Boston Revival
When developers Sandra and Ed Blackman were looking for office space and a new home in 1987, they found both in the long-abandoned Bulfinch School in Boston. The school had sat unused for 12 years, and when the school district opened it up for redevelopment, the Blackmans–and others–were interested.
“We were in competition for the school,” remembers Sandra. “Our proposal including having us be occupants and bring in my business [a property management firm] and my husband’s consulting firm on the ground floor. That appealed to the neighbors.”
The Blackmans won the bid and kept much of the original feel of the school as they transformed it into an apartment building. “We put in new windows, 9-foot double-glazed, and installed vertical blinds in each unit,” Ed says. “That helped with marketing the building because it gave it some uniformity from the outside looking in.”
Other solutions were more playful. “There were some fun places to be creative in the design of the apartments,” Sandra says. For example, the old chimney remained as part of the school structure, but wouldn’t fit into the new overall design. So they reused the chimney in the bathrooms. “We left the old round chimney shape in it and made it into a round shower,” Sandra says. “The tile guy thought we were crazy, but it worked. Renters love it.”
The Blackmans also looked to the future as they worked on the historic structure. Even though “there was an anti-condo feeling around at that time,” according to Sandra, the couple ensured that the property would be condo-ready. Each unit has its own chiller and meter along with individual gas and electric connections, all of which are very conducive to changing to an ownership structure down the road. These proved to be smart decisions for the Blackmans, who sold the building in June 2005 to Byron Gilchrest, a developer who will give the Bulfinch School its third life as a condo building.