Fantastic apartment near Stony Brook T

Our team sold this home to the current landlord just a short time ago. A woman and her aunt had lived here for 40 years and it was in absolutely perfect condition. The garden has been lovingly maintained and the grounds are perfect. Locationally, this rental 2BD rental unit is fantastic. It is only a five minute walk to Stony Brook T, there are shops and restaurants at the end of the street and The Brewery is maybe 6-7 minutes walking. There you’ll find Ula Cafe (coffee/baked goods/sandwiches), Bella Luna & Milky Way (bar/restaurant/dancing) and Jamaica Plain’s only gym, Mike’s Fitness.

The owner is asking $1400/mth. The unit has a three season porch, hardwood floors and washer dryer in-unit! Don’t miss this opportunity to live in one of the best neighborhoods in Boston.

Call Christine Li at 617-828-7725 if you have any questions.

I came home from work to find a new crosswalk being painted across Amory Street from the Southwest Corridor across the street. I’ve been fighting for this for the better part of two years and now thanks to the exceptional work of Officer Mike Santry at E13 and Michael Halle from the traffic and parking meetings, we have succeeded in securing a safer place to cross.

Since the Brewery ramped up operations the pedestrian traffic here has been growing exponentially. This is a good thing, but getting across the street here in the past has been a little like playing Frogger.

As I said, I believe the crosswalk is only temporary until a more permanent traffic and parking solution is created. I am very pleased that the city was able to see that a temporary solution was better than no solution. Big round of applause for Mike Halle, Mike Santry and everyone who made this happen.

I am currently sitting on the couch at 65 Brookside in the Brewery District of Jamaica Plain. I’m giving Home of the Week to this condo for the 2nd time because it’s that cool. I think it’s a perfect dwelling in many ways:

1. It’s incredibly efficient. The highest energy bill of the year is less than $100, and most are a fraction of that. It is heated by compact Rinnai heaters on each floor.

2. The location is perfect. Situated right in the middle of Jamaica Plain’s Brewery District – walking distance to Mikes Fitness, Bella Luna, Ula Cafe and both Green Street and Stoney Brook stations. It’s also a few blocks from Franklin Park and Centre Street with all it’s shops and restaurants.

3. This is a one-of-kind property. There is nothing like it. Designed from the humble beginnings of a shoe factory – now one of three market rate units in an artist live/work community. From the historic architecture and smokestack to the old boardwalk that runs the length of the building allowing the community to chat and engage each other.

4. Really good space. The plan is incredibly flexible – use it how you see fit, but currently the entire first floor is set up as a wicked studio space.

Check it out at www.65brookside.com. I’m happy to show it to you anytime. Just call me at 617-828-7956.

Brookside Artist Community live/work space

Open House November 1st, 1-2p

This town-home is part of a lively, vibrant community of professional artists. Your new neighbors include painters and sculptors, dancers and choreographers, a harpist, and a well-known concert pianist.

The building began it’s life in 1850 as a factory, turning out rubber heels for shoes. As industry left the area, the artists began moving in. Groups like the Boston Photo Collaborative worked here for years and this unit was home to the Boston indie band Morphine.

Converted turn of the century factory

Several years ago, the artists living here learned the owner of the building was planning on selling it for conversion to luxury condos. Fearful of losing their beloved homes the artists banded together to buy it for themselves.

It took a ton of organizing, several government grants, and the collaboration of the Mayor’s Office and the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) but the artists were able to raise millions of dollars to purchase and renovate the building.

All 24 units were completely gut renovated and rebuilt to the highest safety and construction standards. The units were officially designated “live/work” so the artists could practice their crafts here. Many were purpose-built to meet individual needs – the tall unit on the end, for example, houses a rope-climbing artist!

1st floor flexible use studio space

This unit is especially well-suited for running a creative business, since the first floor is separated from the more private living quarters.

The developer was the highly respected firm of Peter Roth.They designed a building that was respectful of the history of the place, but had all the modern amenities like energy efficient windows and state of the art Rinnai point of use heaters.

This unit received special care as it was considered the best of the building. The brick walls were parged down several feet and carefully rebuilt to hold the weight of the new top addition. The walls were made with steel studs. The first floor was dug out and concrete re-poured to a depth of two feet.

