The Firm

Congratulations to the Overlook at St. Gabriel's in Brighton for receiving a 2021 Mayor Thomas M. Menino Legacy Award. The Mayor Menino Legacy Award celebrates projects that are transformative, catalytic, embrace the community, create partnerships, and revitalize the best of the past to make something good for the future.

BH+A designed the restoration and adaptive reuse of a historic monastery and church as part of the larger development of the St. Gabriel’s site into a new residential complex. The two buildings, once part of the Passionist complex atop a hill in Brighton, had been abandoned for decades. The monastery, a City of Boston Landmark that had been constructed in 1908, had holes in its roof that had led to significant water infiltration and damage throughout, though the basic masonry exterior walls with stucco and the clay tile roof were somewhat intact. The church, built in 1928, had holes in its roof that had led to significant water infiltration and damaged plaster and wood flooring, though the basic masonry structure was intact. initially there was no program need for the church, so BH+A’s initial charge was to look at a range of options for finding a use that would create an amenity space for the 650-apartment complex.

The main church volume was transformed into a space used for lounges, meeting and study spaces, library, a game area, a café, and a large-screen tv area with kitchen. Leasing offices were tucked under the choir loft. Materials such as ornamental plaster, terrazzo flooring, and wrought iron grilles were restored and reused. Restored pendant light fixtures were relocated to glass-enclosed study spaces in former alcoves. An acoustic plaster product at the barrel-vaulted ceiling and transept walls provides absorptive surfaces. The overall volume and character of the main space was retained by making the elevator core a freestanding box that is the backdrop for the leasing desk. Modern art, lighting and
furnishings help create a vibrant, eclectic design.

The monastery included gutting much of the interior, leaving the open wood stairs, the former chapel space, brick and wood stud bearing walls, and select partitions that could be reused as part of apartment layouts. Reconfiguring spaces to maximize apartments around the existing elements in the end provided 27 apartments of various sizes. The open wood stairs, which did not meet current code requirements, received added metal mesh panels at balusters and added handrails, with all of the original wood elements restored and reconstructed. The original 2nd floor chapel space, which had been extended with an addition in the 1950’s, was transformed into a lounge and meeting space for residents. Here, some
of the existing wood wainscoting was intact, as were portions of the tin ceiling and the 1950’s stained glass windows. Basement spaces, formerly filled with ducts, now house required bicycle storage for the larger 650-apartment complex and also serve trash and resident storage needs.

The project, funded in part through State Historic Preservation Tax Credits, has won preservation awards from The Boston Preservation Alliance and Preservation Massachusetts.

For a video celebrating the project by Preservation Massachusetts, click here: The Overlook at St. Gabriel's, Brighton: 2021 Mayor Thomas M. Menino Legacy Award Winner!