From its unassuming home in the Gorton Theatre, Gloucester Stage Company this summer continues a legacy of successful community productions with support from some of the best-known names in the business. By Julie Batten – photographs by Dana Smith

Driving through its mostly residential neighborhood, you might never imagine that the Gorton Theatre, an unremarkable-looking one-story brick building, has for the past three decades been debuting plays that go on to critical and popular acclaim on Broadway, off-Broadway, and stages throughout the world. Despite the slab floor left over from the building’s brief stint as a car dealership and the cinder block walls that hearken back to its original days as a fish storage warehouse, this theater at 267 East Main Street, abutting Rocky Neck Cove, is home to the renowned Gloucester Stage.

Center Stage

Founded in 1979, Gloucester Stage originally made its home at the Blackburn Tavern under the artistic direction of internationally known playwright Israel Horovitz. A summer resident of Gloucester, Horovitz is largely responsible for challenging the Gloucester Stage audience throughout his 25-year reign with 33 world premieres and 40 American premieres, 25 of which took place in New England.

“Israel used this as his proving ground,” says Andrew Burgreen, general manager of Gloucester Stage, pointing to plays such as The Indian Wants the Bronx, Line, and Sins of the Mother to highlight Horovitz’s special brand of brilliance.

It is no wonder, then, that by 1986, this theater with such critical acclaim had outgrown its birth place. That same year, the Gorton Seafood building became the next venue in which Gloucester Stage would further make its own mark on Cape Ann’s cultural scene. Over time, extensive renovations have slowly turned the space from fish locker into a full working theater, albeit one that carries its share of visual reminders of the cost of running a non-profit arts organization in 2012. The seats—all 190 of them—are haphazardly upholstered and tatty, though still endearing.

Not surprisingly, Eric Engle, Gloucester Stage’s artistic director since Horovitz retired from the position half a dozen years ago, has the same sort of charm that his favorite summer enterprise displays. As director of Harvard University’s Memorial Hall/Sanders Theatre and College Theater Venues in the Office for the Arts at Harvard, and having directed over 85 productions at various theaters throughout the Boston area in the past 25 years, he is quick to deflect the spotlight and attribute Gloucester Stage’s reputation for innovation to its audience. “Our audience is smart,” says Engle. “[So] we try to do creative interpretations of underrepresented musicals, because they insist on that…[they’re] open to being told each story in a fresh way.” A man of his word, Engle is bringing the rarely performed Carnival to Gloucester Stage this season. Last year, his pick was Frank Loesser’s The Most Happy Fella.

That Engle is hitting the mark as successfully as ever, albeit uniquely—musicals have only been cropping up on the play list since his reign as artistic director began—has recently been validated by the seven Independent Reviewers of New England nominations that Gloucester Stage has received for last year’s production of The Most Happy Fella, in addition to three more for Living Together and three for Nine Circles.)

Hillary Dallin, Publicity Director for Gloucester Stage

Although Lindsay Crouse was not among those nominated this time, the Academy Award-nominated actress (Places of the Heart) and a regular at Gloucester Stage since 2006, when she starred in the The Belle of Amherst under Engle’s direction, seconds that there is no better proving ground for a play than putting it before a Gloucester audience. “Gloucester is real; it’s the weather, the rocks, the multiplicity of the people,” says Crouse. “The austerities of this area make for a hard-bitten discipline in the residents.” Crouse should know. As the daughter of Hollywood legend Russell Crouse, whose many successes along with partner Howard Lindsay include the production of The Sound of Music, she has been summering in Annisquam her entire life. “It’s a magical place. My mother still lives there; she is always in the audience [at Gloucester Stage]. In that way, my life has come full circle.”

This season, Crouse will star in Round and Round the Garden at Gloucester Stage under Engle’s direction, June 14 thru July 1. As the third and final installment of Alan Ayckbourn’s The Norman Conquests trilogy, it is one of two plays in the upcoming season to be precast. The other, Nine Circles, a play that Engle launched in 2011 at Boston’s Publick Theatre to much acclaim, will reunite the award-winning Boston cast this summer in Gloucester. Besides Carnival, the 2012 season will be rounded out by two dramas—Athol Fugard’s Master Harold…and the Boys and Beth Henley’s Crimes of the Heart.

In addition to Crouse, regulars like Paula Plum, Nancy Carroll, Sandra Shipley, and Paula Bryan have become favorites of the Gloucester Stage audience over the years. With Horovitz and Engle’s connections being what they are, there has also been a cadre of young playwrights ushered up from Boston and New York over the years whose work, first presented at Gloucester Stage, has opened the door to future success in the industry. Richard Vitteri, now a Hollywood name, and more recently Joanna Rush, whose work was read during the Monday night reading series held throughout the summer, are two such recent finds. “It’s about keeping it in the family,” says Heidi Dallin, publicity director for Gloucester Stage, when asked about the advantage of reusing talent year after year.

Like Crouse, Dallin should know. Having haunted the place since high school in the ’80s, Dallin wears many hats there these days, not the least of which is Director of the Youth Acting Workshop (YAW), which runs weekend classes year round and longer sessions throughout the summer. Last December, YAW staged a Christmas production, Holiday Delights, conceived and directed by Dallin, that included a cast of 35 actors, age six through 16. Making theatre accessible to children on Cape Ann, especially to those that might not otherwise be able to afford it, is Dallin’s main mission. “One of the great things is that some kid who lives down the street from here, just around the corner, can perform on the same professional stage where the Paula Plums and the Lindsay Crouses were performing just a few months prior,” says Dallin.

“We’d like to make it so big that we’re ultimately able to call it a conservatory,” says Burgreen, whose job since he came on board two years ago has been to position the theater for a capitol campaign that will take it to the next level within five years. To that end, Epstein & Jocelyn, the same architectural firm that designed the Shalin Liu Music Center at Rockport Music, has already been busy drawing up plans for the next flurry of renovations to the theater.  “We’ll go public with the campaign in September 2012,” says Burgreen, who is only willing to say at this point that the intimacy that is Gloucester Stage will not be lost. “We’re not looking to go bigger—just better.”

Burgreen himself has an impressive background on both the administrative and the performance side of the stage lights. With Broadway credits for shows like You Can’t Take it With You, Oh, Coward!, and A Few Good Men, plus Off-Broadway credits for A Mom’s Life, Forever Plaid, and Queens Boulevard, among others, his acting career constitutes star billing. His administrative work includes time spent at Lincoln Center in New York and the Orpheum Theater in Hannibal, Missouri, as well as having established The 5th Street Acting Studio & Arts Space in Hannibal. This sort of professional versatility seems to be typical of the Gloucester Stage folk—without exception, everyone there has just a little bit of pixie dust settled about them that manifests itself in an uncanny ability to create something from nothing and make it look effortless.

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As for Burgreen, “what he knows is amazing,” says Chairman of the Board Bea Waring, who not surprisingly can stake her own claim to either side of the lights. Like Lee Meriwether, another regular at Gloucester Stage, Waring is herself a former Miss America, and is married to Bayard Waring of the North Shore’s own Waring School, a private school known for its excellence in the arts. “My responsibility is to keep everyone engaged and to get our neighbors on Cape Ann to realize what we have here.” To that end, Waring, using her showbiz name, Bebe Shopp, will be performing a song called Miss America Sisters with both Meriweather and Susan Powell (Miss America ’81) at the 2012 annual Spring Gloucester Stage fundraiser at Bass Rocks Golf Club in Gloucester on June 1. The song, composed by Bernie Wayne, who also composed Here She Comes, Miss America, was shared for purposes of fundraising with special permission from Wayne’s widow.

How is it that an artistic director can draw such talent to his organization on such a myriad of levels? “What catches my eye in an actor—or anyone—is [his or her] innate ability to connect,” says Engle. “Their honesty. That, and whether they are energy givers or energy takers. [Whether they are] Bette Midlers or Barbra Streisands.”

From the outside looking in, it appears Engle is up to his middle in Midlers—a fact that just might help Gloucester Stage blow the roof off that old building on East Main in the next season or two.

Michael Zimman hand selects all of his store's textiles

For more than a century, Zimman’s has given discerning decorators and in-the-know homeowners stylish options in textiles and home furnishings.

It’s an unusual location for a high-end design shop, situated next to a 99-cents store in downtown Lynn. But Zimman’s is an unusual store, with a strong sense of community, an old-world ambience, and a desire to cater to everyone from locals looking for high-quality bargains to clients with six-figure budgets looking to fill an entire home.