Master bedroom with large closet

The contractors prided themselves on the solid construction – as one declared, “This will last another 150 years!”

The complex is a mixture of market rate units and a special kind of affordable housing restricted only to artists. The market rate units, like this one, have no financial re-sale restrictions. The affordable units may only be sold to artists who qualify through the BRA’s rigorous artist certification program and have adequate financial resources. Most hold down professional jobs, like teaching, in addition to their art work.

Flexible living, kitchen and dining area

Since the artists worked so hard to obtain their units, they are passionately committed to maintaining the property. The building is self-managed, so condo fees are very low. Occasionally the neighbors volunteer to rake leaves, trim bushes, clean gutters, etc. Each “work day” ends with a roving cocktail party and cookout on the board walk!

I’ve been working on my garden now for about 5 years. When I bought my house it was basically a crack house. I actually never really saw the 1st floor before I put in an offer – and I certainly never did a home inspection.  I remember when I first moved in and I spent hours just walking around it looking at the design (or lack of it), and waffling between being elated that I was finally a homeowner, and utterly depressed at what a shitbox I had purchased.

The entire yard from edge to edge was paved with thick, stinky asphalt. Not a blade of grass was visible. As I have tendency to do everything 110%, I began renovating the inside of the dwelling as well as recycling ALL of the asphalt and sifting the top twelve inches of soil on the entire property.

We are basically right on top of the culvert that contains the Stony Brook, and although we’ve never had any significant water in our basement, I wanted to take steps to keep it the foundation as dry as possible. I dug a big ditch under the patio to the right and hooked it around in an “L” shape all the way to where the driveway meets the sidewalk. There I dug a 9′x4′x3′ ditch and dropped into it.

I lined the bottom of the ditch with gravel and then a layer of landscaping cloth and then laid the drainage tub (oddly named “drain tile”) inside, poured gravel on top and wrapped up a big drainage burrito. This was a really inexpensive way to deliver the access water away from my foundation quickly.

Around this time we had traveled to San Diego’s Balboa Park and a couple other places that had Japanese Gardens including Portland and Seattle. I fell in love. I was also studying Japanese construction techniques and the space saving, ingenious ideas that they often employ.

My daughter Vitoria in a beautiful stand of Black Bamboo

My favorite is drawers in each stair step of a staircase. How cool is that? Anyway, I was determined to have a Japanese garden right here in JP. I met with a landscape architect who talked things through with me. Basically, some of the criteria and parameters I had to work around didn’t combine well with the style. For instance I think Boston is a zone 6 (garden speak for the climate we have here) and the hard winters are rough on bamboo and many of the plants native to Japan. Over time, I’ve learned that by combining more hearty Japanese species in the design with some very basic ground covers – I could fake it. In addition, we wanted a garden that would absorb a great deal of water, never need to be cut or need very much attention. It has taken a lot of trial and error, as well as the very skilled advice, tutelage, and hard work by my friend Rich Gargiulo at Treeworks (617-983-0813) but we now have a passable Japanese garden. I am very proud of my hard work – which is rewarded every time someone walks by and compliments us. Now if I could just keep people from letting their dogs pee pn my bushes I’d have it made!

Japanese styled gardens in front of my home.

I’d love if some of our readers could offer up any anecdotal information about their gardens, resources they might find helpful in the area, etc. I’d love to hear any tips and advice you have for surviving the winter, etc. Also, in the near future – I will have too much ground cover, and I’d be willing to trade plugs of creeper for other small plants that might fit in to my scheme. Feel free to drop me a line if you’d like to come by and see my tiny garden!

Story by Joseph Porcelli

After fifteen years as an award-winning restaurant, entertainment complex and neighborhood institution in the Boston area, (raising some $500,000.00+ during their tenure for local charities and non-profits), Bella Luna Restaurant and The Milky Way Lounge officially bid farewell to its current location of 403-405 Centre Street in Jamaica Plain on March 21, 2009.

