Residents Pondered the Question: What Do You See on Grove Street?

It's the story of a 19th-Century manor and dairy farm in Watertown that gave way in the 20th Century to an industrial concern, and that's now a vacant, deteriorating house and land – in a location brimming with possibilities. 

Titled "The Past, Present, and Future of Grove Street," a meeting was held on March 31 to share ideas about this underused site in Watertown, just across from Mount Auburn Cemetery. Participants also debated the pros and cons of preserving the vacant mansion on the property, known as the Shick House.

Attended by an impressive group, including about 40 citizens, the three town planners, several town councilors, and the president of Mount Auburn Cemetery, the gathering was run by a team of four graduate planning students from Tufts University (who ended up doing as much listening and note-taking as talking).

"It's a huge asset," said Councilor Vincent Piccirilli in one of the breakout sessions. "It's a big parcel in a great location .... It has greenspace on either side, Filippello Park and Mount Auburn Cemetery, it's near Cambridge and Boston, and 10 minutes from Mt. Auburn Street and the Charles River."

Attendees came up with a host of creative ideas for the site and the house, including a hotel and restaurant, community gardens, a research & development facility, light industry and housing.

Yet all seemed to agree with one thing: it's in a prime location that would benefit from what one of the Tufts students called "adaptive reuse."

Built in the 1850s by the Shick family, originally from Poland, the grand house was once part of the family's working dairy farm. Eventually, though, the family moved the farm to Wayland for more land, and the house was eventually abandoned. ("An aristocrat in overalls," was how its last owner, Maete Shick, described it in the late-1950s.)

Aggregate Industries used the land, but when that business closed, the site became vacant. Nearby plots are now the town's recycling center and the town snow dump.

A few years ago, a four-story, 170-unit housing development was proposed for the site, but ran into objections over traffic and sightlines.

Today, the Shick House and two adjoining plots are owned by Mount Auburn Cemetery. The cemetery was considering restoring the house to use as office space, but decided not to.

Now the cemetery has leased the land for ten years to Mt. Auburn Hospital to be a parking area. And the cemetery plans to improve the streetscape with trees.

"We want to work with the town to find the best use for the land," Dave Barnett, president of Mount Auburn Cemetery, said at the meeting.

With the 10-year lease to the hospital in effect, major changes to Grove Street will not happen any time soon.

"This is definitely a long-term process," said Kristin Feierabend, one of the Tufts planning students.

In breakout sessions last last Thursday, attendees brainstormed ideas for the land and the house. One guiding question was whether the Shick House an asset or a hindrance. People took both sides.

According to Tufts planning student Jesse Steadman, the structure itself is in "decent shape" and could be preserved.       

"Once you lose it – it's gone," said one attendee.

"It is rare – it has cache and could be a marketing tool," another chimed in.

Some lobbied for making it a bread & breakfast or a hotel, others suggested a community center or "some kind of a teaching tool about gardening and farming."

Other participants thought the parcel of land was better utilized as a site for a new R&D facility or light industry, which would also enhance tax revenues.

Despite many different visions, the consensus was that the corridor needs better bus service and pedestrian access. As one participant put it, "Anything that is done will increase traffic."