“It’s an unlikely spot for this type of business to evolve,” agrees owner Michael Zimman, grandson of the store’s founder, Morris Zimman. “But it works for us. You need a lot of space, which we have, and we’ve been doing it for 103 years, so we’ve developed a broad reputation.” With arguably the largest selection of textiles on the East Coast, if not in the country, and a carefully curated array of furniture and decorative items, Zimman’s has become a destination business, surviving the changing landscape of retail by smart specialization and unbeatable prices.

Stepping into Zimman’s can be a daunting proposition. With about 40,000 square feet—nearly an acre—of shopping spread over three floors, some customers, especially those seeking textiles, may not know where to start. After all, Zimman’s has at least 25,000 bolts of fabric in house—but who’s counting? “It might be 50,000. It might be 100,000. We don’t stop to count,” Michael Zimman says. “But that’s part of what makes us unique. We’re for people who want to step back into the way things were and have an experience of shopping in an emporium, putting their hands on textiles and furniture… It’s a throwback, and people really love it.”

Aside from the décor, another blast from the past is the store’s continuing focus on customer service. Zimman’s staff is trained to help every customer—from the local needing some new drapes to the chauffer-driven client outfitting a whole house—find exactly what he or she is looking for in the sea of fabrics. This one constant focus on customer service, no matter the budget, has helped the century-old store stay in business while evolving from a little-bit-of-everything department store to a textile and home furnishing specialist. If anything, as the overarching retail trend toward self-service continues, Zimman’s has gone the other way, encouraging employees to specialize in specific areas while emphasizing a high-touch experience.

“We try to provide more service than we ever have,” Zimman says. “We know that people are looking for quality services at reasonable prices. So, in recent years, we’ve gotten into providing more full service, where we make draperies, bedding, upholstery, pillows, slipcovers…all that sort of thing. People don’t have to run around and get that done someplace else.”

Zimman’s dedication to the old ways has deep roots; Michael learned the business at his grandfather Morris Zimman’s knee. Morris opened the store in 1909, and Michael says he cannot remember a time when he wasn’t involved in the business. In fact, if he wanted to see his father, who worked from 10 a.m. until 10 p.m. six days a week, he had to go to the store. While in the second grade, Michael would take the bus from the family’s home in Marblehead to swim at the Boys’ Club on Lynn Commons. After swimming, Zimman would wend his way through back alleys and residential neighborhoods in the waning afternoon light to get to his father’s store for a ride home.

Michael’s official start in the business was at age 13, when his father bought out a factory that sold lawn furniture and then put the young lad in charge of sales. “It was great. I was running the department,” Michael recalls. There was only one problem—he wasn’t legally allowed to work until age 14. So, his father kept track of his hours, and on his 14th birthday, he presented him with a check for his accumulated wages—at a whopping 65 cents an hour.

Zimman’s retail acumen, on display from a young age, is likely responsible for the store’s existence today. “The advent of shopping centers off the highways made for difficult times to compete in an urban setting,” he recalls. “It became apparent to me that we had to specialize in something. We always had fabrics and always did well.” So, Zimman closed the other departments and honed in on textiles, an area that Michael personally oversees to this day. He alone is responsible for purchasing the fabric, displayed on towering rollers that stretch in a seemingly endless array on the main floor. There, shoppers will find anything from a $29.99/yard cotton print to $149/yard exquisitely hand-embroidered fabric.

That seems like a lot of money for a textile, but Zimman insists that it’s a fair price, and much less than what competing design studios charge for the same fabric.

“While that seems like a crazy amount of money, when you go to a design showroom and start looking at things, it’s staggering how much they charge,” Zimman says, noting that his prices can be as little as a sixth of the price at a high-end design showroom. “We work on a smaller markup [than do design showrooms],” Zimman says, “so it becomes a more appealing price point. We have a lot less flash-and-dash and people walking around in silk ties.”

Certainly, there is very little flashiness on display when you enter the store. With a sign above the door that looks retro—because it is—and original tin in need of a paint job covering the ceiling and walls, it is clear that Zimman is more interested in letting the merchandise speak for itself than spending on interior upgrades. Worn blow-ups of historic black-and-white photos hang from 18-foot ceilings, showing the history of the business. Zimman and his staff work from a cramped pod of desks in a corner of the first floor, piled with papers and surrounded by people bustling about.

The environment may be less than luxurious, but that doesn’t stop well-heeled clients from arriving on a regular basis to shop. Staffers are working right now on a ski house in Maine. “We’re doing the entire interior of it, [including] the furniture, the window treatments—almost everything about the house,” says Operations Manager Patty Forster, adding that the cost of that project is definitely into five figures, bordering on six. But those figures aren’t unusual. One customer moved from the North Shore to Sonoma, California, and had furnishings for the new home shipped from Zimman’s. Another North Shore denizen outfitted a second home—in Greece—with  Zimman’s help.

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Why such a devoted following? “I’d like to think we have a certain taste level. Whether it’s someone else’s taste level or not, it reflects who we are,” Michael says.

Hollywood has certainly found Zimman’s to its taste—since Massachusetts enacted tax credits to lure Hollywood productions to the state, Zimman’s has become the go-to place for set decoration. Stroll through the furniture showroom and you will see items used in films including 2009’s The Proposal, starring Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds. And film production keeps the upholstery department busy as well, from a next-day upholstery job for Shutter Island (starring Leonard DiCaprio and directed by Martin Scorsese), which involved a red-eyed courier carrying the leather from California, to preparing 900 seats for The Fighter, which stars Mark Wahlberg. It’s all in a day’s work.

“Any movie that was filmed in Boston, [production crews] made their way here,” Michael says. “They look at us as a real repository of textiles and furnishings that can fit many settings. So that’s been a fun thing. It’s a lot more work than the regular customers—you have to do things really fast. But it’s kind of fun, too, and all the employees get a kick out of it.” The bigger kick is sometimes had on the set, though; producers of the recent Pink Panther movie bought a unique $10,000 piece from the store, only to blow it up on screen.

Hunting down special items—even those slated for destruction—doesn’t actually require much travel, as purveyors selling furniture and textiles that will fit in Zimman’s oeuvre always make their way to Lynn. As Zimman himself says, “They will find us.”

While Zimman’s prides itself on an eclectic mix, Michael says customers are particularly drawn right now to an “ethnic casual” look—people are seeking comfort, clean lines, and a more contemporary look. That trend is very different from a few years ago, however.

“When people were putting up all these grand homes, everyone wanted to look at themselves as being in a very grand situation,” he says. “We were selling a lot of silks. Now, people are saying they are more comfortable with a nice plain linen drape.”

That’s not the only change. “When I started [working at Zimman’s in 2001], people would buy $10,000 and $15,000 armoires without batting an eye,” Forster recalls. “That’s not happening anymore.” Michael Zimman says the shop is weathering the current economic downturn well, but that isn’t giving him any confidence. “When the economy was [better], I pretty much knew what was going to happen from year to year,” he says. “Now, I have no idea. Not that your future is ever certain, but you could kind of project the next week, the next month, the next year.”

Zimman has ridden out recessions in the past, but he says this one feels different. “In previous recessionary times, honestly, I never noticed them. This is much closer to the Depression… The middle class is evaporating.” He admits it could be his age. “Perhaps some of the optimism of youth has faded. But the fact of the matter is there are fewer and fewer people with disposable income.”

It could be because of this economic uncertainty that Zimman isn’t pressing his own children to become the fourth generation in the family business. “I want them to feel like they are doing something that’s really secure,” he says. “If one of them came to me and said, ‘I’ll do whatever it takes,’ we’d have a conversation. But if it’s just for a paycheck, what’s the point? You have to have a certain amount of passion.”

In the short term, Zimman plans to keep evolving with the times, in a balancing act between keeping prices reasonable and offering a high degree of service. “It’s a great sense of pride for us to be really keeping it going,” he says. “We don’t sell anything that people need, but people don’t live by bread alone. There’s a lot to be said for having beauty in your life.”

The Portfolio

Headquarters: Lynn. Number of Employees: 20. Year Founded: 1903. Products: Textiles, furniture, and decorative items from around the world. Owner: Michael Zimman. Operations Manager: Patty Forster. Contact: 80 Market Street, Lynn, 781-598-9432, zimmans.com.

Will Turner, the face behind Turner Motorsport

Amesbury BMW parts specialist Will Turner has turned his passion for cars into a championship-winning dream.

When Turner Motorsport driver Paul Dalla Lana was awarded the 2011 BMW Sports Trophy, Will Turner’s smile could have lit up Daytona International Speedway.

“One of our team had been named the world’s most successful BMW race driver of the year,” he says, recalling the celebrations in Munich, Germany last November. “That’s a really cool honor.”

