Scores of 19th and 20th century mills and factory buildings can be found throughout the Berkshires, standing as monuments to our industrial heritage. Some hum with activity, others are ghostly silent. For one person they might represent tantalizing opportunity, while serving as a bitter reminder of a lost past to another. They make an intriguing statement about the duality of the region’s history, rural idyll and New England manufacturing center both at the same time.
Local historian John Dickson noted, “When people think of industry in Massachusetts, they usually think of Lawrence or Lowell, which had large mills. But the Berkshires had over 500 manufacturing establishments in the 1800s and dominated in the production of paper and wool.”
By the second decade of the 19th century, thanks to abundant water power from innumerable creeks and the Green, Housatonic, and Hoosic Rivers, spinning mills, weaving mills, and dye works for the textile industry, as well as paper mills, were well established in the Berkshire. Within a few short decades, the Berkshires had become the nation’s leading producer of wool and paper. While textiles and paper remained dominant, a dizzying array of other goods were produced, from glass, hats, shoes, and clocks, to boxes, twine, wire, iron and brass. Located In nearly every community, the mills and factories formed the bedrock of the economies in the northern half of the county.
No matter what was produced inside, mill and factory buildings shared remarkably consistent basic structural elements throughout the 19th century. They tended to be long and narrow multi-storied structures, between two and four stories tall, with evenly spaced windows to let in natural light. An exterior door on each story allowed goods and materials to be hoisted and lowered between floors outside via a pulley system suspended from a beam above.
To save valuable floor space for machinery, staircases were often built in projecting “towers” attached to the main structure.
Despite their shared characteristics, there are differences that betray the specific ages of the buildings. Before brick became the affordable and widely available building material of choice the earliest buildings from the beginning of the 19th century were mainly constructed of stone. (While some of the early entrepreneurs undoubtedly built mills and factories from wood, it didn’t take them long to learn the relative risk of constructing a manufacturing facility out of flammable materials.) In the latter part of the 19th century, as interior columns and iron structural elements began to take pressure off the exterior load-bearing walls (both literally and figuratively), windows became larger. By the end of the 19th century, freight elevators eliminated the need for exterior doors opening off each floor.
While the adornment off these buildings tended to be relatively chaste, most commonly relegated to decorative corbeling near rooflines and embellishments on their towers, they were not totally immune to changing tastes and architectural fashions of the times, sometimes reflecting hints of the Italianate, Second Empire, or whatever style was popular at the time.
The manufacturing industry in the Berkshires began its precipitous decline after World War One when textile mills began moving down south. The Great Depression dealt another crippling blow to local industries. The trend was reversed when World War Two brought a temporary uptick in manufacturing, and corporate behemoths like General Electric expanded their operations, incorporating the earlier industrial structures into their campuses. The post-war expansion was relatively short-lived, however. As late as the early 1980s, manufacturing jobs accounted for 40% of the county’s employment base. Within ten years, half those jobs were gone. While some facilities (particularly those associated with the paper industry) continued to function as industrial or manufacturing sites, by the 1990s many of these old industrial buildings and sites were shuttered one by one, empty, abandoned, but not forgotten. Visionaries began thinking about alternative uses for them almost from the time it became clear that manufacturing was not coming back.
When Mass MoCA opened in 1995 to great fanfare and eventual success, it shined a spotlight (and rightly so) on the potential for the adaptive reuse of even the largest former industrial sites. It was by no means the first, or only such attempt. Over the last 30 years, dozens of visionaries throughout the region have dreamed of, floated, attempted or completed projects to infuse new life into these structures and complexes.
One thing has become evident: there is no one magic formula for bringing those dreams to fruition. Vision, determination, commitment, good business acumen, and just plain luck can all play a critical part. And let’s not forget Money. Oftentimes lots and lots of it. In the meantime, many buildings and structures sit empty, many already altered to accommodate different types of manufacturing during their long histories, patiently waiting their turn. Join me now to explore examples of adaptive reuse of three buildings, each representing a different period of the industrial era and a different contemporary solution.
