CHARLEMONT — Housing Court Associate Justice Rebekah J. Crampton Kamukala is giving the Charlemont Inn owners one more chance to present a detailed repair schedule — one that specifies licensed contractors and cost estimates — for sanitary code violations inside the historic inn before she decides on whether to place the building under receivership, as town officials have requested.
Town officials fear that, if structural improvements aren’t made in a timely way, the historic inn could become history.
The latest hearing is set for July 15, when proposals for fixing the inn will be reviewed. “If the town has a proposed receiver to present to the Court, who is on the Court’s list of receivers, the town and/or the receiver may present proposed plans for remediation of the safety and health code violations, setting out the same time tables and cost estimates as required from the defendants,” Kamukala wrote in the recent court order.
The judge is requiring the owners to replace the electrical system, to finish the repair or replacement of the roof, to finish the mold abatement and necessary interior work.
Mark Tanner, a lawyer working pro-bono for Charlemont Inn co-owners Charlotte Dewey and Linda Shimandle, has argued that the unoccupied inn is essentially “a construction site,” and therefore not in violation of the state sanitary code. “Citations only apply when one makes an inspection of someone’s living area,” he said.
But the judge has determined there is nothing written in the state sanitary code limiting its scope to occupied buildings. That code allows for “demolition, removal, repair or cleaning by local boards of health … of any structure which so fails to comply with the standards of fitness for human habitation,” she wrote in her decision. Another part of the law allows a health board to order that a building be vacated or brought into compliance with the sanitary code if the building is, “or may become, a nuisance,” she wrote, underlining that phrase.
The judge cited a precident-setting Boston case in which the Court appointed a receiver to remedy sanitary code violations after 16 months of inaction by the building owner.
“In the present case, the town has waited more than two years for the property to be brought into code compliance,” Kamukala wrote.
Kamukala noted that the Board of Health began meeting with Dewey about the condition of the unoccupied property after receiving complaints by neighbors in February 2015. Since then, “action plans” proposed by the Board of Health and other agreed-upon repair deadlines were not met. After a Sept. 9 inspection of the inn, a state public health official found the building “unfit for human habitation,” citing mold and excessive moisture, lack of heat, removed plumbing, and signs of rodents.
On Sept. 30, the board voted to take the issue to Housing Court, and in November, issued a condemnation order, which was later lifted when the fire alarm system was repaired.
“The Court has given Charlotte (Dewey) three weeks to prove that she has the detailed plan and financial ability to address the code violations or the inn will be put into receivership,” Health Agent Glen Ayers said. “Our proposed receiver also has three weeks to present his detailed plans for repairs.”
A GoFundMe online fund-raising page to help pay for at least $25,000 worth of Phase One repairs has been posted since May 15. But so far, only about $1,000 has been raised on that platform. Dewey says she has raised a total of nearly $5,000 when including offline donations.
Dewey and her sister have been working about 30 hours a week, she has said, to remedy problems in the interior.
According to Dewey, the inn goes back to the Revolutionary War Era.
“1775 is the date as close as we know it and probably earlier,” she said in a recent email. “The barn appears to be earlier. 1787 was the date of the first liquor license, which I am told is in the Hampshire County Records. The Inn was in existence at the time of the Saratoga Campaign as the earliest Revolutionary guests were recorded both on the way to and from New York!”
On the fundraising website, Dewey says that Mark Twain, General John Burgoyne, Calvin Cooledge, Ethan Allan and Benedict Arnold were among the guests to stay in the Inn.
Ayers has said the inn is about $500,000 in debt, owing town and state back taxes plus mortgage payments. He said the Board of Health has proposed a receiver who is willing to invest his own money in the required renovations. But if Dewey and Shimandle can’t reimburse the receiver for the renovations, the property could be auctioned, with a minimum bid that would cover the receiver’s renovation costs and the town tax lien.