Legendary architect’s dome complicates housing plan

Senior complex site includes 1953 Fuller work

FALMOUTH, Mass. (AP) — A local developer planning a 43-unit senior living complex overlooking Little Harbor will start working his way through the town’s permit process in January, and debate promises to be lively.

An important part of permitting will be consideration of plans for rehabilitating and preserving an iconic geodesic dome located onsite, which was built in 1953 under the direction of architect R. Buckminster Fuller, a prominent 20th-century inventor, mathematician, architect, engineer and general visionary.

The leader of a nonprofit group that was unsuccessful in its attempts to secure control of the restoration, preservation and future use of the dome said she plans to be vocal about her opposition to the developer’s proposal during coming hearings.

Mark Bogosian, owner of Longfellow Design Build, bought the long-shuttered Nautilus Motor Inn at 533 Woods Hole Road for $2.9 million in 2016 from another developer who had planned a similar senior housing project but never built it.

In the past two years, Bogosian, operating as Woods Hole Partners, has met the nonprofit group called The Dome at Woods Hole, led by Nicole Goldman, in an effort to see whether the organization could secure a long-term lease to refurbish the dome and use it for artistic endeavors.

The two sides failed to reach an agreement, and Bogosian said last week that he hired his own experts, who studied the dome’s structure, worked with the state Histor- ical Commission and put together a plan to refurbish and preserve it.

“The dome will be restored for use as an airy, open art studio space, with excellent natural and artificial lighting,” Bogosian wrote in his special permit application to the Zoning Board. “Around the dome, there will be publicly accessible gardens and walkways overlooking Little Harbor with spaces for outdoor art installations.”

Goldman says Bogosian “cherry-picked” pieces of the proposal her group had worked up, “and then boxed us out, wasting two years of our time.”

“I feel like they never intended to give us control over it,” she said.

But Bogosian said the two sides simply could not come to a workable agreement.

In August, Bogosian was successful in getting approval from the Cape Cod Commission, which weighs in on large projects.