lucy wightman

Although a proposed café next door to The Oakland House received municipal approvals earlier this year, a “For Rent” sign remains in the window at 17 Nantasket Rd. while a neighbor’s appeal works its way through the courts.

Hull residents Randall Parrott and Terri Feldman, who have owned a Planet Smoothie franchise in Braintree for eight years, won approval of a food-service license from the selectmen in May.

“Our idea was to offer excellent products in a nice atmosphere, with a comfortable place to sit and gather, like an extension of your living room,” Feldman said.

On Aug. 18, Richard and Debra Chase of Westminster Rd. filed an appeal in the Brockton Division of Superior Court, citing residential and commercial abutters’ “near unanimous opposition,” excessive hours of operation, close proximity to the playground, parking issues, zoning descriptions, and previous Special Permit denials.

Of the complaint, Parrott says, “It seems redundant and irrelevant to what we are trying to accomplish, since we worked hard with the board [of appeals] to address all of the issues in the complaint. Our options are to wait for rezoning, town meeting, court, or they could withdraw their complaint.”

Richard Chase and the abutting neighbors have a long history with the building owners: “The building had two businesses early on, then four, and none of them are open past 6 p.m. The owners of that building have done nothing to work with us, which is part of the reason 39 out of 40 residents around here signed our petition,” Chase said. “Randy [Parrott] hasn’t come to us yet to talk about all of this, but we would be willing to have a discussion.”

Parrott said he is waiting for the complaint to be heard before proceeding with his plans for the café.

“It needs to play out without our involvement at this point. There are other places to go where our business idea could thrive, but we really wanted to do something in and for the town we live in,” he said. “Certainly if things resolve, we will get right back into it, no problem.”

It has been two years since Parrott fell five stories while on assignment in Italy, losing 90 percent of his blood on the pavement. After over 30 hours of surgery to his face, and just as much on his leg, he continues his recovery.

“I wasn’t Italian before, but I am now. I have about 90 percent Italian blood, after all the transfusions,” Parrott, 34, says with a slightly crooked smile.

With one puffy, red eye and gauze strips adhered to Parrott’s face, one might think he was involved in a barroom brawl. But the result is from his most recent surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital, where Dr. Maria J. Troulis carefully paces her reconstructive surgeries. Parrott’s fall shattered his eye sockets, cheekbones, nose, jaw, chin, and palette. The impact was so severe, several teeth had to be removed from his lungs, and his sturdy femur bone pierced his skin.

Feldman, his wife of nine years, adds, “He still doesn’t look like the man I married after all of this.”

Parrott slides over a three-ring notebook containing a chronology of his American medical care. He points out his leg scars and then the x-rays of the long metal rod now holding his leg together. It is obvious that this man in no stranger to obstacles, or patience.

Parrott began flying at age 8 while his father managed mechanics and maintenance at an airport. This required regular test flights by pilots who were always happy to have the curious Randy along. As soon as it was legal, in 1990, he had his pilot’s license. Later attending a college with an aviation program in St. Louis, he double-majored in aviation science/professional pilot and aircraft engine maintenance. After graduating in 1994, he was regularly employed as an international corporate pilot.

In July of 2006, Parrott was flying from Buenos Aires, to Paris, and then Milan working as a private corporate pilot. Fatigued following a 30-hour workday in and out of the air, he dined with colleagues before returning with them to the business owner’s apartment and calling them a taxi. While waiting, he balanced on a bicycle stored on a balcony five floors above the quiet Milan street. He slipped off the seat and fell over the railing, landing on the pavement below. Unconscious and bleeding profusely, his fellow pilots got him to the Milan trauma center, where he lay in a medication-induced coma for three weeks.

He recalls nothing after his dinner.

His wife, Terri Feldman, an equestrian and entrepreneur, was attending a horse show in western Massachusetts. When she finally got the call the morning of July 16, 2006, she used the two-hour drive home to organize her thoughts and prioritize what needed to be in place. This included calling her parents, Larry and Nancy Feldman, in upstate New York [her mother accompanied her to Italy and stayed for five weeks], leaving work, arranging care for their two boxers, Pugsley and CJ, as well as her horse over at Long Meadow Farm in Scituate.

