Effort to save Belmont's Clark House heads to Special Town Meeting

By Evan Allen, Globe Correspondent

Belmont selectmen showed their support for the effort to save the Thomas Clark House, voting Monday to let Special Town Meeting members decide whether a spot on Royal Road can become the historic home’s permanent address.

The Clark House, built circa 1760, has been in limbo since it was sold last year to a developer, Mark Barons, who plans to build two homes on the lot where the house stands. Local architect Erik Rhodin has stepped in with several plans to move the house, but hasn’t yet found a viable location.

Barons agreed to hold off razing the home until Rhodin and Belmont’s Historic District Commission could come up with a plan, but time is running out. With cold and snowy months ahead, Barons said that the house either needs to move or be torn down within a month of the Jan. 18 Special Town Meeting.

Selectmen voted Monday to place the question on the Special Town Meeting warrant.

“In February, we’re gonna be into the ice ages,” Barons said. “I don’t know what else I can do. If I owned a piece of land relatively close, I’d consider moving it.”

Barons had originally planned to demolish the Clark House and build both new homes at once, but in the hopes that the Clark House could be saved he instead demolished a wing of the Clark House that had been added recently, and is building one house at a time – a change in plans that has been very expensive.

“It’s been many thousands of dollars,” he said.

Glenn Clancy, director of Belmont’s Community Development Department, said that Barons holds a completed permit for demolition of the Clark House, and could legally begin demolition at any time.

“I’m hoping and praying that they do find a space for it,” Barons said.

The warrant article lets Town Meeting members vote on whether to “approve the sale, and conversion to residential use, of a portion of the park land on Royal Road… on the condition that the property become the site of the relocated Thomas Clark House.”

Because the land in question is town land, selectmen must be given the authority from Town Meeting to sell it for different use.

“It really is an important piece of American history that we’re trying to save here,” said Michael Smith, chair of the Historic District Commission. “One of the problems of trying to save it is being able to move it off of that location. It simply cannot be moved more than a few blocks.”

Smith also asked the selectmen to support a plan to temporarily move the house to a town-owned location on Concord Avene at the high school.

Smith said that he is currently working on a private deal to make a different piece of property on Concord Avene the Clark House’s new home. He would not give any details because he didn’t want to upset negotiations.

If that deal goes through, he said, then the house would not move to Royal Road. But he said that because Concord Avenue and Royal Road were the only two options, he wants to keep both of them available.

“This is not a done deal for the sale of this property,” he said. “We’re trying to keep all our options open.”

If either Concord Avenue or Royal Road appear to be viable options for the permanent location of the house, then the plan, according to Smith and Rhodin, is to move the house from its current spot at 59 Common Street to the temporary location near the high school.

Rhodin and Smith said that private donors have given $80,000 to pay for moving the house.

Once the house leaves its foundation, the Architectural Heritage Foundation, a Boston not-for-profit that specializes in preservation and restoration of historic structures, has agreed to take responsibility for the house. They will hold the title and carry the insurance, Smith said.

Once that happens, said Smith, then he and Rhodin will begin working on the paperwork to move the house to a permanent location, either on Royal Road or Concord Ave.

“With love and care, this is going to be a great property,” Rhodin said.

But Smith and Rhodin have faced stiff opposition from Royal Road residents, who worry that moving the house will destroy what is now open space, and make a planned bike path impossible.

Rhodin contends that there will be room enough for the bike path, but Vincent Stanton Jr., a Royal Road resident, contends that there will not be. At Monday night’s meeting, Stanton Jr. said that moving the house is not an economically viable plan.

Selectman Angelo Firenze said that town meeting should be allowed to vote on the proposed site, and that the issues Stanton was raising would come up at the town meeting. “Let’s go through the process,” he said.

Evan Allen can be reached at evannn524@gmail.com.