Bella Luna Parade Video by Joe Porcelli

While March 21, 2009 will be the official last show at Centre Street, March 22, 2009 will mark the official “transfer of love” to their new location in style. The public is invited to join in the process which will include a New Orleans Style parade from the old location to the new. Guests of all ages are invited to gather at the current location of 403-405 Centre Street at 1:00pm for a farewell ceremony with the parade slated to begin at 2:00pm. The parade will include stilt walkers, performers of all kinds and marching bands including: Second Line Social Aid and Pleasure Society Brass Band and Bloco Afro Brazil! Guests are asked to bring their own musical instruments if they’d like to help make some noise, as well as, umbrellas, signs and anything else they’d like to add to the festive nature of the 7-block long march. The parade will conclude with cupcakes and hot chocolate at the new location.”We’re looking forward to all our friends and regulars joining us for this fun event rain or shine,” said Carol Downs,” Co-Owner,” and we welcome any new friends to join in as well in this historic celebration and parade.”

When I originally moved to Jamaica Plain about 16 years ago I was coming from the Ozark Mountains in Southwest Missouri. This is an attractive, rural, wooded area as you would imagine. I was very nervous about moving to Boston for several reasons including the lack of trees. I grew up kicking around the woods and my only real images of the city were very NYCesque streetscapes. I ended up landing in Acton, MA in the middle of an hellacious snow storm.

Serendipitously, I found my way to Jamaica Plain within a month or so. I think it was the perfect transition for me because of the huge green belt that borders it. It’s called the Emerald Necklace and it was designed by Frederick Olmsted (Central Park designer). I was able to grab my dog Early and tromp around Jamaica Pond or Arnold Arboretum when the stress got too much. In those days, my career wasn’t so demanding and I was single. I recall weekend afternoons laying on the grass with my pooch reading a book or the like. Those days are long gone, life has changed dramatically as have my ideals.

I’ve become politically and environmentally active. Coincidentally, Jamaica Plain has grown with me. I bought a home here about 5-6 years ago and proceeded to rip the hell out of it.

My home in The Brewery District of Jamaica Plain

It looks very different from the day I bought it. I don’t think there’s a square inch that I haven’t made some change to. It was a hideous beast when I bought it. This photo is actually pretty late in the process as the new siding is being installed.  You can seethe beginnings of an ambitious, sustainable, urban garden emerging here. My goal is to absorb as much rainwater as possible, helping with the heat island effect. Rain barrels are being installed, we are active composters and we try to grow our own vegetables.

One of the real lifestyle benefits is the proximity to all the amenities we need. We drive very little, in fact, less than 8000 miles a year. Our next brave step forward into sustainability is to sell our Subaru Impreza and survive as a two Realtor team with one car. Hopefully, I can accomplish this in the spring.

We have been learning to schedule more carefully, so I can walk to work and back and even to some appointments. With proper planning it really isn’t that hard. I’m contemplating a Zip Car membership when I sell the Impreza. [By the way 2002 Subaru Impreza for sale. Inquire within.]

Everything we need to survive is in walking distance to our home including high quality foods, hardware, restaurants, bars, the best public parks in Boston, gym, boutiques, barbers, etc. There is no need to leave JP! In fact, I had to drive to Reading the other day to meet my accountant and I vowed to never leave JP again. If I had to commute in the Boston Metro area I would stick a fork in my eye.

As a Realtor I know first hand the mental process folks go through when they buy a home – and not nearly enough weight is given to the lifestyle that a given location forces one to live. If I had to drive 45 minutes to work and get in my car for every little thing would I be as happy? Probably not.

However – one interesting fact. Mike’s Gym is just 1 block from my front door and I think of a new excuse every day to avoid going. I guess convenience doesn’t help everything…

I am re-blogging this article from Boston.com. This was in their January 15th, 2008 issue titled, ”

Theodore Haffenreffer, 91; ran brewery

By Bryan Marquard, Globe Staff

Raised next door to the family brewery in Jamaica Plain and trained in Copenhagen as a brewer, Theodore C. Haffenreffer Jr. had far more discerning tastes than most who raise a mug to their lips.

“When my father tasted any new beer, the first thing he would comment on was how it was hopped,” Hatsy Shields of Hamilton said, referring to how well the hop plants had flavored a brew. “He would taste it, he would swirl it around his mouth, and he would say, ‘Well hopped’ or it needed work.”

