Gelatin Factory Has Future
As 9-Unit Condominium
By Sandy Vondrasek Cooch

The old Brigham Gelatin factory on Weston Street in Randolph has plenty of colorful history, as its colored gels were used in theaters all around the country for decades. (Photo courtesy Wes Herwig's book, "Historical Photographs of Randolph.")

A 19th-century factory building on Randolph’s Weston Street—built in the 1870s as a "screening mill," and known mostly as the place where colored films for stage lights were made for 70 years—has sat mostly unused since Brigham’s Gelatine Company closed in 1977.

Nan Gwin, who bought the building in 1987, said she was thrilled to learn this week that the Randolph Development Review Board has approved her plans, with two partners, to convert the three-story building into a nine-unit condominium.

The project needed a variance from the minimum lot size requirement, and site plan and conditional use approval.

"For 19 years I have been trying to make the building of some use," she said. "It’s had permits for all sorts of different things. This (the condominium) seems to lend itself, perhaps, most to the neighborhood," Gwin continued. "It would be kind of an adaptive reuse of an existing building."

Gwin noted that she has a personal interest in the building: Her great-grandfather operated a wooden box and window-screen manufacturing business there in the 1870s and 80s, shortly after it was built. Gwin noted that the building originally had an ell addition on the back, which later burned down.

The condominium design developed by Gwin and her BEG Ltd. partners calls for dividing the building vertically, with eight three-story units that are each 1320 square feet, and one two-story unit of 1400 square feet. Gwin said her partners in the development are Louis Genovese and Jim Bucchieri, both of Connecticut.

According to Gwin, the overall design is patterned after "townhouses in Montreal," with each condo having a separate entrance with a small porch.

Structural analyses by engineers and architects indicate that the building, with its spruce timbers, is structurally sound.

This is a building that "is begging for somebody to love it," she said.

Gwin said that BEG Ltd. will work with buyers to custom design their condominium space. One potential buyer, for example, has indicated a desire for 14-foot high ceilings.

On the other hand, buyers may wish to save time and money by utilizing standard layouts already designed.

Condominium owners will select from a "portfolio" of finishing details, including different fixtures, cabinets, floor coverings, and countertops.

Gwin said the anticipated costs for a basic unit would start at $190,000, and range upwards, depending on options selected. The addition of a stair lift can make any of the units handicapped accessible, she said.

Some exterior construction work will likely get underway this fall, and landscape improvements are also planned.

"I suspect that development and occupancy will proceed rather rapidly as soon as the building season starts next spring," she said.

Gwin added that realtor Bill Johnson, of Century 21 The Millstone Agency, is handling marketing and sales.

Colorful History

Bill Brigham of Randolph, whose family owned the building and operated the Brigham Gelatine Company at the Weston Street building from 1906-1977, said an emphatic "Good!" when advised this week that permitting for the condo project had gone through.

Brigham, who ran Brigham Gelatine from 1962-77, said his grandfather bought the Weston Street site in 1906.

At the time, the elder Brigham was vacationing in South Pomfret and came to inspect the building in Randolph, as he heard it was for sale. Bill Brigham explained that his grandfather was dissatisfied with his business’s Boston site, as the weather there made it difficult to dry the gelatin films. The firm made colored filters for stage lights, as well as "a thicker, clear sheet" that was used in lithography, Brigham said.

Randolph was also deemed desirable because of its "nice, pure water" and rail line, adjacent to the building.

"It was a good building for our use, but it got to be too big," Brigham noted.

Soaring heating costs during the 1973-74 fuel crisis marked a turning point for the business, which thereafter declined until if was closed in 1977.

Use of gelatin as a light filter has since been supplanted by "different generations of plastic," he noted.

This week, Nan Gwin noted that owners of Weston Street units will be members of a condominium association.

"I keep hearing about a need for housing," she said. "I think there are other elderly buildings in town that could be adapted for housing.

"The nice thing about this one," Gwin added, "is that it is in the private sector."

And that means, Gwin pointed out, that the project will be a nice addition to the tax base in Randolph.