“Cool” could well be Turner’s middle name. At 43, he owns the leading BMW parts, accessories, and performance tuner in North America, as well as a highly successful race team that has won six major professional championships. He travels almost constantly from one turbo-charged race venue to the next, and when he’s home in Newburyport with wife, Sue, and two young daughters, Sydney and Kate, he gets to go to work and—as he puts it—“play around with BMWs all day.”

But life for Turner wasn’t always so racy. In fact, the first BMW he bought in college nearly broke him. “I got in a bit over my head,” he says. “I couldn’t afford to fix it and thought, ‘I’ve got to do this for myself.’ That’s when I started learning about cars, learning about the brand, and it has been my passion ever since.”

What started as a car parts catalog business in Connecticut in 1993 grew rapidly after Turner moved to Newburyport in 1995, where he began combining the BMW parts component with performance tuning and racing. Almost two decades later, Turner Motorsport is a state-of-the-art, 40,000-square-foot repair and service facility in Amesbury, employing 40 staff working alongside a separate but complementary race team comprising four drivers, four BMW M3s, an annual budget of $2 million, and a schedule of 23 races each year from Daytona to Indianapolis.

Each arm of the business learns from the other, giving Turner Motorsport a sharp competitive edge. “We offer regular maintenance service to everything a BMW dealer would do,” he says, “but what gets us smiling and excited is when someone brings in a BMW for an oil change and wants to put on bigger wheels or a sports exhaust. That’s where we really shine.”

The race team helps put Turner Motorsport in top gear, winning the Grand Am Continental Sports Car Challenge in 2011—which Turner himself won as a driver in 2006—along with Dalla Lana’s prestigious BMW Sports Trophy award.

“What the guys do in the business and race team, I’ve done myself,” Turner says. “This is definitely a story of one guy with an entrepreneurial spirit and a passion for BMWs who’s living his dream. I still love coming to work every day.”.

Andover’s new Bridal Center is a one-stop destination where brides and their wedding parties can say yes to the dress—and a whole lot more.

Like any bride-to-be, Drew Duford’s to-do list is as long as a wedding train. It’s eight months until the 28-year-old, who lives in Haverhill, ties the knot with fiancé Richard Dupre at The Crane Estate in Ipswich, and pressure is mounting.

Unlike many anxious brides, whose inner Bridezillas come out somewhere between choosing the invitations and walking down the aisle, Duford is calm, cool, and collected. She has already chosen a dress, the photographer is booked, and the groom is shopping for tuxedos. If she needs help with any of the 101 other things to check off her list, from the DJ to her bridal bouquet, she knows it’s just a phone call away.

Dresses in a row at the Bridal Center

Instead of racing around to 15 different wedding services, Duford has found the ultimate support network at The Bridal Center at One Main Street in Andover, a new and unique wedding “destination,” with nine highly experienced specialists who can smooth every step of a bride’s journey, from getting hitched to choosing her honeymoon outfits.

“It’s a fabulous idea,” Duford says of the Bridal Center concept, “and it’s making my life so much easier. Everyone is so pleasant and professional and welcoming, and to have all these services under the same roof is so convenient. It’s really a one-stop shop.”

Filling four floors of a beautifully restored building overlooking Elm Square, The Bridal Center offers designer wedding gowns, bridesmaids dresses, mother-of-the-bride ensembles, shoes, jewelry, accessories, cocktail dresses, intimate apparel, tuxedos, and car services. There’s a first-class photographer, the top-rated entertainment and uplighting specialist in New England, an event planner and wedding decorator, and even a personal trainer to get couples in shape for their big day. An invitations boutique is next door, and there’s a florist across the road, but if you still can’t find what you need, the nine specialists at The Bridal Center have Rolodexes stuffed with personal contacts who can also assist in your wedding planning with military (and stress-free) precision.

Thought to be the only bridal center of its kind in America, this clever concept is the brainchild of 63-year-old Andover businessman Tom Belhumeur, who owned a chain of Athlete’s Corner stores in Massachusetts during a 30-year retail career and now owns several commercial properties in Andover. A casual conversation two years ago with long-time tenants Steve and Christine Kalman—the owners of Cristina’s, one of the most successful and respected bridal boutiques in New England—quickly turned into a major business proposition.

“Cristina’s was a tenant across the street for 20 years, and they were really busting at the seams,” recalls Belhumeur. “We got to chatting and thought, ‘If we’re going to create a new building with Cristina’s taking up much of the space, how about bringing in other people in the bridal business and doing the whole thing as a wedding destination?’”

With no experience in the bridal industry, Belhumeur started to research, bringing home glossy weddings magazines and watching TV shows like Say Yes to the Dress. “My wife thought I was really losing it,” he chuckles. “She’d always known me to be a cut-and-dry commercial guy, but this took a whole different turn because I was personally involved.”

Belhumeur identified a prime location at the corner of Main and Central streets in the heart of downtown Andover: a run-down two-story building once home to Kaps men’s clothing store. He purchased the building for $1.2 million in December 2009, won local planning approval, and set about restoring it. “We pretty much tore the building down and rebuilt it, adding a third story,” he says.

The additional floor increased the commercial space from 10,000 to almost 16,000 square feet, enough room to accommodate Cristina’s and eight other tenants. Belhumeur won’t say how much he invested in the building, but it’s plain to see that he spared no expense, having incorporated an elevator, marble floors, a mahogany staircase, chandeliers, and large windows to capture the town views and natural light.

For the color scheme—a crisp white and tan on the exterior, a cool blue-gray for the interior—Belhumeur chose colors that would appeal to women and men alike. His choice of wallpaper delivered a pleasant surprise. “When the interior designer turned over the sample, it was called ‘Wedding Rings,’ and I thought, ‘There’s an omen right there,’” he says.

“I wanted the building to look confident, successful, and upscale, and for people to identify with it in how they wanted their wedding to be,” Belhumeur says. “It’s very special to me. We started with nothing and created something wonderful.”

Christine Kalman, owner of Cristina's, helping a bride-to-be

By the time the building was completed in April 2011 and renamed The Bridal Center at One Main Street, Belhumeur had taken calls from scores of florists, caterers, boutiques, and wedding planners. “People would drive by, see the building, and want to be part of it,” he says. “I could have done a 100,000-square-foot building and filled every space.”

Belhumeur took a careful approach and handpicked all nine prospective tenants based on their industry track records. With Cristina’s confirmed as the “anchor” tenant, other top wedding specialists with more than 100 years of combined experience came on board.

Russo Tux and Limousine, a family business with stores in Chelsea, Stoneham, and Andover, was in the basement of the original Kaps building and took over a new space on the first floor with a separate entrance for flexible opening hours.

Michael Edwards, who launched AllStar Entertainment and Uplighting in 1990 and had been running it from his home office in Andover since 2004, booked a third-floor space after driving past the building. “What better address?” he says. “Ninety-five percent of our business is weddings, so it was a perfect match for us.”

Neighboring tenant and photographer Linda Jennings, owner of Photography by Linda, adds another 20 years’ experience to the center. She had a studio in North Main Street for eight years, knew Michael Edwards through their respective businesses, and signed when she found out he’d taken a spot. “The space was perfect for a photographer and made it easy for me to move in,” she says.

Keri Barrett, owner of First Date Boutique on the second floor, was already a tenant of Belhumeur’s on Chestnut Street and jumped at the chance to move into The Bridal Center: “It’s a genius idea,” she says. “Everyone in the building complements each other perfectly, and clients get personal service they won’t find anywhere else.”

With a 27-year history in Andover, the most experienced and biggest tenant is Cristina’s, which moved in last May after a major design process resulting in an elegant second-floor bridal salon. The main formal gowns are displayed in a boutique on the first floor with streetfront exposure. A lower level houses bridesmaids dresses, pressing, and alterations.

“Having us all under the same roof is a big asset not only for all of us, but also for our clients to have experienced, reputable, and trustworthy people for the most important day of their lives,” says Christine Kalman, Cristina’s owner.

Clara Tompkins owns The New England Bridal Affair, specializing in wedding expos and event planning, and is thrilled to have a space on the third floor. “We all needed to come together, and the timing was wonderful,” she says. “I wish I could have done it years ago.”

The final three tenants—Laura Hardiman, owner of The Ivory Corset; Sylvia Sasso, owner of Shaperella; and Yasiris Matias, owner of Festejos Decorations—moved in to their third-floor spaces in November, adding intimate apparel, personal training, decorations, and event planning to the mix. Apart from the new Bridal Center website, which brands and connects all nine businesses, each owner operates autonomously but benefits greatly from being under the same roof.

