Williamstown Property Auctioned for $550K

By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires Staff
07:02PM / Monday, June 23, 2025Print Story | Email Story

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — A North Adams man had the high bid last week on the former Chenail's garden center.

Brian Intraversato outbid three other parties to purchase the 877 Simonds Road property for $550,000 on June 17. JJ Manning Auctioneers conducted the bidding.

The property encompasses 7.1 acres of mixed-use land with eight structures, including a two-family home and two greenhouses. The south end of the property is bisected by Broad Brook; about 1.5 acres of the lot (21 percent) is on the south side of the waterway or includes the brook itself. It is assessed by the town at $632,900.

The late Richard Chenail and his wife, Donna, owned the property for 40 years. Their daughter Pam Shea continued to run the garden center after Richard's death in 2011. The stand closed last fall.

Intraversato said he is excited and not planning any immediate changes to the property, which includes a hair salon and karate studio as tenants.

"It's gonna be as is, as of right now, but eventually, potentially, subdivision. We'll see where we go with it," he said.

"We're looking to make upgrades as needed, and work with the tenants. We'll make sure the tenants feel comfortable and they understand that it's not going to be a radical change."

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Theater Review: 'Driving Miss Daisy' Is a 'Wondrous' Production

By Alan PetrucelliSpecial to iBerkshires
12:23PM / Sunday, June 21, 2026

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Alfred Uhry's "Driving Miss Daisy" rolled into the St. Germain Stage in late May, marking the opening of Barrington Stage Company's 2026 season.

And what a wondrous, welcoming production it is. Uhry won a Pulitzer Prize for his work; he won an Oscar for the 1989 film adaptation of the play, which also won the Best Picture Oscar. Yes, that's how good it is.

Daisy Werthan is a 72-year-old white Jewish widow in Atlanta whose car accident destroyed her Packard — and her chance to ever drive herself again.

"Mama, we are just going to have to hire someone to drive you," her adult son Boolie tells her.

She is adamant: "What I do not want — and absolutely will not have — is some chauffeur sitting in my kitchen, gobbling my food and running up my phone bill."

Enter Hoke Colburn, an unemployed African-American illiterate who grew up in rural Georgia during the Jim Crow-era South. Boolie hires him at $20 a week, and in a span of 85 minutes and a decade or so, this odd couple develop a tight bond that overcomes their cultural, gender and class differences.

Though she's living in a racially explosive time in the South, the irascible Miss Daisy doesn't consider herself racist, nor does she fully accept the realities of the racist culture that has even resulted in a bombing at her own synagogue (a true event in Atlanta, in 1958).

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