“Everything happened so fast. The woman at Cohasset Kennel was amazing. She is not only a kennel owner but also a nurse, and she told me to call her with [medical] terms I didn’t understand. She also insisted on keeping the dogs without being paid. And Long Meadow Farm did the same thing. They took care of my horse, and me, because really the barn is like a family.”

Feldman was no stranger to emergency reactions. Only two months prior to Parrott’s accident, while flying in their single engine Mooney, the engine was lost 6,000 feet above the Berkshires.

“I guess western Massachusetts really isn’t the place for me,” Feldman adds.

Parrott describes the incident calmly. “We had our dogs with us. The engine just blew out, and I watched it fall. Then there was spurting oil and a vibration so strong I could barely see my instruments. I called in for an emergency landing and, as we approached, it was either a lake or the runway. Thankfully, we made it to the runway, with no power at all. By that time, fuel and oil was all over the windshield and I could hardly see.” Feldman “had prepared by removing all of the potentially impaling objects from the cockpit and, when we landed, I immediately got out the fire extinguishers.”

While in Italy, Feldman stayed with her husband for two months before navigating the travel home, including footing the huge bill for a complicated, uninsured medical transport. Once home, there was even more time to think. Parrott was unsure if he would ever fly again.

The couple decided to contribute their entrepreneurial expertise and adventurous temperaments to the town they call home. The gaps in service were clear to them and other Hull residents they brainstormed with, hence their idea for a café, named after one of their faithful boxers, “CJ.”

Having operated a successful smoothie franchise in Braintree since 2000, the couple is gently confident and informed by their learned business acumen. Feldman, with her well-trained marketing eye, was so taken by Planet Smoothie’s whimsical presentation and strong product that she shot off a casual email, resulting in a franchise purchase to bring back home.

Parrott and Feldman remain unified in their well-planned and almost executed idea for “CJ’s Café,” which proposed to operate from 6 a.m. until 10 p.m., offer outdoor seating until 9 p.m. in season, wireless Internet access, and serve all natural products, including Van Houtte coffee, one of North America’s leading gourmet coffee roasters.

Plans were meticulously drafted for a site at 17 Nantasket Rd. Since the structure is located in both a Single Family B district and a Business district, a Special Permit was needed. Hull Zoning Bylaws state that divided lots must function in whatever category the highest proportion covers, and in this case it is residential.

The area of Nantasket Ave. and Nantasket Rd. is peppered by more than 10 businesses, and the proposed site of CJ’s Cafe is no stranger to commercial application. Its long history of continuous commercial operations constitutes a status of pre-existing and nonconforming use. Previous trades operating from this space include boat repair and refinishing, auto repair, and woodworking. The 910 square feet where CJ’s Café was to commence was at one time an auto body shop, operating on a Special Permit the town granted from 1991.

For CJ’s permit application, the board of appeals held hearings over three days, conducted a site visit, and reviewed extensive documentation and plans. Parrott addressed screening and fencing for waste removal [a longstanding complaint by abutters], exterior renovations, reconfigured parking areas, hours of operation respecting concerns of potential noise levels, and new screening along Westminster Rd.

A Certificate of Allowance of Special Permit was granted on Aug. 5 to Parrott as the café operator, and John and Gianluca Aiello [property owners]. The board’s decision to allow the new Special Permit was based largely on the cafe having the same, if not improved, impact on surrounding areas than previous businesses.

The trendy retail clothing store, Johnny Cupcakes, operates out of 17 Nantasket Rd. Its hours are listed on the website as 10 a.m. or 12 noon until 6 p.m., seven days a week. CJ’s Café, promised to be a fitting and stylish neighbor to the successful Johnny Cupcakes.

The bumps in the road presented by these most recent challenges to Parrott and Feldman are met with tact and patience well informed by profound events over the past two years.