"There's so many people, even outside Northborough, that have had monumental celebrations there in the past, so it means something to everybody," Town Administrator Stephanie Bacon said this spring, talking about the mansion on Route 20 that most of us just call White Cliffs. If you've lived in Northborough for more than a few years, you know the building she means. It sits back from Main Street behind a fence, 32 rooms and 17 fireplaces of Queen Anne detail that has been dark since 2014.
What you may not know is how many different futures this building almost got, and why every single one of them fell apart for the same reason before the one that finally stuck. The story isn't really about historic preservation sentiment, even though there's plenty of that here. It's about money. Every plan for White Cliffs, from knocking it down to turning it into affordable housing to converting it into Town Hall, ran into the same wall: none of them could pay for themselves. The plan that's finally moving forward is the first one that didn't need to.
The demolition scare that started it
White Cliffs was built in 1886 as a summer estate for Daniel B. Wesson, the co-founder of Smith & Wesson, and his wife Cynthia, who had grown up on land nearby. Architect Benjamin Hammett Seabury designed it, European craftsmen built it, and it later spent decades as a restaurant and event venue before closing its doors in 2014.
Once it sat empty, the owners at the time moved toward demolition, and stained-glass windows and other original fixtures headed to auction. Northborough voters stepped in. In 2016, residents voted 218-67 to buy the property rather than lose it, and the town closed on the purchase for $1.75 million. That vote saved the building, but it also handed the town a problem nobody had solved yet: what do you actually do with a 19th-century mansion once you own it.
Every option needed a subsidy
In 2019, the town hired DBVW Architects to figure that out. The resulting feasibility study narrowed the realistic paths down to three: turn White Cliffs into an event space, convert it into municipal offices, or redevelop it as housing. The study's conclusion is the part that explains everything that happened next. None of the three options could generate enough income on its own to cover the cost of preserving the building. Every path required outside subsidy just to break even.
That single finding is why White Cliffs sat vacant for another six years after the town bought it. The town wasn't dragging its feet out of indifference. It was looking for someone else, public or private, willing to absorb a cost that the numbers said the building itself couldn't cover.
The housing plan that got closest
The first real attempt came through a 2022 request for proposals. MetroWest Collaborative Development, a nonprofit housing developer, proposed restoring the mansion and building an adjacent structure to create 52 affordable housing units. Northborough's White Cliffs Reuse Committee recommended the proposal in 2023.
Nearby residents circulated a petition with 250 signatures opposing it, and the Select Board declined to move forward. In the aftermath, the town also floated the idea of converting White Cliffs into a new Town Hall, another option the 2019 study had priced out. That idea didn't advance either, for the same underlying reason as the others. Whatever went into that building was going to cost more than it generated, and municipal offices don't produce revenue to close that gap.
Two bids, one very different mansion
By early 2025, the Select Board tried again with a second round of proposals. This time, two bidders responded, and their pitches show how differently the same building could have turned out.
| Bidder | Proposed use | Housing included | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| Elegant Banquets LLC (Brookfield, CT) | Restored mansion as a wedding and event venue, with a new ballroom and cocktail pavilion | None | Selected; lease awarded July 14, 2025 |
| Nicky's Gardens of Hope | Pub, cafe, greenhouse beer garden, and office space on the original structure | 36 units for adults with physical and intellectual disabilities | Not selected |
Elegant Banquets, a Connecticut-based company that has restored comparable historic properties for weddings and corporate events, got the nod. Their pitch had one advantage the others never carried: a venue business generates its own income, which meant the town wasn't the one on the hook to make the math work.
Even the winning deal took two tries
Getting a bidder wasn't the end of the negotiation. The lease terms shifted more than once before landing where they are now. In October 2025, the town announced it was moving the deal from a long-term lease toward an outright purchase model, which pushed back a Special Town Meeting that had been set for November 3. Lenders, it turned out, preferred an ownership structure over a lease when the environmental remediation and historic preservation costs came in higher than expected.
That version didn't hold either. By the time the proposal reached voters at Town Meeting on April 27, 2026, the structure had shifted back to a lease, this time set at 45 years. Elegant Banquets becomes the building's owner for tax purposes under the lease, pays annual rent starting around $35,000 and rising to $50,000 by year twenty, and holds an option to buy the property outright for $2.5 million at any point during the term. Town Administrator Bacon has said she expects the company to exercise that option in eight to nine years. Voters approved the lease 369-17, the accompanying tax increment financing agreement 381-22, and the creation of a hospitality overlay district to support the redevelopment 262-11, clearing the way for the project.
What's actually being built
The design, released by Maugel DeStefano Architects in July, follows National Historic Guidelines rather than trying to recreate the original mansion wholesale. The 1960s and 1970s additions that have obscured the historic front facade for decades are coming down. The original front and side porches will be restored and enclosed in frameless glass. A new cocktail pavilion and a roughly 5,000-square-foot grand ballroom are part of the plan, but they're deliberately designed to look distinct from the Victorian Queen Anne mansion, set back from the primary facade so the historic structure stays the visual centerpiece rather than getting absorbed into something newer.
Here's the full arc, start to finish:
- 2014: White Cliffs closes as an event venue
- 2015: Prior owners pursue demolition; artifacts go to auction
- 2016: Voters approve town purchase, 218-67; town buys the property for $1.75 million
- 2019: Feasibility study finds every reuse option requires subsidy
- 2022-2023: MetroWest Collaborative Development's 52-unit affordable housing proposal advances, then is not approved after resident petition
- 2025: Second RFP draws two bids; Select Board awards the lease to Elegant Banquets on July 14
- October 2025: Deal structure shifts toward purchase, delaying the planned Special Town Meeting
- April 27, 2026: Town Meeting approves the final 45-year lease, TIF agreement, and rezoning
- July 2026: Maugel DeStefano releases the architectural design
- Summer 2026: Construction is set to begin, which puts the project somewhere in that window right now
- Fall 2027: Opening target
Why this version is different
The through-line across a decade of failed plans is simple once you see it. Preservation sentiment was never the obstacle. Money was. The town could vote to save the building, and it did, twice, by wide margins. What it couldn't do was find a use for White Cliffs that paid for its own upkeep, and every plan that ran aground, from demolition to housing to Town Hall, ran aground on that same rock.
The version moving forward now works because a wedding venue generates the ongoing revenue that municipal offices and, per the 2019 study, even the housing proposal couldn't guarantee on their own. That's not a verdict on which use was more worthy. It's just the reason this is the plan that's actually under construction while the others are footnotes in a chronology.
If you've watched that fence line on Main Street for the better part of a decade without much changing, this summer is the first one where it will. Whether the sound of a wedding band drifting across Route 20 in fall 2027 feels like Northborough getting its landmark back or something else entirely probably depends on which version of this story you'd already made peace with. Either way, it's finally happening.
Christina Liberty Grimm has been tracking projects like this across Worcester County because they shape more than the skyline. Local landmarks, zoning changes, and town meeting votes all feed into what makes a neighborhood worth knowing well. If you're curious how a specific street or project might affect your own plans in Northborough or anywhere else in Central Massachusetts, Christina Liberty Grimm is always happy to talk through it. Schedule Your Free Consultation whenever you're ready.