For brides with time restraints, the center is a convenient one-stop shop to which they can bring mothers, fiancés, and bridal parties for a relaxed day of planning and shopping. Clients can also make significant savings via incentives and special offers if they book with more than one specialist.

Menswear and accessories at Russo Tux Shop & Limousine

Aside from the obvious commercial benefits of client referrals, cross-promotions, and group marketing, each business owner can also enjoy the support and encouragement of people who are now friends as much as colleagues. “The enthusiasm and positive energy running through the building is just extraordinary,” says Belhumeur.

“…We’re all busy at the same time, and we help each other whenever we can,” says Clara Tompkins. “When a bride sits on my couch, my goal is not only to promote myself but also everyone else in the building when possible.”

There’s no formal tenants’ association, but the shopowners all meet twice a month to resolve any issues. Tom Belhumeur’s financial interest is solely that of building owner and landlord, although he helped establish the new website and attends occasional meetings. The center is now at full capacity with no room for expansion, but Belhumeur believes the website will be a source of new business and revenue streams through affiliate links, advertising, and promotions.

Success is hard to quantify after only eight months, but many owners are reporting increases in bookings since joining The Bridal Center. Linda Jennings says business is up 20 percent; AllStar Entertainment is up 30 percent. Cristina’s is now getting brides from New England and 17 other states.

Is another Bridal Center on the horizon? “Not in Massachusetts, but we are looking at venues in Connecticut,” says Belhumeur. “I would love to replicate this. It’s very much a possibility.”

Clearly it’s a marriage made in heaven—and not a Bridezilla in sight.

The Portfolio

Headquarters: Andover. Year Founded: 2011. Number of Businesses: 9. Services: A one-stop wedding “destination” offering gowns, tuxedos, jewelry, accessories, intimate apparel, photography, decorations, entertainment and lighting, personal training, and event planning. Building Owner: Tom Belhumeur. Contact: One Main Street, Andover, MA 01810, thebridalcenter.com.

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The Trustees of Reservations are on a mission to make you care about the environment.

The Great House on Castle Hill

Wandering the manicured lawns surrounding the Crane Estate in Ipswich, the Trustees of Reservations’ most-visited property, visitors would never guess what’s just beneath the surface: a cavernous brick-lined chamber holding up to 135,000 gallons of water.

When Chicago industrialist Richard T. Crane, Jr. built his palatial summer home in 1928, he planned carefully for the estate’s water needs, using state-of-the-art technology—after all, the Cranes made their fortunes manufacturing plumbing supplies. As part of a plan that included wells throughout the estate, he arranged to harvest rainwater from the roof of the Great House and store it in an underground cistern next door.

Over the years, that cistern was forgotten, says Robert Murray, superintendent of the Crane Estate, as water lines easily brought potable water up Castle Hill. The echoing chamber stood empty, just below the surface, for perhaps 60 years, until plans got underway for a major replanting on the Allée—the storied tree-lined lawn that rolls from the Great House down to the sea.

“As we were planning for the Allée restoration, we knew that we had to make provisions for irrigation … in the event of a mandatory town-wide water ban,” Murray says. A drought would be the undoing of the substantial investment in new trees along the half-mile landscape. The organization estimates they could collect 180,000 gallons of rainwater a year from the roof—enough to take care of those young trees until they can stand on their own.

The cistern revival is symbolic of a rethinking of the mission and goals of the Trustees of Reservations, a 120-year-old organization dedicated to preserving and protecting more than 100 special places in Massachusetts—some 20 of which are found on the North Shore. It was one of the first land trust organizations in the country, so shifting its time-honed methods wasn’t a natural move. But in response to changing times that demand more agile environmental action, the Trustees launched its 2017 Strategic Plan to make the organization more relevant in an age of eco-upheaval. The emphasis on the environment is not just a feel-good plan—the Trustees have 75 miles of coastline property that they are the first to admit could very well be radically altered by global warming.

The organization is now halfway through this ambitious four-part plan, adopted in 2007 and which involves accelerating the rate at which land is protected throughout the state, engaging more people in the organization’s mission and becoming leaders in conservation and sustainability.

While the Trustees have been using the plan as a blueprint for the past five years, a lot has changed since it was put forth. Its aggressive membership and volunteerism goals—and its stated aim of making Massachusetts the nation’s leader in environmentalism—appear out of reach. As Trustees President Andy Kendall wryly notes, “The 10-year plan was adopted right before the recession, at a point in time when we thought the world was going to continue to expand forever.”  “Things have changed dramatically,” he adds, admitting that the plan was considered bold even by 2007 standards. While Kendall says they still enjoy the backing of a lot of very supportive donors, the current economic climate is a far cry from those heady years.

The organization is still very much devoted to the 2017 Strategic Plan, but these unanticipated challenges have caused the Trustees to consider extending timelines and putting focus on locations where they can have the most impact. “If we can demonstrate success in those places, we can use them as lever points to excite [visitors] about our overall vision. Then, people can be inspired to help us replicate and expand beyond those places.”

Fortunately for denizens of the North Shore, several places in the area represent just that kind of opportunity for the Trustees. About a year ago, the organization combined its properties—Crane Estate, Appleton Farms, Hamlin Reservation, and Greenwood Farm, all in Ipswich, and Pine & Hemlock Knoll in Wenham—into the Center for Enterprise and Engagement. These places together account for about 60 percent of the Trustees’ earned income each year and are among the non-profits’ most visited properties—accounting for well over 300,000 visits each year. By emphasizing this collection of lands, the Trustees hope to broaden enthusiasm from visitors there into interest in their statewide efforts—and make a difference in their own communities.

“These properties feature, in a relatively small geographic area, a range of natural, cultural, and historic resources that are representative of the Trustees’ broader network of properties: historic structures like the Great House on Castle Hill, the Paine House on Greenwood Farms, and the Old House at Appleton Farms; important historical collections; significant natural and planned landscapes; coastal habitats, grasslands, marshlands, and agricultural lands,” notes David Beardsley, director of the new center, who is tasked with encouraging visitors to reflect on the Trustees of Reservations’ efforts after they leave for the day.

Throughout the state, a number of high-visibility projects are specifically geared toward engaging the public while driving sustainability goals, Kendall says. In Cohasset, they are planning to erect a wind turbine, which will help establish the Trustees as carbon neutral. They are also planning six to 10 solar installations at properties around the state—both to act as good environmental stewards and to attract attention to alternative energy sources.

Specifically at Crane Beach, a new “carry-in, carry-out” trash policy has been very successful, cutting the number of trash cans from 24 to six, and other environmental initiatives, including a composting toilet, are on the drawing board. New signage will explain the estate’s renewal of the old cistern and why it’s important. Beardsley says the Trustees hope to eventually make Crane Beach a model for environmentally responsible beach management and a site for educating the public about coastal ecology, climate change, and sustainability. It’s a big stage; Crane often tops lists of best beaches not only in the state, but in the country.

“All our efforts are with an eye toward engaging our neighbors and our members,” Kendall says. “We want to provoke and provide an example of what can be done.”

There are some pretty steep goals for measuring how well the organization is getting the attention of its visitors. By 2017, the original strategic plan calls for 50 percent of visitors at high-engagement properties (like the Crane Estate, which attracts 250,000 visitors a year) to be members, and a total across the board of 80,000 household members. As of 2010, membership stood at 45,500 households. This year, a family membership costs $67 a year.  The plan also calls for volunteers to provide 300,000 hours of work per year. In 2010, volunteers contributed 59,000 hours of work—more than double the amount in 2006, but still a long way from their goals.

While Crane is certainly the crowning jewel, the Trustees also shepherd a number of other North Shore properties, including the Cape Ann Discovery Center at Ravenswood Park in Gloucester, which opened two years ago and holds year-round programs for adults and children. The park recently opened a new hiking trail specifically designed for young families. The Trustees also operate Long Hill in Beverly, a former estate of the Atlantic editor Evelyn Sedgwick, where the Trustees are aiming to generate more hands-on interest through efforts like pick-your-own flower fields, newly opened public gardens and sustainable gardening demonstration beds.

Because of its popularity, the North Shore is also attracting a good amount of the Trustees’ limited resources. The restoration of Appleton Farms, from the planned implementation of a dairy farm to its groundbreaking high level of energy efficiency, has garnered a lot of press lately, including from Northshore (see our August/September issue).