Cable Mills
Tucked into the southwest corner of Williamstown stand the remnants of Cable Mills. While Williamstown is better known for the august institutional buildings dotting the Williams College campus, the grand older homes lining the Mohawk Rail, and the vibrant shop-lined Main Street, Cable Mills is a visible reminder of the important role the manufacturing industry once played in the town’s economy.
Set on 8.8 acres between Water Street and the Green River, the roots of the residential complex now occupying the site date back to 1873, when Arthur Augustine Loop built a factory at 160 Water Street to manufacture twine. The enterprise was short-lived, dissolving a decade later. Boston Finishing Works purchased the empty factory in 1892 and expanded it for the finishing, bleaching, and dyeing of cotton cloth.
Large new mill buildings were erected along Water Street in the early decades of the 20th century by the site’s next owner, the John S. Boyd Manufacturing Company. According to its National Historic Register nomination, these flat-roofed structures featuring large windows reflect a pared down Classical Revival style.
The company produced velvet and corduroy there, until their business was felled by the Great Depression, and shut down in 1930. After serving as a garage and service station, the complex was purchased by Cornish Wire in 1936 for the production of metal wire and cable. This proved a much more successful venture for the site. The complex grew to encompass nearly two dozen structures, at times employing over 500 people as Williamstown’s second largest employer after Williams College. The plant continued to produce wire and cable there before finally closing in the 1990s.
In 2003, General Cable Industries, a company that had acquired the factory in 1960, sold the complex to a developer who intended to develop the site for residential use and office space. Work began in 2005, with the razing of many of the later non-historic structures on the site. Numerous factors, including the original developer’s untimely death, the site’s subsequent sale, the recession of 2008, and unanticipated complications in the renovation of its eight remaining historic structures, caused delays. The process was taken up by Bart Mitchell of Mitchell Properties who retired the year before completion, and then by his lieutenant Dave Traggoth of the Traggoth Companies. And, 11 years and approximately $26 million dollars later, a ribbon cutting was held in 2016 to open Cable Mill Lofts, a complex of 61 new residential rental units in three former mill buildings. Since then, in phase two of the project, a variety of other home types — flats, townhomes and single-family style duplexes (The River Houses + Modern Mill) — are being created on the site, either through the adaptive re-use of other historic mill buildings or compatibly designed new construction.
A public walkway along the Green River, built as part of the site’s redevelopment plan, meanders through the complex, offering views of the well-preserved mill complex from all sides.
The original mill structure, Building 10, built in 1873 still stands and contains residences now.
With a low gabled roof, smaller scale and smaller arched windows, it is architecturally distinguished from the larger scale buildings around it, illustrating in part the evolution of industrial architecture between the 19th and 20th centuries. While the site overall has a clean, contemporary feel, remnants of more utilitarian functions make it fun to imagine how this building might have looked when its smokestack belched smoke over the surrounding buildings, or how the water which provided power for the complex rushed down its sluiceway, a hint of which remains, and back into the Green River.
While departing stylistically from traditional mill architecture, a row of new townhouses suggests the impressive size of the industrial complex in its heyday, when additional structures occupied the site.
Cable Mill Lofts was named as the award winner for Biggest Impact Rural/Suburban by Preservation Massachusetts, Plymouth, Mass., a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the state’s historic heritage.
Russell Mills
“What am I getting myself into?” Annie Selke, founder and Chief Vision Officer of The Annie Selke Companies, remembers thinking as a box holding more than 200 different keys was slid across the table to her at the closing when she purchased the former Russell Mills back in 2006.
The complex has seen nine (or more) lives during its long history, which began when the Russell brothers of Pittsfield decided to invest in a new woolen mill to help meet the insatiable demand for uniforms and wool blankets required by the Union Army as the Civil War raged on.
They hired Pittsfield architect C. T. Rathbun to design a 180- by 60-feet wide building near the banks of the Onota Creek, where they already owned a factory, to produce cotton batting. Constructed of Hudson brick, it was completed in 1863.
