CHESTERFIELD — Camp Chesterfield officially has its third owner in seven years. From Boy Scout reservation to a live role-playing and wedding venue, the 186-acre property will now enter a new era as a retreat center for those with disabilities.
The camp, which spans 22 and 27 Sugar Hill Road in Chesterfield, was sold at a foreclosure auction Friday morning for $1.4 million to The Ashmere Project, a Berkshire County nonprofit that hosts retreats for adults with cerebral palsy, down syndrome, autism and other conditions.
Nearly a dozen parties showed up at the auction with an interest in the property that recently went into foreclosure, but only a few parties actually placed bids on the camp that most recently went by Tolgy Wood LLC: Chesterfield Camp. After successfully outbidding the competition, a dozen volunteers and participants of The Ashmere Project celebrated the moment with joyful tears and a group hug.
“A thing that is our strength is we have an army of volunteers and people who are ready to put the work and the time to build this into something beautiful that I hope is around for the next 50 years,” said volunteer Michael Leon with misty eyes shortly after the auction ended.
The Ashmere Project launched four years ago and has been renting the Berkshire Lake Camp in Pittsfield for its retreats, which include activities such as painting, dancing, writing and directing original music. Leon said the group has been without a home for the last month after Berkshire Lake Camp stopped renting to them after receiving complaints that wheelchairs were scuffing the camp’s dance floor.
After looking for potential properties across the Northeast, The Ashmere Project landed on Camp Chesterfield which features a pond and waterfall, an outdoor amphitheater, a large dining hall, eight cabins, Adirondack shelters and a large kitchen.
“We became aware of the foreclosure notice, and have just been doing everything we can for the last two weeks to build a plan, fundraise and get everything together,” Leon said. “It’s been nonstop.”
With their new home secured, it’s now time to focus on the road ahead — a vision that includes the local community.
“Our goals, our dream is to expand programming year-round and also involve more people from the community — like a dream of holding Thanksgiving where if anyone has a family member with a disability, they’d be welcome and things like that,” said Leon.
Jakob Palches, an Ashmere volunteer, said, “We’re looking to build community in Northampton: people who want to dance, people who want to cook, people who want to sing, to join us for community events for people with and without disabilities.”
Step one will be refurbishing the camp to make it accessible for community members with disabilities.
Work will start as soon as possible and includes adding ramps to each of the camp’s facilities. Cabin and facility roofs also need attention, in addition to work required to update plumbing as well as excavation of existing pathways.
In all, the organization expects to invest “six figures” implementing repairs, said Palches.
Currently the organization serves 25 persons with disabilities, and the goal will be to increase capacity to 100.
The initial bid began at $400,000, and worked its way up $1 million. Toward the very end of the auction, representatives with the Ashmere Project were competing with members of the Russian Baptist Evangelical Church in Westfield for a higher bid.
Leon did not specify the amount Ashmere was willing to spend at the auction, but did say that due to the generosity of donors, “we were ready for a fight.”
AJ Lapinski, who lives on Sugar Hill Road, said he welcomes his new neighbor.
“I think the community is going to jump in and help with what they are trying to accomplish on this whole land,” he said, adding that he had been a Boy Scout on the property as a kid.
“It’s amazingly beautiful,” said Lapinski about the acreage, and he is thankful it wasn’t scooped up by a developer.
Foreclosure
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.
Since 2018, the site has hosted 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.
The lender, Farm Credit East ACA, announced the pending foreclosure of the property last month and issued legal notices in local papers.
While Chesterfield Town Administrator Brenda Lessard said that the previous owner Paul Dabkowski refused to have various inspections done on the property, Dabkowski denied this in an email two weeks ago.