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The pieces of Mather House are moved in Williamstown on Wednesday morning.

Williamstown's Mather House Moves to New Location

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Students from Williamstown Community Preschool watch Mather House make its way down Main Street on Wednesday morning.

WILLAMSTOWN, Mass. — Traffic came to halt for several hours Wednesday morning as the 1840 Mather House made its way up Main Street and around the corner at Field Park.

The move of the 170-year-old building in two pieces required the closure of Route 2 west of Spring Street and removal of the phone and electrical wires that crossed Stetson Court, where the house has been since being relocated in 2002.

Spectators gathered in the chilly temperatures to take pictures of the structures making their way down Main Street. Street signs had to be removed and a few tree limbs cut to make way for the two-story house.

"This is something," said one man watching Mather's back addition move up Main Street toward Field Park. "You don't see this every day."


This is at least the third time the building has had to be moved. Its most recent relocation was to make way for the '62 Center for Theatre and Dance; this trip is to get out of the way of Williams College's planned  dormitory on Stetson Court.

Mather House is moving around the corner to 63 North St., where Guntlow & Associates will use it for offices and possibly apartments.

Its next-door neighbor Harper House hasn't been so lucky. No buyer had come forward for the building, and so the 1850 structure is expected to be demolished.

The move had been scheduled for Monday but postponed because of the wet, snowy weather.

 

 


Tags: Williams College,   Williamstown,   

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Mount Greylock School Committee Votes Slight Increase to Proposed Assessments

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Mount Greylock Regional School Committee on Thursday voted unanimously to slightly increase the assessment to the district's member towns from the figures in the draft budget presented by the administration.
 
The School Committee opted to lower the use of Mount Greylock's reserve account by $70,000 and, instead, increase by that amount the share of the fiscal year 2025 operating budget shared proportionally by Lanesborough and Williamstown taxpayers.
 
The budget prepared by the administration and presented to the School Committee at its annual public hearing on Thursday included $665,000 from the district's Excess and Deficiency account, the equivalent of a municipal free cash balance, an accrual of lower-than-anticipated expenses and higher-than-anticipated revenue in any given year.
 
That represented a 90 percent jump from the $350,000 allocated from E&D for fiscal year 2024, which ends on June 30. And, coupled with more robust use of the district's tuition revenue account (7 percent more in FY25) and School Choice revenue (3 percent more), the draw down on E&D is seen as a stopgap measure to mitigate a spike in FY25 expenses and an unsustainable budgeting strategy long term, administrators say.
 
The budget passed by the School Committee on Thursday continues to rely more heavily on reserves than in years past, but to a lesser extent than originally proposed.
 
Specifically, the budget the panel approved includes a total assessment to Williamstown of $13,775,336 (including capital and operating costs) and a total assessment to Lanesborough of $6,425,373.
 
As a percentage increase from the FY24 assessments, that translates to a 3.90 percent increase to Williamstown and a 3.38 percent increase to Lanesborough.
 
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