REHAB CENTER FOR FARM? PERHAPS

Plan From Restaurateur Draws Little Local Fire

When he heard about a restaurateur's idea to open a drug and alcohol
treatment center at the Daniel Webster Farm, Floyd Sargent thought it
would generate controversy around Franklin.

But eating breakfast and chatting with the other regulars at Mr. D's
on Main Street every morning, he has yet to hear a negative word.

"I haven't heard any myself, and I get around quite a bit," said
Sargent, a member of Franklin's planning board who owns a property
maintenance business. "I was a little surprised."

Last week, a national conservation group bought the farm from
developer Elmer Pease II. The Trust for Public Land plans to put
agricultural easements on the land and sell most of the 140-acre
parcel to neighboring farmer Dan Fife.

But the question of what to do with the property's seven buildings -
including the historic Webster farmhouse and a 19th century orphanage
- - is wide open. The Trust is a "bridge" organization, in the words of
project manager Julie Iffland, which cobbles together money to buy
land from developers and then looks for local interests to take over.

Alex Ray, who owns the Common Man restaurants, pitched his idea at a
public meeting Nov. 3. He hopes to take out a 50-year lease on the
buildings and said he would invest about $4 million into fixing them up.

Ray envisions three nonprofit, self-sustaining programs: A 28-day
residential treatment center that would offer counseling to50
clients; a halfway house where recovering addicts could stay for six
months; and a hospitality school that would offer two-week seminars.

At last week's meeting, hosted by the Franklin Historical Society,
residents tossed out a wide variety of other ideas for the buildings,
such as turning the complex into a college or making it a historical
theme park.

Colin Cabot, president of the Webster Farm Preservation Association,
says he continues to get feelers from other interested people, though
no other proposals have been as complete as Ray's.

"There's nobody who's really come up with a plan that makes economic
sense," Cabot said last week. "The logic of Alex Ray's proposal is
impeccable. . . . Alex Ray is a great entrepreneur, and somebody who
can bring that kind of energy to something is fantastic."

This week, Ray explained a bit more about where his idea came from.
As a recovering alcoholic, he's seen first-hand the dearth of
treatment facilities in New Hampshire, and he wants to help.

"I want to do something that makes me feel like I'm contributing,"
Ray said in an interview this week. "That I'm doing something other
than just feeding people. Feeding people a little more than food."

A growing problem

Ray thought he would be presenting to a small group last week, maybe
8 or 10 people. When he got to the Franklin VFW hall and saw that the
idea session drew about 80 residents, he hesitated.

"I said 'Oh man, I can't present this to them, because I might get
ripe tomatoes in my face,'" Ray said. "By 10:30, after they all
pitched, I figured, 'Well, I'm here, I might as well pitch it.'"

While he anticipates that "naysayers" may come forward to oppose
bringing recovering drug addicts and alcoholics into town, Franklin
mayor Dave Palfrey thinks that the school and treatment program would
be good for Franklin's economy.

"I think it would be nice to get the buildings occupied, and Alex Ray
had a nice idea that could be beneficial to Franklin, as well as the
entire state," Palfrey said.

Experts say there is a desperate need for more addiction treatment
programs in the state.

When she heard about Ray's idea, Cheryl Wilkie was "breathless."

"The need is overwhelming,"said Wilkie, a drug and alcohol counselor.
"It would be an incredible asset to this community to have a place
where people could go."

Wilkie, who works as a consultant for the Merrimack County Attorney's
office, says she's constantly frustrated by the lack of treatment
facilities. Just yesterday morning, she said, she got a call about a
heroin addict with no place to go.

"To watch people suffer who are asking for treatment . . . I'm
speechless," Wilkie said.

At the same time, Wilkie said, the problem has been getting worse,
particularly in the last few years.

"I've been working in this field for 18 years, and in the past four
years, I've been to more funerals, had more clients die, than I had
in my whole career," she said.

Ray said he's seen many people who need help fighting an addiction.

"There's limited help out there,"Ray said. "(Programs are) dropping
like flies, and the need isn't."

At least 14 treatment programs across the state closed between 1992
and 2002, according to New Futures, a nonprofit advocacy group.

Peter Powell, a friend of Ray's who serves on the board of New
Futures, said that often a crisis leads to seeking help - help that
is not only expensive, but also hard to find.

He was drawn into working on addiction issues after struggling to
find help for someone close to him. "I spent two days looking on the
Internet, making phone calls, trying to find a place somewhere in the
country where this person could find help for their problem,"he said.

Ray's proposed treatment facility, which would take people who've
already been through medical detox and give them intensive counseling
for about a month, would require clients to pay up-front and out of pocket.

Powell said the problem of insurers refusing to pay for anything
beyond detox is a serious one and something New Futures is looking at.

"It's like trying to send someone off to college and pay for the
whole thing without loans," Powell said.

But at the same time, Powell said, "Alex doesn't want to wait for the
world to be fixed before he starts providing treatment."

The next step

Ray is talking to the Trust for Public Land and the Webster Farm
Preservation Association, a local group that will purchase the
property from the TPL in April.

"Our first meeting was in the parking lot after the meeting, and that
was very valuable," Ray said. "The next day, I called a couple of
them on the phone, and we will continue our dialogue until we reach
an agreement or we reach an impasse."

Meanwhile, there are many other ideas for the land. At last week's
meeting, most of the speakers talked about making the Webster Farm a
historic destination. Some talked about making it into a Sturbridge
Village-like attraction -others envisioned a museum.

The farm was once owned by Daniel Webster, a 19th century statesman
who served as a senator and secretary of state. In 1871, an orphanage
was built on the land for children whose parents had died in the Civil War.

Most everyone seemed to like the idea of burnishing the image of both
Daniel Webster and the city of Franklin.

Rosemary Mellon, a Franklin resident, touted the Sturbridge Village
idea at last week's meeting.

"(Ray) came in with a business proposal. . . . I'm just John Q.
Public, and this is my idea," she said, adding that she thinks the
ideas are compatible. "I think you can mix both."

Just getting the buildings up to code will be costly. A preservation
architect at last week's meeting estimated that it would cost $7
million to get all of the buildings in full working order.

And neither Cabot nor Leigh Webb, president of the Franklin
Historical Society, has heard about any movements to put money or
structure behind the idea of showcasing the farm's history.

Dan Fife, the neighboring farmer who has signed a purchase and sales
agreement with TPL for the land, says that walking around the
property he sometimes finds marbles. On the barn walls, there's what
he calls "hieroglyphics"-along the lines of "Frankie Loves Susie"-
left over from the farm's century of use as an orphanage.

He says he'd like to see the buildings become some sort of facility
to help disadvantaged teenagers of today. At the same time, he thinks
housing for the elderly would be the most viable use financially, and
he likes the idea of turning the buildings into a school of rare trades.

"But as I said, the project is out of my hands in that a lot of
people have a lot of other ideas and ambition and money," he said.