Eight years after residents from the Town of Northborough banded together to convince the town to purchase the historic White Cliffs estate for $1.75 million, the mansion sits unused.
The mansion is the last standing in a legacy of estates believed to be designed by the Herter Brothers firm whose clientele list includes the Vanderbilt family and the White House. Yet, it hasn’t been restored since the town overwhelmingly voted to purchase the estate to fend off demolition back in 2016.
Back then, many members of the town didn’t understand its steep renovation cost. Multiple attempts to get funding grants have failed. Now, simply maintaining the estate costs $42,500 each year, according to Public Works Director Scott Charpentier.
How did the town get here?
The White Cliffs mansion was constructed in 1886 for the influential American firearm designer Daniel Wesson and his wife Cynthia, according to the historical website Northboro History. Wesson had met Cynthia during an apprenticeship he did in the area. After Cynthia’s parents passed away, she asked that their summer home be built on at least some of the land they owned.
The estate was around 100 acres and had fish ponds, fountains, and employee housing. The mansion had stained glass windows, 17 fireplaces, and 32 rooms.
Most Northborough residents remember the mansion for personal reasons, as its halls were utilized for dozens of weddings and celebrations.
“A lot of people in town didn’t really understand the historical significance of the building, they just had a lot of happy memories there,” said Kristen Wixted, who lived in Northborough for 20 years and previously served on the Select Board.
This sentimental appreciation for the building is what drove many residents to band together and form a committee, called “Save the White Cliffs,” to fend off its demolition in 2016. The committee was overjoyed when the town voted to purchase the property. At the time, the one lingering detail of what to do with the space didn’t seem as daunting of a task as it turned out to be.
Many members of the committee were unaware of how much fixing up the mansion would cost. Full restoration of the mansion carries a $10 million price tag “just to make it habitable,” Planning Director Laurie Connors said in an email Saturday.
Several attempts to fund the project have failed. In 2022, the nonprofit organization MetroWest Collaborative Development proposed restoring the mansion and constructing an adjacent building to create 52 affordable housing units. This proposal was not well received by the neighborhood, and resulted in the Select Board rejecting the motion in May 2023 after reviewing a 250-signature petition by residents living near White Cliffs who opposed the plan to construct housing units.
A grant application to MassDevelopment, a state real estate investment agency, to demolish a 1960s cinderblock addition to the property that Connors said was “in deplorable shape” also went nowhere.
“I was told by grant program staff that the White Cliffs Mansion isn’t eligible for grant funds because the ultimate reuse of the Mansion won’t be affordable housing or a commercial use that will result in jobs,” Connors said.
Connors has since applied for funding from the Community Preservation Committee for the same project, but like MassDevelopment, the committee wants the Northborough Select Board to identify a clear plan for using the building before it agrees to fund the project. Her application is currently under review and, if approved, will be considered at the Annual Town Meeting.
One bright spot is the $2.4 million Northborough received to purchase and stabilize the property from the Massachusetts’s Community Preservation Act, Connors said. Until a clear funding path presents itself, the town has decided to maintain White Cliffs indefinitely.
Northborough residents haven’t given up on repurposing the mansion. Northborough’s Feasibility Study Committee, a group tasked with evaluating the practicality, costs, and implications of establishing town office buildings or facilities, has put forward a plan to repurpose White Cliffs as a new and improved town hall.
The current town hall, which operates out of an old high school, hasn’t had work done on it in decades and is undergoing various maintenance issues, officials said.
Yet, even this option would happen years in the future. Select Board member Mitch Cohen said the town doesn’t plan to consider construction plans for a new town hall — at White Cliffs or otherwise — until after they complete other pressing funding priorities, including building a new fire station and reconstructing Marguerite E. Peaslee Elementary School.
Cohen predicts the establishment of a new town hall will be addressed in 2030-2035. In the meantime, the select board has discussed releasing another request for proposals, or RFP, to see if any new ideas for White Cliffs have sparked in the last couple of years.
“That’s been put on a back burner but it was a very interesting idea and I think something that we should consider greatly,” Select Board member Julianne Hirsh said of the White Cliffs town hall proposal.
Alexa Coultoff can be reached at alexa.coultoff@globe.com. Follow her @alexacoultoff.