selectmen would see it as an appeal to take the lead on the project, which stalled after contractors passed over bid packages to perform structural and exterior work for $800,000, the money currently on hand.

Committee members also said they hoped the prospect of demolition would reinvigorate public interest in the Grandview Farm complex, which drew about 2,000 people to an open house in 2003 - after the town acquired the property in a complicated land swap - but has sat idle since.

The selectmen said they would brainstorm options at an annual goal-setting and strategic-planning session next month. But they did not speculate about the possibilities, which could include raising taxes to pay for the project, selling other property to raise money, or turning Grandview over to a private, nonprofit organization. Deconstruction would need to be reviewed by the town Historical Commission, which could block the dismantling for six months but not prevent it altogether. The property could also continue to sit, but it would deteriorate, and the town also would risk losing $300,000 secured from past state budgets through state Representative Charles A. Murphy, officials said.

The Marion Tavern at Grandview Farm is significant for its design and its history. The former dairy farm - which sits on Center Street, above the Common - is a link to Burlington's agrarian past. It also served as a tavern during the mid-19th century, when it was the midway stop for stage coaches traveling between Boston and Lowell. It is the last remaining example in town, and one of the last in the region, of "connected farm" architecture, a Yankee style of cobbling together a large home in pieces over time.

The connected property consists of an 1830s Greek Revival house, a pre-1775 saltbox house, a barn, and multiple porches. In a letter to the selectmen last week, Salem-based historic preservationist John V. Goff urged the town to save Grandview Farm, calling it "Burlington's finest historic property." Goff previously consulted for the town on a historical survey of 85 Burlington properties.

Grandview remained in private ownership through the 1990s, when developer Gary Ruping proposed surrounding it with a affordable-housing complex under the state's Chapter 40B law of up to 105 units, to the dismay of town officials.

"This isn't Lexington. We don't have a lot of iconic buildings that would show our history," Town Administrator Robert A. Mercier said, noting the property's prominent location. "Nearly everyone in Burlington knows where it is."

Years of negotiations culminated in a dozen Town Meeting articles in 2001 that enabled a three-way land swap, Mercier said. The town succeeded on several of the swap's goals, preventing the 40B project on the common, directing housing construction elsewhere, creating affordable condominiums for senior citizens, and acquiring the coveted Grandview Farm.

But preserving the property - which officials sold to Town Meeting as a project that could be done without tax dollars - has proved difficult.

Officials intended to pay for the renovations by selling three or four house lots around the farm; they expected that revenue from another part of the deal - a land trade with Burlington development firm Gutierrez Co., which was supposed to be sweetened by a $75,000-a-year payment for 20 years - would cover future maintenance.

The Gutierrez maintenance money never materialized, because it was contingent on that firm developing the land as an office park.

Of the house lots, two were merged into a 1-acre property that the town sold for about $450,000. The other properties received only one bid, at a combined $550,000, which the town rejected.

The $450,000 from the lot sale has been supplemented by the $300,000 from the state and about $45,000 raised by the town's Grandview committee, which was created in 2002 to study uses for the property and has continued to work on fund-raising.

With $800,000, the town tried to attract bidders last year to complete badly needed roof, structural, and foundation work, and to restore the exterior with historically accurate features.

The low bid was about $1.3 million, Mercier said.

The town revised the bid package this year, seeking considerably less work, but the low bid still came back last month at about $1.2 million, Mercier said.

"Needless to say, the committee was pretty disheartened," said Sonia Rollins, a member of both the Grandview committee and the Board of Selectmen.

She said the committee voted to recommend deconstruction not because it wanted to, but as a sign the project is "at a dead spot."

"No one spends four years in a room discussing a historical building and then happily votes to tell the selectmen to tear it down."

Eric Moskowitz can be reached at emoskowitz@globe.com.