Press Release  DCR Seeking Curator to Rehabilitate and Maintain 1799 Historic Farmhouse at Beartown State Forest

Boston — In an effort to preserve culturally significant structures within the state park system, the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) today announced it is seeking a curator to rehabilitate and maintain the historic Superintendent’s House at Beartown State Forest in Monterey. DCR, through its Historic Curatorship Program, issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) to preserve the two-story Federalist-era farmhouse connected to more than 200 years of agricultural and forest history in the Southern Berkshires. 

“Our Historic Curatorship Program enables us to work with partners to rehabilitate and preserve historic buildings for generations to come,” said DCR Commissioner Brian Arrigo. “Through the program, DCR has successfully transformed historic buildings into eateries, inns, and event spaces that foster economic opportunity and enhance visitor experiences at parks across the Commonwealth.”  

The Superintendent's House is a 2,300-square-foot house with four bedrooms and two bathrooms. The original section of the house, a post-and-beam structure built in 1799, includes a full basement with a concrete floor and mortar fieldstone walls. A one-story rear wing was added when the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) converted the former farmhouse into a forest headquarters in the 1930s for CCC Forest Superintendent John Lambert. The house interior evokes its past both as a rural early American farmhouse and as a CCC-designed forest headquarters. Features dating back to the CCC improvements include built-in map files, a hutch, a linen closet, and a fieldstone fireplace. In recent years, DCR has invested significant resources into preserving the house including a new roof, downspouts, gutters, sill and post replacement, new basement slab, side porch reconstruction, and window sash repair.  

DCR will hold two open houses for applicants to assess the interior of the building, tentatively scheduled for September 30, from 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. and October 4, from 4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.  

Beartown State Forest welcomes over 100,000 visitors annually for activities such as hiking (including the Appalachian Trail), camping, fishing, and cross-country skiing. The house is minutes from multiple state parks, ski areas, Great Barrington, Stockbridge, and other vibrant and creative towns and villages, as well as world-class attractions and arts venues, including Tanglewood Music Center. For this property, DCR is seeking a non-residential reuse, including potentially transforming it into a program space for a non-profit program space, a short-term guest house, or an outdoor recreation and/or provisions store, to complement the park and support and promote the existing community.  

Through the Historic Curatorship Program, outside parties work to restore a historic property in return for credit toward a long-term lease. The curators are chosen through an open and competitive process based on several factors, including compatibility with the surrounding community and the ability to enhance the visitors’ experience of the park where the property sits. This program has resulted in successful partnerships across the state that represent a diverse range of building types and reuses, such as a mountaintop restaurant and inn at Bascom Lodge (Mt. Greylock State Reservation in Adams); an urban dining and entertainment venue and community gathering place at Charles River Speedway in Brighton; and a premier events facility at Willowdale Estate (Bradley Palmer State Park in Topsfield). 

Since its inception in 1994, DCR’s Historic Curatorship Program has invested over $42 million for the preservation of 24 of the state’s previously unused but historically significant properties. The program has become a national model, inspiring other public and private property stewards to add this innovative public-private partnership to their preservation toolbox. 

Information on the program and the application are available on DCR’s Historic Curatorship Program webpage.  Applications for the Beartown curatorship are due by December 8, 2023. 

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