Two different ideas floated for former Stonegate Gardens property

The now-vacant Weston Nurseries on South Great Road has sparked ideas for different uses for the property from two people… and they happen to be brothers.

Bruce MacDowell owns the nursery property and two houses on either side. He and his wife Lynne Bower-MacDowell ran Stonegate Gardens there for years, but she died in 2023. Bruce tried to keep the business going but eventually turned it over to the Weston Nurseries chain, which decided in January to close the location, citing revenue and business model issues.

Bruce’s brother Roy, head of Baystone Development in Weston, floated an idea to the Planning Board on April 14: a development of 144 two-story rental units occupying the nursery parcel plus one of the adjoining house lots owned by Bruce totaling 6.5 acres. The concept would include creating 144 parking spaces and an underground sewage treatment facility while preserving the stone greenhouse (which Bruce built himself over a period of years) as a common area. Baystone’s previous projects include housing in several towns including Weston (680 South Ave.) as well as larger projects such as Cronin’s Landing and Longview Place in Waltham.

Before submitting any formal proposal, MacDowell said he wanted to “get the pulse” of the board. “If I don’t get the feeling from the board this is something you could support or the community would support, frankly we won’t spend the time” pursuing it, he said. 

He noted that the property is zoned for residential use and is not in the Housing Choice Act zones approved for new multifamily housing in March 2024, so there would have to be a zoning change such as a new overlay district, which would require a simple majority at Town Meeting. He offered to designate 25% of the units as affordable, and he and the board discussed the idea of a swap of parcels between the MacDowell property and the HCA zones in South Lincoln. For the state to approve such a move, “we would have to make our numbers work,” board member Margaret Olson said.

The Planning Board was noncommittal, saying it was really up to the town. Olson suggested that MacDowell reach out to neighbors and residents, perhaps in a Zoom meeting, and if sentiment was favorable, bring it to the State of the Town meeting in the fall.

Meanwhile, also on April 14, Bruce MacDowell submitted a Zoning Board of Appeals application to allow a new business, Bodhi Healing, to operate on the nursery property. Bodhi Healing is a “community-centered, science-backed wellness sanctuary dedicated to somatic healing, frequency-based therapies, and the restoration of whole-person health,” according to the application, which describes in detail how parts of the property would be used.

There would be few if any changes to the exteriors of the structures, the application says. It envisions private treatment rooms in the westernmost building, a cafe and retail shop in the main building, a studio for movement classes and educational programming in the greenhouse building, and in the basement, a holistic frequency and detoxification technology suite, including individual wellness equipment rooms for appointment-based sessions.

In an email to the Lincoln Squirrel on April 14, Roy MacDowell said he and Bruce “are aligned on the overall direction and understand his desire to explore multiple options for the property. We believe the location is excellent for multifamily housing, though we recognize that any such project would require significant permitting and Town Meeting approvals. At the same time, Bruce has been considering an alternative that would allow more of the existing site to remain as is.

“The Bodhi Wellness [sic] proposal that Bruce is exploring would likely require a special permit or a variance and, from what we understand, would also need to raise substantial capital to become a reality,” MacDowell continued. “With the site currently vacant, it made sense to Bruce to conduct initial due diligence on a couple of alternatives, both of which may or may not ultimately prove feasible. At this time, our intention is to continue pursuing our multifamily project on a more passive basis while we see whether the Bodhi project can move forward and secure the necessary funding and permits.”

It’s unclear where Bodhi Healing is currently located, and business owner Alison Zook could not be reached for comment on April 16. According to her LinkedIn page, she founded the company two years ago after a career in account management and sales for Becton Dickinson, a medical technology company, and GlaxoSmith Kline. She changed direction due to personal crises and a “spontaneous spiritual awakening,” her website bio page says.