Crane Estate is the property that the Trustees have the most riding on, however. For one, it is the most visited property that the Trustees own, and the $2 million Allée Restoration project is one of the most expansive restoration efforts ever undertaken at the property. The most visible effect of the project is the removal of the towering pines lining the lawn. Originally intended as a hedge that was trimmed to a height of about 12 feet, superintendent Murray says the trees were likely “released” in the 1940s, perhaps because labor was hard to come by during the war. Since then, these “wild” trees have grown to 50 feet tall in some cases. While they looked grand, they caused many headaches, among them being susceptible to the violent weather of the past few years, as well as blocking some of landscape architect Arthur Shurcliff’s original site lines and casting a pall over the delicate statues that line the lawn.
Now the overgrown trees will be replaced by six-foot-tall spruce. In another nod to sustainability, several of the hulking trees were cut up to make a new lifeguard station at Crane Beach and used by Essex master boat builder Harold Burnham for schooner spar rigging.

What do all these efforts have in common? “We want to make sure people are inspired by our properties,” says Kendall. “Historically, we’ve been … thinking of our work as basically being done at the point that the place is acquired and that green sign is put up so people can come and visit. That was the end point, not the beginning.” Now the goal is to create places that encourage people to become more active in their own communities. “The real power for us is helping people be concerned about their own special places, too,” Kendall adds.

Achieving that difficult balance between engaging the public and protecting special places is not easy, Kendall notes, and it’s rather unusual in land trusts. “We are unique in that we preserve special places while ensuring the public has access. Many organizations seek to protect but don’t focus on the public engagement.”

If you’ve ever stood on Crane’s Beach or enjoyed farm-fresh veggies from Appleton Farms or brought your kids to hike the new nature trail in Ravenswood Park, you’ll feel very glad the Trustees are dedicated to maintaining that balance.

[Show as slideshow]

Holiday Happenings Several of the Trustees of Reservations properties run special events over the holidays. Here’s the rundown:

Greening of the Great House, Castle Hill on the Crane Estate, Ipswich Celebrate the holidays at the Great House on Castle Hill, festively decorated by area florists and designers. Enjoy live music, a dance performance, a children’s Eye Spy, refreshments, and more throughout the weekend. On Friday evening, stop in for live jazz music and a drink at the cash bar. On Saturday and Sunday, visit the Gift Gallery for distinctive holiday gifts. December 4-6, Noon-6 p.m. Members: Adult $8; Child $5. Nonmembers: Adult $12; Child $8. Ipswich residents: $5 with proof of residency. Ravenswood Solstice Stroll, Ravenswood Park, Gloucester Celebrate the Winter Solstice with a candlelight stroll at twilight in Ravenswood Park, followed by a cozy fire, s’mores, and hot chocolate. December 18, 4-6 p.m. Members: free; non-members: adult, $5. Free for children. Pre-registration required. capeann@ttor.org. New England Sled Dog Races, Appleton Farms, Ipswich If the snow flies, it could attract close to 10,000 people. Also depending on snow, the farm is hosting a number of guided cross-country ski programs, using the Old House as the meeting location/warming area. The property will also be offering winter kids’ programs, as well as maple sugaring programs. January 14-15.

Stuart Weitzman is head over heels

Shoe designer Stuart Weitzman is at the helm of a global empire spanning 70 countries, turning Hollywood’s biggest stars into fashion icons and creating to-die-for shoes worn by millions of women—and it all started in a humble factory in Haverhill. Photograph by Teru Onishi

Next time you’re in downtown Haverhill, look up at the new Essex Street Gateway Mural and you’ll see a wonderful example of art imitating life. At the center of the four-story mural—honoring the city’s highest achievers—is an image of the legendary movie mogul Louis B. Mayer, who once owned all five theaters in town before conquering Hollywood as the head of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

The mural depicts Mayer with an audience of other Haverhill heroes watching a movie, and on the flickering screen is a man working at a shoe-making machine. That man is Stuart Weitzman—America’s shoe designer to the stars—who took over his late father’s Haverhill shoe factory in 1965 at the young age of 24 and turned the business into a multi-million-dollar global empire spanning 70 countries.

The Haverill-to-Hollywood connection doesn’t stop at the mural. Just as Mayer was the toast of Tinseltown as head of MGM, Weitzman’s super-glamorous shoes adorn the feet of a galaxy of movie stars and entertainers, from Angelina Jolie to Beyoncé, gracing red carpets from the Oscars to the Emmys and from the Grammys to MTV’s Video Music Awards.
Weitzman can barely contain his pride at being included in such esteemed company along with Mayer, John Quincy Adams, comic book hero Archie Andrews (created in 1941 by Haverhill illustrator Bob Montana), and many other local luminaries.

“You could say I’m the protagonist because I got the whole wall in the movie screen shot,” Weitzman says with a chuckle. “I’m honored to be the representative of an industry that basically no longer exists in America but had its birth and much success for almost 200 years in Haverhill.”

It’s been almost 40 years since the once-booming shoe industry died out in Haverhill and Weitzman moved his operations to Europe, but he was excited to return last August for a community painting session of the mural, to visit his father’s factory, and catch up with old friends and colleagues.

“I met women who are the children of people who worked with my father, and they brought shoes from his time,” he says. “They gave me eight or nine pairs. It was quite thrilling for me to see those shoes. Some of them are absolutely beautiful.”

Raised in Long Island, New York, Stuart Weitzman was set for a career on Wall Street after graduating from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. However, his father, Seymour, who in the 1950s had established a successful shoe factory and business in Haverhill called Mr. Seymour, had other ideas, and so the young Weitzman began an apprenticeship that would change the course of his life.

“As kids, we always think we know everything, and the experience of our parents is lost on us, until we grow up and realize just how wise they were,” Weitzman says. “I remember working with him in the factory and saying, ‘I’d like to go to California and be our salesman.’ All I could see was the surf and beautiful girls in bikinis. What did I want to be in a factory for? I’m gonna learn the shoe business by selling [shoes]. And my father said, ‘No, you’re not, you’re going to sit right here and work with our last makers [a shoemaker’s mold for shaping a shoe or boot] and pattern makers. My father would not let me go out into the world selling footwear without knowing the elements of how to make it, and that was the best lesson he could have ever forced upon me.”

It was that nuts-and-bolts apprenticeship that gave Weitzman the experience and confidence to take over the business when his father died unexpectedly and to move the operations to Europe. He launched his own company in 1986 and partnered with a capital investment firm in 2005, paving the way for major international expansion.

Today, Weitzman employs 350 people in the U.S. and 2,000 at his factories in Elda, Spain and has nearly 40 retail stores in America (including Copley Place Boston, Natick, and a new Chestnut Hill boutique) and more than 40 stores worldwide. Each year, he sells two million pairs of shoes in 70 countries.

Weitzman is still the company’s principal designer, combining everything his father taught him with his own creative vision, plus cutting-edge technology employed by a team of top designers, pattern makers, and technicians to create stunning heels and handbags.

A U.S. patent and sketch by Seymour Weitzman that the younger Weitzman found in his attic and re-created

“We’re always listening to women,” he says. “They’re independent, they’re in the workplace and the best universities, they’re their own thinkers. We can’t tell them how to look. The era of the girdle has gone and with it the mental attitude of being told what to look like. They want choice, they want to make their own decisions, and they want variety.”

That’s exactly what Weitzman offers, with 600 fashion, casual, sport, dress, and evening styles in 50 sizes each season, stitching together engineering, design, comfort, and trend-setting looks at a price that works in today’s challenging economy.

So what’s trending this season? “Gorgeous-looking shoes on lower, wearable heels as opposed to everything being at skyscraper height,” he says. “A low-cut, beautiful pump is the silhouette of the season. It looks so good and fresh…”

Weitzman says a flat boot also hits the mark, worn with dark tights or jeans tucked in (or out) of the boot, and an elegant high-heel sexy boot “is about as beautiful a way a woman can show herself off,” he adds.

Exotic reptile and animal skins—python, crocodile, alligator, lizard, leopard, tiger, hyena—are in vogue, but Weitzman stresses they’re not the real thing. “Women don’t want to be part of destroying nature, but they want the look, feel, and attitude it offers,” he says. “With modern technology, we can take lambskin and cowhide and recreate the look of an exotic skin, so the naked eye can’t tell the difference.” He’s not exaggerating, either. “I’m always very proud when the U.S. Department of Agriculture asks for an inspection of our shoes, and they need to call in Fish and Wildlife scientists to determine if they’re real reptile skins,” he says. “That’s how good technology has gotten.”

Weitzman, who is married with two daughters and lives in Connecticut, no longer makes the headline-grabbing, jewel-encrusted “Million Dollar Shoes” for a leading actress to wear to the Oscars each year, but his fabulous heels will no doubt grace the red carpet at the 2012 ceremony.

