Overview:
Six panels depicting the history and landscapes of Royalston have been installed at a pocket park being constructed in the town's South Village. The park was built on the former site of the popular Pete & Henry's Restaurant, which was destroyed by fire in 2018. The panels, which cost $3,900, were paid for by grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the Elden E. Bjurling Charitable Foundation.
ROYALSTON – Six panels depicting the history and landscapes of Royalston were installed Friday at the pocket park being constructed in the town’s South Village.
Dick Lyman of Lyman Signs of Phillipston, accompanied by Emily Laffond of Laffond Photorgraphy of Athol, mounted the artwork on the retaining wall at the park.
The park was built on the former home to the popular Pete & Henry’s Restaurant, which was destroyed by fire in 2018. The property was purchased by the town for $5,000 from owners John and Tammy Cloutier in 2021.
In early 2024, the town worked with Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust to develop a conservation restriction on the parcel, which is just under one-fifth of an acre. At the same time, an ad hoc Royalston Park Committee was formed with the mission of creating a family-friendly community park.
Since then, new fencing has been built and picnic tables installed on the concrete slab that used to be the kitchen at Pete & Henry’s. The addition of the panels is a step toward the creation of a park that will one day include a children’s play area.
The six panels – which measure four by eight feet – display five paintings done by Royalston resident Tom Kellner and one by Sonja Vaccari.
Kellner said that four of his five renderings were taken from pictures on a 1901 calendar, while the fifth is the depiction of a photo printed on an old postcard. Vacari’s painting, depicting an otter with a fresh catch standing along the banks of the Millers River, is an original creation.
The pictures on the panels were printed on a metallic vinyl wrap, similar to that used on vehicles for advertising and promotional purposes, said Lyman. The paintings were copied by Laffond at her photography studio and blown up to the appropriate size. The panels are spaced about 2 ½ feet apart along the length of the retaining wall.
The panels cost $650 each, for a total of $3,900, according to Park Committee Chair Lynne Kellner. Of that amount, $2,100 came from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, while the remainder was taken from a $20,000 grant the committee received from the Elden E. Bjurling Charitable Foundation in Leominster.
Most of the money from the Bjurling grant was used for initial improvements to the park, including the fence and picnic tables, and some of the work on the retaining wall. The blocks used to construct the wall, worth around $4,000, were donated by Graves Concrete of Templeton. In addition, Lyman Signs did the installation of the panels for free.
“The next project at the park,” said Lynne Kellner, “is to put in granite steps from the lower patio to the upper area that will be the play space. The steps were donated by Ryan and Stephanie Hood of Royalston in memory of their parents, Bill and Sharon. Those steps will likely be going in the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.
“We’re also having plaques made,” she said, “to identify all the old buildings in the murals. Hopefully, they will go up before the snow comes.”
Lynne Kellner said when springs rolls around, the committee plans on applying for another grant from the Bjurling Foundation to pay for the new playground.
Greg Vine can be reached at gvineadn@gmail.com.