Mr. Haffenreffer, who took over his family business, Haffenreffer & Co., and ran it until it was shuttered in 1964, died Dec. 27 in his home in the Chestnut Hill section of Newton after a period of failing health. He was 91.

“The brewery meant a lot to him,” his daughter said. “It was a vibrant place, and I think it was a great part of the life of that neighborhood.”

Haffenreffer & Co. also was, for many decades, part of Boston’s storied history. In the late 1880s, after the Civil War, Mr. Haffenreffer’s grandfather launched the family business, using water from Stony Brook.

The brewery became a sprawling complex with more than a dozen buildings, including some that housed workers. Legend has it that an outside spigot at one building offered free beer day and night and that Red Sox players – including Babe Ruth – stopped after home games to quench their thirst.

For Mr. Haffenreffer, becoming part of that tradition was all but preordained. When he was a child, the family home and the brewery were inseparable – pipes ran back and forth between the house and the buildings.

“It was fantastic,” said Mr. Haffenreffer’s younger sister Katharine Selle of Brookline. “As my father said, ‘Who else can get his house heated directly from a brewery?’ ”

Each year when school ended, the Haffenreffer children left home and the brewery behind and spent the next few months at the family’s dairy farm in southern New Hampshire, a few miles in from the seacoast.

“In the early years, the moving was done by a brewery truck, and we could load on suitcases and five bicycles,” his sister said.

At the farm, she said, the children took part in the day-to-day operations, “the haying, the milking, the tractor driving. To give an example, I was perfectly capable of driving a tractor at 10.”

But while Mr. Haffenreffer was adept at farm operations, his sister said, “the only direction he took in his life was toward being a brewer.”

Mr. Haffenreffer graduated from the Rivers School, which then was in Brookline, and studied chemistry at the University of Birmingham in England. From there, he went to Copenhagen to train at the Tuborg Brewery.

A few years later, he was an usher for a friend’s wedding and met Marion Morgan, whom he married in 1942.

“When my mother saw the lineup of ushers, she decided where she would sit at the dinner before the wedding,” their daughter said. “I think she probably fell for him immediately. They looked a smashingly romantic couple.”

Tall and athletic, Mr. Haffenreffer played squash at Union Boat Club on Beacon Hill and was an accomplished sailor, a talent he passed on to some of his children, one of whom competed internationally. With his family, he spent decades of summers on Prouts Neck in Scarborough, Maine.

When Mr. Haffenreffer closed the family’s brewery, he sold its brands of beer, including Haffenreffer Private Stock, to his cousins, who at the time ran Narragansett Brewing Co. in Rhode Island.

Mr. Haffenreffer turned his attention to the stock market and serving on boards.

“When he sold it to Narragansett, it really allowed him a much fuller participation in the Boston business world, and I think he very much enjoyed that,” his daughter said.

He also enjoyed spending more time with his wife, and in the garden they spent years tending around their home.

“They were a completely, totally devoted couple,” their daughter said. “One of the manifestations of that great partnership is the garden they created.”

In the gardens, she said, “Dad was really the designer. He organized the shape of the pond while it was being dredged, and he was also the arborist. He loved to prune and he had an eclectic taste for very unusual trees. He loved to shape them; his design sense was strong and right.”

So, too, was his approach to welcoming in visitors to view the beauty he and his wife had coaxed from the earth.

“What gave them the greatest pleasure was that they opened their gardens on Sundays, always, to the neighborhood in the summer,” their daughter said. “He was a great gentleman, and that is something all his friends recognize. He was courteous and attentive to people in the way a gentleman is. It wasn’t just his manners, it was his heart that made him a gentleman.”

In addition to his wife, daughter, and sister, Mr. Haffenreffer leaves three other daughters, Marion Esmiol of Anaheim, Calif., Katharine Storey of Brighton, and Elizabeth Scholle of Brookline; a son, Theodore C. III of Cape Elizabeth, Maine; another sister, Marie Fox of Duxbury; 13 grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday in Church of the Redeemer in Chestnut Hill. 

© Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company