image description — The lions that guard the entrance to the former Spruces Mobile Home Park are ready for restoration.

Williamstown Restoring Spruces Property's Lions

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
03:58AM / Friday, September 16, 2016Print Story | Email Story

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — When the town acquired the former Spruces Mobile Home Park, it got more than just the 100-plus acres of land.

It also got the lions.

The two sculptured sentries who guarded the entrance to the former mobile home park, which opened in 1954, have become something of a Williamstown institution.

But they also had fallen on some hard times over the years.

The peeling paint led the town to investigate what else might be needed to restore the statues, and it consulted with the art conservators at the Clark Art Institute to see what needed to be done.

The work began this week.

"They're a symbol of the park and sort of the last vestige of it," Town Manager Jason Hoch said Thursday. "And in some ways, they're a symbol of the community. How do you know you're in Williamstown? When you see the lions."

"We here at Town Hall felt very strongly they should be preserved."

The Lions Gate was added to the Spruces in 1965 by owner Al Bachand, who claimed they were made in Albany, N.Y., in 1905 in preparation of the 100th anniversary of the first steamship trip up the Hudson River.

The plaster lions were rebuilt with cement and weigh about a ton each. Each lion is about 5 feet high and 8 feet long.

At the moment, the lions are "caged" — shrouded in nylon netting in case any of the current layers of paint contain lead that would be disturbed during restoration.

A crew from Pittsfield's Quality Traditional Painting and Taping will strip the paint and replace it with the appropriate masonry paint, Hoch said.The contract, not to exceed $10,500, is being financed from the closure project funds — not money from the Hazard Mitigation Grant and not general taxation funds.

The town waited to address the lions after other work was completed on the property to ensure that sufficient funds were available.

Hoch said the town did not check with the park's former owner to see when the lions were last painted, but it did have to make sure the Federal Emergency Management Agency was OK with leaving the statues in place.

"For a while, we weren't sure whether they would be able to be retained," Hoch said. "We all wanted them to be retained."

Tags: monument, Spruces,

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Williamstown Studying Major Overhaul for Main Street

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
05:14AM / Wednesday, July 29, 2026

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The town is working with a Worcester civil engineering firm to redesign Main Street with an eye toward a major project sometime in the next decade.

Community Development Director Andrew Groff was before the Select Board on Monday night to talk about Town Hall's use of a $500,000 state grant to do preliminary design on major improvements to that portion of Route 2 that runs from Water Street west to the Field Park rotary, through the middle of Williams College's campus.

Groff introduced the elected officials to Amanda Bazinet of Worcester's Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, who is helping the town to develop a plan for Main Street that would align with the commonwealth's Complete Streets Program.

"Our project goals, in addition to the increased pedestrian and bicycle accommodations, is just, in general, improving the sightlines and improving the intersection geometry," Bazinet said.

"Complete Streets … has a lot of different facets to it. As Andrew had mentioned, the goal is to improve the safety for all of the roadway users — not just the motorists. We're looking at improving it for pedestrians, bicyclists, anyone using a mobility device. We want to create streets that are safe for all ages and abilities to use. So, while bicyclists will still be allowed, legally, to use the roadway, we want to look at providing a separate bicycle accommodation along the corridor, whether it's a shared use path along both sides of the streets that is a little more accessible to young children or older people with disabilities to look at all transportation options."

One goal is to encourage "active transportation." The Massachusetts Department of Transportation, who the town hopes one day might fund the construction, has a "healthy transportation policy," Bazinet said.

That MassDOT funding would come through the Transportation Improvement Program, which is managed locally by the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission. The design work underway now is being done with an eye toward going after TIP funding years down the road.

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