Hollywood and Haverhill may be worlds apart, but Weitzman has only good memories and will be back for the unveiling of the mural next year.

“It’s amazing what this town has done,” Weitzman says. “It was a dilapidated city when the shoe industry ended and now it’s thriving again with fantastic lofts and apartments that grew out of factories and a young, active, cultural community.”

What would his father make of his success? “He loved footwear; he would be as proud as hell, I’m sure, and would be telling me how to correct a design,” says Weitzman, laughing.

No pun intended, but this story has a wonderful footnote. Just last summer, Weitzman was clearing his attic and found a box marked ‘Dad’s Things.’ Inside was a document, sealed with red wax and a ribbon, with a beautiful shoe design sketched by his father when he was 21, and an official 1936 United States patent.

“The shoe is gorgeous, so I remade it,” he says. “I modernized it a bit; we’re selling the heck out of it and using it in a campaign called ‘Heritage.’ Dad would love that.”

Two designers—one a North Shore native—live out their passion for fashion.

It all started in 2005 at the Savannah College of Art and Design, where fashion-forward freshmen Ariel Lilly and Christina Coniglio met and bonded over a shared dream: to start a women’s clothing line. Soon after, the pair began brainstorming ideas to make that dream a reality.

Although launching their own line was always the ultimate goal, Lilly and Coniglio agreed that some work experience first would be a solid foundation. “Going out and working for other people [would give] us that extra push with the business side of things,” says Coniglio.

After graduating, both women worked in New York City—Lilly, an Andover native, in fashion showrooms, and Coniglio, from Florida, in design and production. Satisfied with their professional pursuits, the designers then developed the blueprints for a contemporary women’s line, choosing to blend “uptown and downtown New York City style.” And so, Rae Francis —Rae is Lilly’s middle name; Francis is Coniglio’s father—was born.

Today, to stay ahead of the trends, Lilly and Coniglio take to the streets of New York to hear from consumers themselves:  what they like, dislike, what they want more of, and what they could use less of. The designers have successfully struck a balance, as is evidenced by the attention that Rae Francis has garnered from magazines like Lucky and Elle Mexico, and from celebrity stylists. Locally, pieces from the label are available at Dresscode in Andover, while the Fall 2011 collection was scheduled to launch on the website Imilla Road in late summer.

Next, calling on Coniglio’s Florida influence, the duo will introduce swimwear to the North Shore and later to the West Coast. In the meantime, all eyes are on the longtime friends and fashion trailblazers.

After a humble beginning in her parents’ garage, Livia Cowan has developed a multi-million-dollar gift business, Mariposa, firmly rooted in the North Shore.

It’s a beautiful summer day in Manchester, but inside the big yellow barn just off Route 127, it looks more like Christmas. Silvery ornaments, ranging from delicate snowflakes and sand dollars to tiny picture frames decorated with dog bones, hang from display racks in the conference room, while elegant platters subtly decorated with toy trains and Christmas trees adorn the walls.

Livia Cowan and pup Lola at Mariposa's headquarters

These items, and many others from Mariposa, a gift and tableware company with deep roots in the North Shore, are destined for more than 400 upscale stores and boutiques like Saks and Neiman Marcus this holiday season. For store buyers, summertime is when thoughts turn to the holidays, and so Mariposa’s decor takes a wintery turn as well. The playfulness of the dog bone frame, juxtaposed with the elegance of those snowflakes, is a hallmark of Mariposa, says Livia Cowan, president and creative director. “Both sides are very important to us—the whimsical and the contemporary, from chic to playful,” she says.

The casual charm of the company’s designs is reflected in its headquarters, a converted barn that served as the stable for the Manchester Livery in the 1800s. Much care was put into preserving the barn feel while crafting a comfortable, airy environment. When Mariposa bought the space, it housed a tree removal service and took a fair amount of vision to remake it as a functional modern workspace. These days, the “stalls” are cubicles for the company’s 25 employees. Dogs find the offices a comfortable space, too, as they are welcome at work. Lola, a Portuguese Water Dog, greets visitors with a friendly nuzzle in the hopes of getting treats.

Another renovation was needed when Mariposa added a new CEO to its roster last spring. Stanley Reeve, who joined the company after stints with Merida Meridian, a luxury sustainable floor covering company, and Rare, a nonprofit biodiversity protection organization in Arlington, Virginia, had been Cowan’s mentor and business confidant for many years prior. Reeve was looking to move back to the North Shore, and Cowan was starting to realize that her business had grown so much that it was becoming difficult to handle solo.

“We talked about business the way other people talk about sports,” Cowan says. While they are both very involved in all aspects of the business, Reeve is focused more on deepening and strengthening their distribution and the bottom line numbers, while Cowan can hone in on design and marketing.

“It’s a classic entrepreneurial thing,” Cowan says. “The reason I started the business was the love of the craft and dedication to design. Then you start building inventory and having all these different products, and you have to grow up and turn into a manager… There are so many different challenges that you start to get watered down and can’t pursue all aspects of it.” To make room for Reeve, Cowan’s open office was divided by a partial wall with a window. In keeping with the collegial, casual environment, neither office has a door.

One of the things Reeve found very attractive is Mariposa’s commitment to sustainability. With the exception of some imported Italian glassware, everything in the company’s line is made from recycled materials—primarily glass and aluminum.  “I’m very interested in the environment,” Reeve says. “In a world of diminished resources, it’s nice to sell products you feel good about.”

Mariposa’s commitment to sustainability is shared by its manufacturing partners. The main plant in Mexico recycles everything from water to metal and is aiming to be the country’s first green industrial park that also focuses on worker well-being. “It’s very satisfying and rewarding to know that our manufacturing partners are committed not only to good environmental stewardship, but also to providing meaningful employment,” Reeve says.

Recycling has been a hallmark since the company started in 1991. One of Mariposa’s early finds—and still a popular item—is glassware made from recycled Coke bottles. Cowan still marvels at the process, which she has now seen many times in the past 20 years at Mariposa’s production facilities: It starts out with a wheelbarrow full of bottles that get melted down into beautiful glassware.

While recycling has always been part of the Mariposa story, it wasn’t until recently that the company started to emphasize it in its marketing. “I was afraid to share it for a while, because before people were thinking sustainability was a good thing, I think they were a little freaked out,” Cowan says. But when Mariposa started sharing the manufacturing story, it only added to the brand’s allure. “It gave people one more reason to buy,” she says.

Cowan started in the business at 19, traveling to Mexico in a van with her sister, looking for unique products to sell in her sister’s store. When her sibling moved on, Cowan gladly took over, placing orders for recycled glasses and other items and fulfilling orders by stores like Neiman Marcus out of her parents’ garage.

“Semi-trucks couldn’t get to my parents’ house, so we’d borrow friends’ pick-up trucks, load them up, and meet the semis at Gloucester High School, sending $50,000 of merchandise to Neiman’s and places like that,” Cowan says, adding that she doesn’t think the retailers had any idea. “It was always referred to as ‘the warehouse,’” she says with a smile.

Nautical inspired items are a constant for Mariposa

Eventually, she took over her parents’ basement, then the guest room. “Finally, my mother said, ‘Enough,’” Cowan recalls, adding that her mother then brokered a deal for her to share space with then Gloucester-based clothing company Mighty Mac. “At a certain point, everyone in the community sort of felt sorry for my mother and tried to help out,” Cowan laughs.

Mariposa’s fulfillment is still handled out of Gloucester, but at its own facility, from which more than 95 percent of customer orders are shipped within one to three days of receipt. All the photography for the company’s catalogs and marketing is done locally, as well. Crane Beach, as well as favorite restaurants, like The Market in Annisquam, serve as backdrops for photo shoots, and everyone from waiters to Lola the dog are featured in the photos. Many of Mariposa’s staffers are also local;  designer Michael Updike is a former classmate at Pingree in South Hamilton, and artist-in-residence Shelly Bradbury is a jogging partner.

That “North Shore-ness” is a good thing, but it can also be an affliction, Cowan says. “Some of our retailers complain that we have too many sea things,” she says, referring to the boats, starfish, and other nautical notes in their collections. “It’s such a natural reference for us—every time you look, there’s something new.” For example, the dory boats that adorn some pieces are a nod to designer Updike’s wedding. He and his bride departed their wedding with seaside flair by rowing off in a dory.

