Sterling Meetinghouse News

By Alison Sullivan, Editor in Chief

The Sterling Inn was a local icon for 100 years, but for more than a decade it has sat unused. Time has taken its toll on the 12,000-square-foot building and its 6.5 acres of grounds, but the entire property may be given a second chance at life after owners Mark and Patricia Roy have accepted an undisclosed offer from buyers who may finally meet the challenge, Wendy Collins and the people in her also-undisclosed LLC. 

“[The Roys] accepted our offer, so we’re going to move forward acquiring the loan we need,” Collins said, referring to the LLC she and several other people formed to purchase the inn. Until the sale goes through, Collins said she “can’t give definites,” about who makes up the LLC, also noting they “are still going to be the Sterling Inn.”

Collins, a project manager for a millwork company in Worcester, and this newly formed LLC are not the first people who have expressed interest in purchasing the Sterling Inn in recent years. There have been few serious offers, though it was even briefly discussed as a potential Senior Center at one point. With a questionably functioning septic system, $240,000 in back taxes owed to the Town, changes in zoning over the years, and an unknown amount of repairs needed, no would-be buyers have successfully acquired the property since it stopped functioning as an inn in 2008. 

The Roys ran the inn from 1981 after inheriting it from Mr. Roy’s father, until they shut the doors in 2008 due to the economy. Patricia Roy described it as “very painful” to see the building in disrepair, but she and her husband did not have the means to maintain such an expansive building and grounds.

Within two years of the Sterling Inn closing, it lost its zoning protection and was temporarily only zoned for residential use. According to Town Planner Domenica Tatasciore, the property was rezoned from neighborhood residential to town center at the 2019 Town Meeting. At the upcoming 2021 Town Meeting on June 14, there will be discussion of allowing mixed-use development, which would “allow commercial activity on the main level and apartments on the top levels,” said Tatasciore.

As for Collins’s intentions, she and her team hope to restore the Sterling Inn to its former glory, and hopes to make it the “heart of the community” that supports other local businesses in the process. 

“We’ve talked about working with a lot of local farms about doing farm-to-fork…we’re going to try to support everybody,” said Collins.

Collins and the LLC do not intend to run the business as an inn, but rather a restaurant with a lounge and bar, as well as a bakery and coffee shop. They have even discussed using some of the rooms as AirBnb rentals. 

“I want it to be like ‘Cheers’ where everybody knows your name,” Collins said.

The work will be completed in phases, and Collins hopes to have an outdoor seating area open for the summer complete with food trucks and the bar up and running. As of now, they cannot offer tours to the many people who have asked.

Collins and the other members of the LLC worked to purchase the inn before the town of Sterling seized the property in land court to recoup back taxes. With the support of so many from the community, Collins said in March before the initiation of the sale, “My gut has told me, ‘you will be on site clearing it up come April,’ and that is my goal at this point.” 

Collins’s April goal is almost coming to fruition. Up against recent advancements in the timeline of the Town’s case to recoup the property, the Roys accepted the offer by Collins and the LLC on April 10, effectively ending the land court case.

The Town began the process of repossessing the Sterling Inn property in January, 2020, but the case faced significant delays due to COVID-19. If acquired by the Town, the property would have  gone up for auction so the Town could recover back taxes owed. Prior to the April 10 Collins/LLC offer, Victoria Smith, Treasurer/Collector for the Town of Sterling said that she was unaware of any plans by the Town to demolish the inn. 

Over a year after filing, there was little progress in the court, but the case “moved up in the queue,” according to Selectboard member Maureen Cranston just weeks before the April 10 Collins/LLC meeting. 

The Sterling Inn is “a valuable piece of property that you don’t want to forgive taxes on.” said Cranston. “Part of what I do is economic development, and part of economic development is to spread out our tax base. To forgive taxes on a property like that I don’t think is the wisest move.” 

At the time, Cranston also described the building as “a hazard” and said the Town sent photos of the building’s condition to the tax attorney to submit to the land court to expedite the case.

“What the Town would not want to happen is for someone to buy it and not have the funds to renovate it,” said Cranston. I have fears that people don’t understand the scope of renovation of that building.” 

Collins, who has been in the construction industry for 20 years, had been inside the inn with the owners prior to the April 10 offer meeting, and estimated the cost of renovation to be $1.5 million. Patricia Roy allowed Collins to bring in an architect and HVAC contractors, both of whom confirmed Collins’s estimate, and confirmed that the “bones of the building are definitely in really good shape,” she said. “We’re going to try to keep as much of it as possible. We don’t want to change the history. We don’t want to change the character of it.” 

Collins added that “[Patricia Roy] has been really forthcoming to allow us in the inn to make this all happen.”

According to Collins, the inn still contains furniture and some other possessions, such as dishes and wine in the wine cellar, ownership of which will be decided in the final sale. 

“We’re definitely ahead of schedule in terms of getting the business plan in place and getting our ducks in a row to prove to the bank we can seriously do this,” Collins said of the next steps. “We’re hoping within 30 days we can be on the property.” 

Collins and her team hope to raise funds through grants, historical funding, and have even considered crowd-funding options. 

Through Facebook, Collins has heard from many Sterling residents and others with fond memories of the Sterling Inn, many skilled in applicable trades, who are willing and eager to contribute time and labor to the inn’s renovation. 

“I have a list of 100 people who are willing to volunteer their time and services to bring her back to life again,” said Collins. “I wish I could turn that into a dollar amount because that would adequately fund everything.”

In the Facebook group called “Sterling MA Community Page,” a private group of 3,326 Sterling locals discussing town happenings, Collins has posted about the Sterling Inn and her dream of acquiring it. She was met with hundreds upon hundreds of comments of support, along with anecdotes and photos of family memories people have from the inn over the last century. 

“It’s amazing,” she said. “I honestly can’t wait until we actually have people on site enjoying the inn again.”