CHESTERFIELD — Seven years after it bought the expansive 186-acre Chesterfield Scout Reservation off Sugar Hill Road and Route 143 for $1 million, a regional role-playing group called Tolgy Wood LLC is facing foreclosure, with the property slated to be sold at public auction on Oct. 3.
Attorneys for the company that financed the purchase, Farm Credit East ACA, are moving forward with foreclosing on six tracts of land that make up the property, according to a legal advertisement in the Gazette. The land, called Tolgy Wood: Chesterfield Camp, features a pond and waterfall, as well as an outdoor amphitheater, a large dining hall, eight cabins, Adirondack shelters and a large kitchen.
When it bought the property in 2018, Tolgy Wood agreed to lease the camp to its sister company, Massachusetts Renaissance Faire LLC, which used the site to host live action role-playing games, also known as “LARPS.” The property for a time also was rented out as a venue for weddings and other special occasions. Both companies were owned by the same group of people at the time of purchase.
But all events at the camp ceased in May 2024 and site has been unused since. Chesterfield Town Clerk Brenda Lessard said Wednesday that Tolgy Wood failed to comply with several building code and health regulations.
She said people had been living in cabins on the reservation over the winter of 2024. In the spring, the town notified Paul Dabkowski, one of the partners of Tolgy Wood and the Massachusetts Renaissance Faire, that his cabins weren’t up to code.
Without heat and due to the fact that there was only a centrally located bathroom and not ones in each cabin, the camp did not qualify as a legal rental property, said Lessard.
After notifying Dabkowski of these findings, Lessard said the owner began refusing to allow town officials to inspect the property. Dabkowski did not respond to emails and phone messages this week, and no one was at the property on Wednesday.
“It was the Board of Health, the building inspector, and the police department that were kind of pushing him about this,” said Lessard. “He didn’t like the idea of people coming onto the property so then he shut it down.”
On May 16, 2024, Tolgy Wood posted to its Facebook page that, “Chesterfield Camp is temporarily closed for business. No rentals can be taken at this time. The property is also off limits to all. No Trespassing anywhere on the property. Thank you.”
After Dabkwoski allegedly refused inspections, he asked the town to lower his property taxes as “reparation” for what he argued was the town halting business on the property.
“He felt that the problems falling down on him were from us,” said Lessard. “But there’s rules for a reason”
Lessard said that to her knowledge three weddings had to be called off on the property, forcing those tying the knot to “scramble” and find another venue. The town received aggravated calls from the couples.
Lessard said at the time she responded to them saying, “We didn’t shut them down. We told him they needed inspections or he couldn’t have events there.”
The property was formerly the Chesterfield Scout Reservation owned by the Boy Scouts of America. The property was bought in 2018 by Tolgy Wood after a 2014 property study by the scouts concluded that they should instead funnel their resources into their 1,295-acre Horace A. Moses Reservation in Russell.
The lender, Farm Credit East ACA, declined to comment on the foreclosure last week.