Cowan keeps a ring-bound notebook full of items that strike her fancy—anything from the edging on some antique jewelry to the design of a napkin can serve as a spark for a piece. “It can be a doorknob or something at a flea market or a dress,” she says. “It’s really the little details that inspire.” Using these bits of inspiration, Cowan works with the company’s two designers, Bradbury and Updike, to create the finished pieces. “I never know how it’s going to go,” Bradbury says. “It’s a dance between design and function.”

Bradbury adds that she is enjoying the challenges of creating pieces that can be mass produced.  As a sculptor, whose works include the Sea Bench for the Maritime Heritage Museum in Gloucester and reconstructing an experience of the Old Man of the Mountain in New Hampshire, Bradbury is still learning what can be assembled in a factory. “I can create anything, but it needs to be able to be manufactured,” she says. “Our designs really push them in processes and directions they haven’t gone before.”

Lately, the company has turned to social media for inspiration. A recent Facebook request for ideas for the company’s “statement trays”—small silver trays engraved with phrases like “Live, laugh, love” and “Change is good”—yielded several ideas that are now bestsellers.

From that Facebook contest, Mariposa took just six weeks to get the social network-inspired goods onto customer shelves, something that the company prides itself on, though it also credits its relationship with their manufacturers in Mexico. While management explored having designs manufactured in India and in China, they found that the turnaround times and quality controls were much better in Mexico.

The statement trays and other gift items are relatively new to Mariposa. Until three or four years ago, the company’s focus was exclusively tableware—much of it from Europe. “We imported very high-end ceramics and glass from Italy…and flatware that we couldn’t afford ourselves from France,” Cowan says.

But as the dollar declined, identifying value and maintaining reasonable price points became more difficult. First, the company shifted its focus to the Far East, but didn’t find quite the right match. “We tried to transition to China on the ceramics, but the artists couldn’t capture our love of the craft enough to bring the subtlety to the pieces,” she says. “Since it didn’t reflect our commitment, we had to abandon [the partnership].”

Looking around for something to fill the void, the company turned to bottle stoppers, ornaments, and other small decorative items. “Metal has always been a core of our business, so we started playing with giftware, and it was really lucky [that we did],” Cowan says. These items cost less, and with the economic downturn, the timing was serendipitous.
“Our brand was loved, but the price points were challenging,” Cowan Says. “With the giftware, we could provide retailers with something safe under our brand name. It’s really brought us through a difficult period very well.”

Reeve notes that they now have a good balance between small giftable items—like a $17 spreader for a hostess gift—and the tabletop Sueno and Reveillon lines, featuring service trays and decorative bowls that top out around $300, perfect for a wedding present.

Both Cowan and Reeve feel that by focusing on unique handmade items crafted with passion, the business can continue to thrive in tough times. “It’s not frivolous anymore,” Reeve says. “You’ve got to really grab that customer with something they feel is worth it.”

The Portfolio

Headquarters: Manchester-by-the-Sea. Number of Employees: 25. Year Founded: 1991. Products: Tabletop and giftware items made from recycled aluminum and glass, Italian glassware. President/Creative Director: Livia Anne Cowan. CEO: Stanley Reeve. Contact: 5 Elm Street, Manchester, MA, 01944, 800/788-1304.

Making waves with Will Cole of Mahi Mahi Cruises and Charters in Salem.

It’s nearly impossible to miss the 55-foot festively colored boat cruising around Salem Sound in the cool October breeze. Sharing the harbor with lobstermen and migrating birds is quite different than the busy boating atmosphere of the popular summer cruises, and the costumed crew and passengers are no exception. Mahi Mahi Cruises and Charters is in its sixth season, and owner Will Cole is gearing up for Halloween aboard the Finback—gorillas, chickens, and Claymation characters welcome.

Will Cole prepares for another Halloween season

What was your inspiration for Mahi Mahi Cruises and Charters? I just knew I wasn’t going to work in a conventional setting for the rest of my life. I grew up on the water in Gloucester, so it just feels right to get on a boat and have a beer and a burger and interact with new people every day.

What should customers expect on one of the fall cruises? The fall schedule is made up of the lighthouse cruises and the Haunted Happenings cruises, so the focus is on the haunted aspects of Salem Sound. The weather is cooler and we get to turn the heaters on and enclose the boat and serve weather-appropriate drinks like “Grandma’s Spiked Hot Apple Cider.” It’s fun to be in that atmosphere out on the water without a single soul around.

Where do you get all of the Halloween facts for the narrated cruises? We mostly take our information from accounts of pirates or haunted tales of Salem’s past and the five historic lighthouses in the area. But we try to focus more on the maritime aspect of Halloween to keep our cruises different from all of the land tours around the city. In general, we get a lot of tales from the old timers who come on the cruises and share their stories with us, so the narration is always evolving.

Do people usually dress up for the Haunted Happenings cruises? Absolutely! We all dress up for the last few weeks of the season in anything from gorilla suits to chicken suits to keep the mood festive and lighthearted. We have a woman who is always in costume come out and narrate our Haunted Happenings cruises. Our customers also get into the spirit and dress up closer to the end of October.

What’s the craziest costume you’ve seen? We get a lot of fun costumes on board, but my favorite one was when someone showed up in a head-to-toe Gumby suit. That was awesome.

Under the guidance of The Trustees of Reservations, Appleton Farms—one of the oldest continually run farms in the U.S.—overhauls its operations to achieve new levels of sustainability and, ultimately, a LEED Platinum certification. By, Andrea Fox

In 1998, appleton farms, the oldest continually run farm in the U.S., was bequeathed to The Trustees of Reservations. Today, Col.Francis R. Appleton, Jr. and his wife, Joan, would be happy to see their restored original porch furniture arranged so that one can overlook the farm and its 17th-century roots.

What might please the couple more than period details and displays of family heirlooms, however, is that Appleton Farms is today’s model for New England commercial-scale farming, as well as a marvel of land preservation. The Appletons’ incredible gift was for the purpose of restoring farming and preserving land as open space—The Trustees management has made this vision a reality.

“They are bringing back a working farm,” says Susanna Colloredo-Mansfield, a cousin of Joan Appleton. “She always wished it could be a place for families, like it was for me.” As a child, Colloredo-Mansfield would often go with her mother on calls to see Aunt Fanny Appleton, and then she visited with her adult cousins, Frank and Joan, “which was like heaven to me,” she says.

The Trustees’ organization-wide, carbon-neutrality goal, along with development efforts, has lead to Appleton Farms’ centuries-old operations, such as the dairy, to undergo a complete sustainability lift. The strategy has put the largest farm in the Greater Boston region on track to eliminate emissions—earning Appleton the gilded title Net Zero—in August 2011. The crowning achievement of this incredible undertaking came in August when the Green Business Council awarded the Old House rebuild LEED Platinum certification.

Agriculture is one of the most resource-consumptive industries and largest emitters of greenhouse gases, and scant farms can make Net Zero claims about their carbon footprints. The Old House, now The Trustees’ offices and Appleton Farms Center for Agriculture and the Environment, is also the first renovated building on the East Coast to boast the green building movement’s platinum achievement.

Underneath all of the old farm charm is a set of systems befitting the center of what Trustees Statewide Agriculture Director and former long-time Appleton Farms Manager Wayne Castonguay calls a “real working farm.” “We define real as economically viable…It needs to support itself, and we’re doing that,” Castonguay says.

Solar-thermal and photovoltaic arrays produce renewable energy, the former heating water and the latter creating energy that runs the agricultural operations and even feeds the grid on the brightest days. Within the Old House, drastic energy cuts have been made, most without historic consequence, through a “deep energy retrofit.” Many original windows have undergone an energy rehab—making them 85 percent as efficient as new windows. Innovative strategies abound, like the addition of a solar tube running from the roof through the attic to cast sunlight on the office copy room and its hearth pine floor. Befitting a North Shore jewel, The Trustees restored Old House’s nostalgic bits, such as a newly uncovered section of the original 1794 wood clapboard exterior, with care for art and educational display.

From State-of-the-Art to All-Access

Moving with a tempo of historic richness in harmony with our green-inspired times, Appleton Farms runs on biodiesel-fueled equipment. There is an electric ATV to get around from one operation to another, and a firewood burner powers the commercial farm-to-table demonstration kitchen that opened in June without smoke or particulates. One of the best energy retrofits, according to Castonguay, is a $1,200 heat exchanger system that captures natural waste heat from cow milking and reuses it later. “It’s a double payback,” he says, noting that all of the energy retrofits and upgrades have been cost-competitive—an essential attribute of successful farming. “We have 22 buildings to power,” he noted.

