By Tom Ayres , Senior Staff Writer
A final round of permitting, sewer and electrical work, and building construction and renovations will make it possible for the Mangalitsa restaurant to reopen this fall at 61 Central Street in Woodstock Village and a four-unit workforce housing townhouse just behind the Mangalitsa-Santé restaurant complex at 26 Mount Peg Road to be occupied in late summer.
The Woodstock Selectboard on May 21 granted excavator Stephen Johnson of Barnard a permit on behalf of developer John Holland and restauranteur-farmer Matt Lombard to install a sewer connection between 61 and 63 Central Street that will facilitate sewer service to the townhouse project that is nearing completion on Mount Peg Road at the junction with Slayton Terrace in the Village.
61 Central St in Woodstock remains under construction leading up to the slated reopening of Mangalitsa this fall.
Rainier Nahabedian Photo
The completion last week of the sewer work for the townhouse project and the long-delayed, soon-to-be completed electrical overhaul and reinvention of the upscale Mangalitsa restaurant space bring the two projects undertaken by Holland and Lombard close to completion.
“The work that went downhill between 61 and 63 Central allowed us to bring sewer and stormwater lines to 26 Mount Peg,” Holland said on Monday. “We swapped easements with our neighboring property owner, Adam Mikkelsen. We brought him electrical power up from Mount Peg and he gave us the routing to get wastewater and stormwater out of Mount Peg.”
Getting water and electric utilities to service both the restaurant and the townhouse project proved daunting for Holland and Lombard. “We had to drill our own well for the townhouses because we could not get water from [the Woodstock Aqueduct Company],” Holland noted. “And in the process of working on Mangalitsa, we discovered that there wasn’t enough power coming off Central Street to finish the remodeling and upgrading of both Mangalitsa and, later, Santé. That process has now been completed — we’ve got the power down,” the developer added. “We’ve just switched over everything inside that building from what was the old wiring system to a completely new wiring system. I imagine that as a contractor and developer the irony of me telling you this is humorous, but I did not expect the extent of the work that was done on that building in the last 40 years that basically had to be ripped out, with both floors completely rewired.”
Holland said that he and his partner Lombard now have contractors focusing on finish work in the newly renovated and expanded Mangalitsa space. “We’re completing the interior finish and the hardwood should be down soon,” he explained. “We’re also finishing the set of stairs down into the new lobby. I suspect at this point we probably need two months to get everything completed. It’s my hunch that we’ll be aiming for a grand reopening for Mangalitsa sometime in the fall,” Holland continued. “Santé will stay open the whole way through and sometime next winter we’ll shut that space down to remodel it to the same extent that we’re remodeling Mangalitsa now.”
Although Holland demurred Monday evening that “you would never have me planning what a restaurant should be,” he indicated that Lombard’s current thinking is that Mangalitsa will resume its role as one of the region’s higher-end, fine dining establishments when it reopens this fall, while Santé will offer “lighter” restaurant fare when it reopens following remodeling slated for early 2025. As both the Mangalitsa and Santé projects proceed, Holland said, plans call for Lombard to reopen the Decant Wine Shop and Tasting Room on the second floor of 61 Central Street, in a connector wing that attaches to Mikkelsen’s property next door.
Speaking of the four townhouse units at 26 Mount Peg Road, Holland said he expects those to be available for occupancy in August or September, both at employer-subsidized workforce housing rental rates for employees of Holland and Lombard’s Mangalitsa, Santé, Decant Wine Shop, and Peace Field Farm, and potentially by tenants paying market-rate rents as well.