New owners making progress toward getting Charlemont Inn’s condemnation order lifted

CHARLEMONT — The Board of Health is allowing signs declaring the Charlemont Inn as condemned to be removed, but stated the condemnation order must remain in effect as new owners James Pedro and Hussain Hamdan continue efforts to get the long-vacant property cleaned up.

Pedro and Hamdan bought the historic 22-room inn in November for $165,000 through 107 Main St. LLC. On Tuesday, they told the Board of Health that since then, they have been hard at work removing trash, and preparing for structural and aesthetic repairs.

“We acquired the inn in November through a bankruptcy sale, and the goal at this time is to renovate it and reopen it as a similar business,” Hamdan told the board. “Our goal is to begin fixing up the first floor. … The upstairs will ultimately need more intensive work.”

According to the property card, the inn was built in approximately 1787 and sits on 0.87 acres on Main Street. It closed in 2011.

Pedro said that since taking ownership, they have removed leftover furniture, including 50 mattresses, from the building and have been cleaning up overgrown vegetation.

“We’ve done a complete cleanout,” Pedro said. “The building is 99% cleaned out. We’re on dumpster No. 7.”

Hamdan added that they plan to put in a working kitchen and renovate the restaurant space so it can be opened while work continues on the upstairs bedrooms. He said they plan to install a locked door to block the public from accessing the second floor, while still allowing contractors to get to the rooms they need to work on.

“It looks amazing; so much better,” Board of Health Co-Chair Doug Telling said, referencing the landscaping work Hamdan and Pedro have completed so far.

Pedro asked the board if it would be possible to remove some of the posted condemnation signs, but not necessarily lift the condemnation order at this time. He said the signs can sometimes lead to hooligans breaking into the property thinking it’s abandoned, which creates challenges in securing insurance.

“We realize we can’t put anyone in there until we get the CO (certificate of occupancy). It’s advertising that might make certain individuals come to believe that it’s some abandoned property that no one cares about. That does scare us a lot,” Hamdan explained. “It scares insurance companies, it scares lenders, and so we understand that there’s a long road to making this inhabitable again, and we intend to follow that. We just would be inclined, if possible, to be a little less obvious about that fact.”

Board member Scott Randall said he would be “all for” taking the signs down since there are plans for repairs, as long as there are no legal ramifications. Telling said he understands their concerns and would like to see the signs come down.

The portion of Massachusetts General Law that outlines the minimum standards of fitness for human habitation states that “no person shall deface or remove the placard, except that the board of health shall remove it whenever the defect or defects upon which the condemnation and placarding action was based have been corrected.”

In accordance with the board’s interpretation of the law, Randall and Telling voted in favor of allowing the signs to come down. However, the condemnation order remains in effect.

Health Agent Kurt Schellenberg noted that while the property looks better, the reasons for its condemnation still require work to correct.

“It looks like a lot of the personal and other belongings of [former owner Charlotte Dewey] are gone, a lot of the trash and old furniture are gone,” Schellenberg said. “It’s a clean place now; it’s nice. If you were going to be a contractor, it would have been hard to move about and do work there before. Now, it would be sort of optimal.

“The things that are in the earlier inspection reports that led to the condemnation — the roof, the heat, the public water supply — those have not been remedied,” he continued. “This is a matter of time and money, and in the last three months, it’s fairly cleaner than the last time I was there.”

Pedro and Hamdan said they would like to continue working with the Board of Health as they proceed and invited board members to come tour the property to better visualize their goals for the Charlemont Inn.

“We want to work closely with the town; we realize that everybody is on board with seeing this place reopen,” Hamdan said. “And we hope we’ll be the ones to do that.”