The Revitalist

Some of the tenants at the Bernat Mill.

Over the weekend an 8-alarm fire destroyed the Bernat Mill in Uxbridge in the Blackstone River Valley. The rehabbed mill had been home to 65 small businesses, who are now facing loss of materials, data and community. We have been looking at several mills like Bernat that are commercial hubs for their small town, housing antiques shops, yoga and dance studios, photography and artist studios, professional offices, and wide variety of other small businesses. So often, they are labors of love for the people who own and redevelop them. But as the assistant fire chief of Grafton, who responded to the fire, said, "Once one of these old mills goes up, you can pretty much forget it." It is sad to see a mill that was so obviously thriving suffer such a dramatic loss.