NORTH HAVEN — In 1908, Harry Calderwood fulfilled his dream of having a community space on the island. The four-story hall he constructed on the corner of Smith Street and Iron Point Road, built into the hill heading out of town, hosted legendary dances, movie screenings, plays and Aunt Ell’s restaurant in the basement.
As it changed hands over the decades, it became the school basketball court until the 1960s and, in the 1980s, it was purchased by Herby Parsons.
For 30 years, Parsons ran a gift shop in the building, which he also lived in seasonally and used as a painting studio and art gallery. Plays and occasionally concerts were still held in the hall, but most of those events transitioned to the school or Waterman’s Community Center in the last decade.
“He decided he had put in his 30 years and was ready to move on with his life,” said Cecily Pingree, Calderwood Hall’s latest owner. Pingree, a documentary filmmaker, rented Parsons’ apartment to use as an editing studio for Pull/Start Pictures’ most recent film, Betting the Farm. Parsons suggested to Pingree that she purchase the building.
“It wasn’t on my radar ’til then,” she admitted.
Pingree took the Island Institute and Local Leadership for Change’s ISLE entrepreneurial training program and prepared a business plan. She purchased the building in November 2012, signing papers from the mainland while waiting for her nephew to be born.
Working with her father Charlie Pingree, and Joe Nelson and Colin Gulley (members of the local band the Toughcats), Pingree began work on three year-round rental apartments in Calderwood Hall shortly after the purchase was finalized.
“Once the word started getting around it was kind of first-come, first-served,” said Pingree. “There’s a waiting list for the apartments so hopefully there will always be demand.”
The one- and two-bedroom apartments are designed for an individual or two people and maybe one child, she said.
“They fit the niche of folks that are on that stepping stone if they’re going to buy land, a house, stick around long term,” Pingree said.
The apartments were finished and tenants moved in this winter, and Pingree and her crew began work on the main hall, which now houses a pizza restaurant and local goods market.
“I felt like the majority of the history of the building was in this main hall,” she said. “We sanded the floor down and preserved the basketball lines.”
Pingree and her father strove for a general historical feel in their choice of wainscoting, oak countertops, and reconstruction of the original exterior staircase. The classic feeling is completed by wooden chairs and tables built by Pingree’s brother, Asa, a woodworker in Brooklyn, New York.
Pingree said the restaurant and market came as a result of the space.
“I didn’t seek out to start a restaurant as much as the opportunity was presented for an incredible historical building,” she said. “Food was a good thing to bring a community space together with.”
Pingree saw pizza as an appealing and relatively easy way to start the business. Jessie Hallowell, who worked as a chef at Nebo Lodge, is the head chef, and Stephanie Brown, also a Nebo alumna, is her assistant.
“This whole floor we’re kind of calling a sister business to Nebo,” said Pingree. “Nebo is helping us with a bunch of things this summer like our freight, our ordering, and Nebo rents the kitchen from me during the daytime. Jessie and Steph actually do Nebo prep,” she said. Once the Nebo prep work is done, they transition to preparing for Calderwood’s Thursday-Sunday dinner service.
In the first two days of service, Calderwood Hall served 150 pizzas and ran out of beer, said Pingree said. Customers also purchased Maine-grown produce, meat and dairy from the market, which is open Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
“We’ll get a shipment from Crown of Maine Organic Co-op once a week and buy anything from on island,” said Pingree.
The market, managed by Lydia Brown, features Foggy Meadow Farm’s chevron, Sheep Meadow Farm’s lamb and honey, lettuce from Cider Hill Farm, and milk and yogurt from Turner Farm. Grant Farm will soon offer berries, she said. Any produce, meat or dairy that can’t be sourced on island will come through Crown of Maine, Pingree said. The market also offers gourmet candies, canned goods, and some unique tablewares.
Pingree envisions Calderwood Hall as a year round presence on the island beyond its rental housing.
“My hope is to stay open weekends throughout the fall and sort of see how our customer base is and what we can kind of justify moving into the winter,” she said.
Pingree made winterizing the building a priority so it could function as a year round space, she said.
“This is a really great opportunity that felt hard to pass up as far as creating year round housing, building a business, putting more jobs in the year round community and having this building lit up year round,” she said.