At 1,000 acres, Appleton is the largest farm in the Boston area. Its beautiful walking trails and suite of public programs make it a popular destination for locals and travelers taken by Essex County. The grass rides are legendary as well; Oliver Wolcott of Hamilton, whose mother was an Appleton, is a regular visitor and wants to make sure everyone knows about the rides. “The fields are in great shape; it’s a very attractive place to visit,” he says.

Wolcott’s son maintains the fields and the equipment, so he has watched the transformation of Appleton Farms under The Trustees. He is impressed by Castonguay’s work and says, “Wayne knows everything, from the family genealogy to physics.

“The Trustees have made it accessible to the public,” Wolcott continues, insisting that the organization has not changed anything. “There have been cattle there from the beginning.” He summarizes his thoughts on Appleton Farms: “The property hasn’t been transformed, and that’s what’s nice about it.”

On a Sustainable Path

Perhaps this soul stems from the farm’s 1636 roots. Thanks to The Trustees strategic plan for the property, it will also continue onward through time as an everlasting monument to North Shore land and our rural heritage. “It has a real soul, that farm—a peacefulness about the land you feel when you are there,” said Colloredo-Mansfield. At Appleton Farms, cows still graze the land, organic remains the everyday way to do business, and connecting people to land and animals is the everlasting mission.

The Appletons entrusted the farm after Joan’s passing, which was at a time when most farmers in the region were selling. Instead, they foresaw a better vision: returning the largest farm in the Greater Boston region to greatness, says Colloredo-Mansfield. “[Cousin Joan] had everything—monkeys, rabbits, sheep, and dogs…it was unbelievable as a child,” she says.

Today, Appleton Farms’ dairy houses 40 cows, which produce 50,000 gallons of milk per year, the same number processed annually for its grass-fed beef service. The farm grows a vegetable bounty for community-supported agriculture (CSA) and for the new farm-to-table program.

To ensure agriculture remains part of the North Shore’s future, Appleton Farms’ dairy operations are solar-powered, and the cattle enjoy life free from hormones and with a range of fields to explore. The Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources is even pilot testing a plant- and soil-based milk house wastewater treatment system to address Title V regulations.

The farm produces for the second largest organic CSA in New England, with upwards of 600 shares. Farm-to-table workshops at Appleton Farms’ kitchens—there is a commercial kitchen inside and a second, open-air kitchen out the back door of the dining room—bring people closer to food and closer to farming, all under a plan that brings farming back to nature. The Center’s library, with its lifetime subscription to Ebscohost, a customizable research tool that accesses more than 300 databases, connects Appleton Farms to the world.

Annual sled dog races and farm animal discovery programs for children connect people to animals and their original place in land preservation. “They were here first,” says Colloredo-Mansfield, who credits her cousins Frank and Joan and their legacy of preserving agriculture and open lands as an influence since childhood. Mansfield’s own Hamilton property features a conservation restriction through Essex County Greenbelt.

Ensuring A Legacy

“We raised a lot of money to get the farm back on its feet…the donors are wonderful—it’s almost there,” Colloredo-Mansfield says. More than $1.25 million and a $500,000 endowment have been committed. Support has continued. A “Farmhouse Formal” in mid June raised the remaining funds needed for the project. The event, a formal “green tie” affair, included dancing and an auction. Thanks to an individual anonymous supporter enthusiastic about the Old House Project’s potential for LEED Platinum status, an additional $100,000 donation is funding additional photovoltaic (solar) arrays—scheduled to be constructed in Fall 2011—which will offset operations, including the new Dairy Processing Facility to be built this year, and earn the points needed for the prized designation.

Sustainability touches all aspects of Appleton Farms’ landscape, from renewable energy to the new cattle barn and hay loft built with 90 percent recycled materials. These efforts will not end with The Trustees’ current strategic plan, according to Castonguay. “A wind turbine will be down the road,” he says.

Many credit Castonguay’s leadership for Appleton Farms’ resurrection. While he demonstrates little need for excessive praise, with respect to the gift and vision of Frank and Joan Appleton, he may be the enterprising son they never had. You can hear such romantic notions and more on the air at an everlasting farm.

Newburyport’s Shady Oaks Organics brings gourmet spores to the best eateries in Boston and beyond. By, Felicity Long

Before hitting it big, some famous outfits got their start working out of their garages—think Bill Gates or punk rockers The Ramones. But in the case of Shady Oaks Organics, their former garage location made perfect sense. The company, owned by Devin Stehlin, Nate Seyler, and Leif Johnson, is a purveyor of mushrooms for some of the top chefs in Boston and on the North Shore, and—as the three young entrepreneurs found out—mushrooms don’t need fancy showrooms to thrive. That said, Shady Oaks Organics has become so successful since it opened a year ago that its owners are opening a new facility with a 700-square-foot indoor greenhouse in Newburyport to accommodate the growing demand for their products.

The idea initially took root with Stehlin, who became fascinated with mushrooms and local foods while working in a Newburyport restaurant during his high school and college summers. After graduation, Stehlin, an avid hiker, pursued his hobby of foraging for wild mushrooms, eventually taking samples to local restaurants.

“Chefs were eager to buy them, but you can only find wild mushrooms at certain times of the year,” Stehlin says. “I started experimenting with cultivating them, and that’s when Nate came into the picture.”

Seyler had just graduated with a degree in business management when his friend showed him his first crop of cultivated mushrooms. “We decided to take them to restaurants in Newburyport, and everyone who saw them gave us an incredibly strong response,” Seyler says.

The chefs at those restaurants wanted all the mushrooms that the fledgling company could grow, so the duo rented and renovated a garage and started producing 30 to 35 pounds of mushrooms a week. They then turned their attention to learning about operations, marketing, and funding.

College friend Leif Johnson invested in the company and joined the partnership, which currently supplies mushrooms to Barbara Lynch’s Menton in Boston, Ristorante Molise in Wakefield and Amesbury, and Ceia in Newburyport.

Although the facility does not include a retail space, the mushrooms are available at a variety of local farmers’ markets.

The partners are especially proud of the sustainability of their products, which comprise multiple varieties of oyster and shiitake mushrooms. “Mushrooms can grow on used coffee grounds and sawdust, so we set up small partnerships with local coffee shops and the lumberyard across the street to do weekly pickups and integrate them into our growing,” Johnson says.

Though the mushroom-growing trio is excited about the popularity of its wares with high-end restaurants, Johnson says that the best recipes are pretty simple: “Personally, the best way to enjoy them for the first time is simply sautéed in a tablespoon of butter with a pinch or two of salt and pepper,” he says.

18 Henry Graf Road, unit 26, Newburyport, 703-608-6739, shadyoaksorganics.com.

Amy Finegold loves great shoes as much as the next fashionista, but she thought she’d only ever be on the purchasing end of footwear. As fate would have it, Finegold is now the owner of  Sole Amour, a new “shoetique” for women in Andover. By, Felicity Long

“I knew practically at birth that I wanted to be in fashion, and I knew I wanted to learn the business from small boutique owners,” she says. In 2004, Finegold opened Dresscode, a high-end clothing boutique in Andover where “everyone who was buying clothing wanted shoes.” Unable to find great styles at local shops, she started to carry a small selection of shoes. Her clients loved the shoes, but budget and space constraints prevented Finegold from making a big investment in footwear.

“The only way I could open another store would be if I had a partner with the same degree of passion,” she says.

Enter co-owner Stephanie Sipley.  Sipley went straight from college to retail in Boston, then to the corporate level at J. Crew and Oilily, a Dutch clothing company.

“I always wanted to open my own store,” she says, “but if you asked me five or six years ago, I wouldn’t have said ‘shoe store.’ But when you come to a town, you see what the need is.”

Sipley handles most of the daily operations of Sole Amour, which offers a style they describe as “affordable luxury.”

“We have a wide range of prices, from more expensive shoes to sandals for under $100 and flats starting at $55,” Sipley says, admitting that they battle the public perception that boutiques only sell pricier products.

“Steph and I have tried hard to scour New York vendors to find shoes that are well priced but look luxurious,” says Finegold. “For some customers, price is not an issue, but others might see a great shoe, not buy it, then come back for it for a special occasion.”

The women also have an eye on the younger market, who they call “aspirational customers.” Teens who come in for the prom or graduation, for example, might not be able to afford Sole Amour shoes for every day, but they might in the future. The new store also carries women’s handbags and a selection of jewelry.  The grand opening was March 10, and Sole Amour is already getting clients from towns around the North Shore and from as far away as California and Hong Kong.

“This is our first season—we are learning from our customers,” Sipley says. “Our buying is a combination of what we like and what they tell us they need and want.” 10 Post Office Ave., Andover, 978-409-1541, soleamour.com.