The September following its completion The Berkshire Eagle described the building, machinery and appointments of the new Russell Mill as “among the best, if not the very best in the county.” It noted in particular the immense carding and spinning room occupying the entire third floor. According to The Eagle, this “clean airy well lighted room, with its light and regularly moving machinery, presents an animated and cheerful appearance which combined with its grand proportions are most pleasing to the visitor.”
The overall mass of the main building was alleviated by its central tower and rounded dormers rising from each corner of its roof. Exterior walls were enlivened by brick pilasters between each window bay, connected by arches at the top to create the effect of a Roman arcade, a decorative touch not commonly found in factory buildings at the time.
In addition to the main mill building, the complex included buildings containing a boiler room, engine room and wheelhouse, drying room, picking room and a dye house. Soon, 74 looms were churning out cotton warp cassimir (a fine cloth made from the wool of merino sheep) for blankets and uniforms, while a separate facility for producing Balmoral skirts was added. By the end of the 1860s, the factory was employing 125 people.
The operation continued to grow under successive owners, with upwards of 500 employees in the early 20th century. One of the last operating wool manufacturers in the Berkshires, Elmvale Worsted closed the plant and sold the site to the Marland Mold Corporation around 1960.
Its new owners designed and produced injectable stainless steel molds for plastic products used by the health, home and beauty industries. After adapting roughly 42,000 square feet of floor space, the site was far larger than Marland Mold needed, and they began leasing parts of the complex to other companies. An aerial survey company and car leasing business found homes there, while the City of Pittsfield used some of the space to store outdoor Christmas decorations.
The most significant tenant, perhaps, was a wholesale toy distributer by the name of Kaufman Brothers, which renovated and occupied over 50,000 square feet on the second and third floors of the main mill building. The company moved out in the 1970s, and later began selling toys through its own stores, reorganized under the more familiar name of Kay Bee Toys.
Around 1998 the complex became home to Interprint, a printing company for the decorative laminate industries. When the company made plans to build a new factory nearby in 2004, the entire site was put on the market. Enter Ms. Selke.
A Berkshires native, Annie Selke launched her first brand, Pine Cone Hill, from her Pittsfield home in 1994. Her business grew exponentially over the next decade, including the launch of Dash & Albert Rugs in 2003. Having outgrown several locations, Ms. Selke wanted to find a space that was large enough to accommodate her business and to ensure that she wouldn’t have to move again.
As an admirer of historic buildings, she was drawn to the architecture and proportions of the main mill building. In addition, 20th century owners had added lots of modern warehouse space. She was sold.
Before she could occupy the main building, however, it needed work. A lot of it. Committed to historic preservation (she has restored several other historic properties in the Berkshires — a residence in Pittsfield named Court Hill and, more recently, 33 Main in nearby Lenox, an 1830s Federal style building she has opened as an inn.Ms. Selke was undaunted.
A lengthy and expensive restoration followed, which included removing asbestos tile, replacing all the windows, installing a new HVAC systems, adding a new roof, and evicting a few bats.
She recently gave me a tour inside. Housing a dizzying array of departments from design and sales, to accounting and customer service, maintenance, shipping and IT, roughly 185 people employed there (roughly the same number as were working there in the late 19th century). There is a dedicated photography studio, where product is shot every day, 52 weeks a year, along with an adjacent prop warehouse and color correction booth. A swatch room holds samples for retailers of all the current lines, while a nearby archive holds at least one example of every finished product the company has ever produced.
While resisting the impulse to personally test a row of beds enticingly made up with next season’s product line, and admiring the huge erasable magnetic boards in the design studio filled with notes, inspiration and reference for future collections, I found reminders of some of the building’s former occupants.
Left unpainted is a section of wall showing innumerable stamps from the Kaufman Brothers. And, as Ms. Selke led me towards the cavernous warehouses, painted lettering identified the site of Marvin Mold’s former testing lab.
The third floor space, adapted for office and studio use, still retains the same light and airy feeling the Berkshire Eagle rhapsodized about 160 years ago.
While the Annie Selke Companies do not do their manufacturing at the site, there is still something satisfying about a contemporary business connecting to the building’s heritage as the home of a textile manufacturer. One of the interior’s most striking elements is a living wall of plants, their vibrant hues and vigorous growth an appropriate symbol of the life brought back to the space.
