"Raising Provincetown Barn to new heights" by Geoff Edgers | Globe Staff May 10, 2014
PROVINCETOWN — The temperature was just above freezing last week....
And yet I got this on my front page (sigh).
On Friday, Joshua Prager is expected to realize his dream of saving the historic property from development and reviving it as an artistic hub. Twenty Summers , the non-profit organization he has helped found, will launch a month of events that will draw on the bold-faced names of the Cape’s summer artistic community, including musical performances, and readings and talks by best-selling novelist Andre Dubus III and “Wicked” author Gregory Maguire. The launch is being hailed by locals, long-frustrated by bulldozers rolling over sites of historic significance.
I know some other people frustrated by bulldozers, but that's Palestine.
As for the rest, "nonprofits provide new ways for corporations and individuals to influence" or simply take care of going concerns, and you can see the art connection, right?
Prager, an author and accomplished former staff writer at The Wall Street Journal, has been making regular trips from his home in New York City to get ready for opening night.
Wow, the Globe really is written of, by, and for certain people. If I were one of them I would love reading a Globe in the morning, would be very interested in the stories, and would look forward to getting one.
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In recent years, Evaul watched as the onetime studio of the late artist Blanche Lazzell was knocked down by developers. The barn that Henry Hensche, a Hawthorne disciple who ran his school for a half century, was turned into condos about 10 years ago. The reason that the Miller Road barn didn’t follow their fate is largely Prager.
The writer, 43, specialized in investigative projects during more than a decade as a staff writer at The Wall Street Journal, sometimes writing just one piece a year. But every summer, starting when he was a boy growing up in New Jersey, Prager summered in North Truro. A few years ago, he dreamed of finding a small home in the area to serve as a writing studio and summer escape. His search led him to the barn, which was for sale. The property was in disrepair – it needed a new roof, wiring, and more than a dozen other improvements – but Prager felt an instant connection after learning its history.
“The fact that Norman Rockwell and Tennessee Williams and Jackson Pollock and Norman Mailer were here,” he says, “I thought it was wild and made it more special to me.”
In 2009, Prager cashed out his 401K, took a loan from a bank and his mother, and put down $200,000 of the $550,000 purchase price. He had a vague plan.
“I thought that, okay, somehow I can figure out a way to resurrect this place, spend some time myself and share it with some people in this town,” he says.
Within two years, Prager realized he simply couldn’t afford his dream, which was to renovate the Barn and run an organization that would oversee it. He had lunch with Daniel Kaizer, a former bookstore owner who had purchased a home next door with his partner, New York Magazine editor Adam Moss. Prager explained his issue. He didn’t want to profit off the Barn and sell it off to the highest bidder. He just wanted to get his investment back. The couple agreed to buy the property for what Prager had spent, with two hitches. Prager would be allowed to stay there during Passover every year. And Twenty Summers, his organization, would get the Barn for a month every spring....
I'm not even going to type it today, sigh.
Sorry about the terrible accident he had at the age of 19 and the trouble he is having, but apparently he's patching things together and already plotting for next spring.
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I suppose he is also gay, right?
Also see: A Rockwell painting sold for $46 million
