TRURO — Two cottages that were moved to a town-owned lot on South Highland Road in February 2024 were supposed to be renovated and ready to house town employees by this summer. But those plans went sideways in October, when Cape Cod Builders Inc., the Bourne company hired to prepare infrastructure for the cottages and renovate one of them, instead demolished that cottage. The company did so without first consulting local officials or the town’s engineers.
That same company is now being tapped to rebuild the house, which had been moved from the Walsh property, acquired by the town in 2019.
Local officials had put the project on hold until they could determine whether it still qualified for a $900,000 state grant that would help with construction costs. Acting Town Manager Kelly Clark told the select board at its June 10 meeting that the town did get the grant money.
Cape Cod Builders president Chase Pappas did not return calls for comment. So far, the timeline for completion has not been set.
“We have people that we’re hoping to hire,” Clark said. “Hopefully, they have housing, but if they don’t, it would be great to be able to have a place to house them.”
A Long Road
Cape Cod Builders vice president Thomas Pappas told the Independent shortly after the demolition that workers had found white mold and black mold when they took the sheetrock off the walls. The cottage was out of square, he said, and would not have fit on its newly poured foundation.
“I think I did everybody a favor,” Pappas said of the demolition.
But during a special meeting of the select board on Oct. 17, Public Works Director Jarrod Cabral pointed out that the presence of rot should not have surprised Cape Cod Builders because it had been noted in a lengthy report on the condition of the Walsh cottages by engineers from Weston & Sampson.
In the meantime, the costs associated with the project appear to have doubled.
Although a 2022 study had estimated the total cost of the project at about $1 million, at the meeting last October to discuss the unplanned demolition, select board chair Susan Areson said that the bottom line had already doubled to $2 million. Estimates had put the infrastructure and renovation of the Walsh cottage at $1,139,234 and the renovation of the second building, the Dennis house, at $825,538, she said. The cost to move the houses was $160,000, Cabral reported at the time.
The town had secured a MassDevelopment Underutilized Properties grant for $900,000 in 2022 — the grant that has just been confirmed. In 2024, $818,537 was authorized from the Truro Affordable Housing Trust Fund to help cover construction costs.
After the houses were moved, they stood side by side on concrete blocks, untouched for several months, while the town looked for a contractor.
Cape Cod Builders Inc. submitted the winning bid, with a base price of $881,840.
The work called for installing infrastructure for both houses, including the septic system, drinking well, and electric lines. The company was also required to pour a foundation, move the Walsh cottage onto it, and then renovate the interior and exterior. Other than the infrastructure, the assigned renovation work was limited to the Walsh cottage.
Cabral said Cape Cod Builders had offered to rebuild the cottage, incorporating some of the wood from the demolished Walsh cottage for the original bid amount. Select board members questioned whether any of the original wood should be used if the cottage had been riddled with mold. It is unclear whether reuse of the old wood is still part of the plan.
Nothing has happened at the site since the demolition other than to cart the debris-filled dumpsters away.
Clark said the news of the grant coming through “allowed us to notify Cape Cod Builders that we want to pursue their offer of finishing the 25 South Highland Road project by rebuilding what was demolished,” Clark said. “We want to get that project done as much as the neighbors do.”
Carol Motta, who lives across the street from the South Highland site and who has opposed the project since the outset, said the property continues to be an eyesore. “I don’t know what they even plan on doing with the property,” she said in a phone interview on June 13. It had been a while since neighbors heard any update, she said.
“The house that’s there should be condemned,” Motta said of the donated Dennis house. “I don’t even know why they saved it, to tell you the truth.”
Mike Rorro lives next door to the site, at 23 South Highland. He was outdoors working on his lush yard on June 16.
Rorro said he is frustrated about the condition of the town-owned property: “They took the trees out, and all you see is a mess,” he said. He noted how much money the town is spending on the plan.“They could have brought in two modular homes for less,” he said.