Although the interior of the building is not generally open to the public, the outside is easily observed, particularly if you happen to be visiting the Outlet at Pine Cone Hill, which sells the company’s products in one of the site’s former warehouse spaces.
Old Stone Mill
Sitting at the corner of Grove and Leonard Streets in Adams is The Old Stone Mill Center for Arts and Creative Engineering. Not only is it a beautiful example of early industrial architecture, it is also one of the more recent and intriguing adaptive reuse projects in the region.
The structure itself, three stories high above a raised basement, was built in the 1860s. Its simple, almost Spartan, design contrasts with the Russell Mill’s architectural embellishment, which are more in keeping with the late Federal and Greek Revival movements. The stonework is exemplary, while the relatively small windows with their heavy lintels attest to the load bearing function of the exterior walls.
The larger windows currently found in the central “tower” most likely replaced original doors from which materials were raised or lowered between floors. Later additions have been stripped away, allowing one to fully appreciated the beauty of its original design.
Beyond its architectural merits, I was drawn by its current function, which connects the region’s industrial heritage and present industry with contemporary reuse in a literal sense.
After plans to convert the building into condomiums fell through, the building was purchased by Leni Fried and Mike Augspurger in 2015. Despite sitting vacant for eleven years and essentially a shell, Ms. Fried noted that it was in good structural shape, with only 27 of its 150 windows needing to be replaced. The building now houses their Zero Waste Makers Space, a manifestation of the couple’s commitment to the earth, combined with Leni’s lifelong career as an artist and Mike’s career as an engineer. While it functions in a way similar to other maker spaces, it differs in that its mission is committed to environmentalism, focusing on the use of surplus materials collected from local industries and businesses in order to keep them out of landfills and remaking or redistributing them. Click here to watch a video explaining the vision in a much fuller, more creative fashion.
In addition to storage for surplus, the building currently has an industrial sewing center, a metal working machine shop and a picture reframing area, encouraging people to repair, reconstruct or reuse everything from picture frames to bicycles. There is a 7,000 square public space for events and programming.
The Mill houses projects established well before the purchase of the building, including the Bagshare project, founded by Leni Fried in 2007, where volunteers recycle waste plastic from irrigation drip tapes used on regional farms into handles for reusable bags. See video here about this project.
On a recent visit to the Mill, some of the pair’s more recent initiatives are in evidence, including a partnership established with Aladco, a linen service based in North Adams that serves the hotel, restaurant and health industries. The company launders and presses seconds and cast-off linens and sends them to the Mill to be redistributed to homeless shelters throughout the state, thus keeping six and a half tons of useable linens out of local landfills annually.
Leni’s and Mike’s idea for the Mill is based on the concept of shared ownership, partnering with other organizations and individuals to become a place of shared responsibility based on volunteerism. Through regular Zoom calls, they also connect a broader network of maker spaces to share ideas, materials and news.
While the pandemic has delayed the opening of their space to the public for programming and brought a halt to in-person programming such as an afterschool bike program in partnership with the Youth Center in Cheshire, even that has led to more work. Mike found himself busy refurbishing and selling some of the many bikes he has collected over years to help meet a surge in demand due to the pandemic (some are currently available for sale). Walking through the Mill, one can see how Mike’s passion for bikes extends beyond mere engineering, from building creative solutions for teaching young people to ride without the use of training wheels, to adding heavy-duty racks onto 25 bikes which will be shipped via a container to the Congo where the vehicles will be used to transport water, agricultural products and other commercial goods.
The couple is also exploring different types of heating concepts that could allow for winter use of historic mill buildings while minimizing reliance on fossil fuels. Partnering with Agrilab, they are currently finalists for a Massachusetts Clean Energy Center Catalyst grant for the development of a compost-based heating system that would operate without a combustion unit. Just one more interesting concept I learned about while visiting the building, in addition to the inspiring surplus materials, great ideas, valuable programs, and endless possibilities contained within its stone walls.
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