Thomas Wolfe once said, “You Can’t Go Home Again”.
Well actually, the guy never really said that. Apparently it was one of his close friends who coined the phrase, and Wolfe just liked the sound of it, so he got permission to use it as the title of one of his books, a novel that was posthumously published in 1940.
But you get the idea.
The point is, people tend to view the past through rose-colored glasses, remembering things much more fondly than they actually were. “You can’t go home again” is normally used as a cautionary phrase, warning people to manage their expectations before they go and revisit places from their past. See, our favorite childhood haunts are never the same when we go back as adults— they’re inevitably going to seem smaller, and of course they’re more expensive! In short, no experience is ever going to be as cool as it was when you were five years old.
Consider yourself warned.
Some years back, that exact thought was sitting heavy in my mind as I was stuck in traffic. For some reason or other, the traveling circus that pays my bills had dispatched me back to my home state of Massachusetts for a couple years. One of the first things that I’d done in preparation for the long-term engagement was to draft a list of my childhood favorites, intending to show off these wonders to the next generation of carnies. And even though I hadn’t remembered just how quickly traffic backed up on Route 9— we inched steadily towards our destination, and I grew more and more excited about revisiting a true Massachusetts landmark:
Of course, even back in those ancient times that historians call ‘the 1980s’, all of us kids knew that the place wasn’t a real mansion. We just didn’t care. That somewhat larger-than-average house still worked perfectly fine for our purposes, which was mostly just attending our classmates’ birthday parties, or scoring those massive chocolate rabbits at Easter. Back then, it was easy to overlook the fact that the ‘Candy Mansion’ wasn’t nearly as palatial or stately as the Gilded Age mansions down the road in Newport, Rhode Island— after all, the Hebert abode had an ice cream bar! And for kids under the age of twelve, that was just about as good as it could get.
And back then, I never troubled myself to dig into the history of the Candy Mansion— but thanks to today’s modern Internet, I can now report that “Hillswold” was originally constructed in 1912. The home was built for Mr. Edward Hill, a wealthy industrialist who’d settled down in the growing town of Shrewsbury, and eventually re-sold to Mr. Fredrick Hebert, a local candy maker who’d spent the past three decades growing his business. Hebert thought that Hillswold would be the perfect location to draw in passing commuters, and in 1946, the Candy Mansion became the United States’ first roadside retail candy operation. Hebert’s business grew larger as he researched new ingredients, and his innovations even resulted in the introduction of “white chocolate” to America in 1956. Today, the Candy Mansion still serves as the world headquarters for Hebert Handcrafted Chocolates, and is arguably the top tourist destination in the bustling metropolis of Shrewsbury.
As an adult, the prospect of going back to the Candy Mansion was a little intimidating. As we inched along, I couldn’t help wondering if today’s younger generation— kids who’ve never known the struggle of having to be home at a predetermined date and time to catch their favorite television shows— truly appreciate such a special place?
But as luck would have it, the fates smiled upon us. Somehow, we’d lucked out and scheduled our visit on the same day a classic car show taking place in the parking lot. It only took one glimpse at those massive old cruisers for the youth in the backseat to grasp that this place was going to be… different. Their phones disappeared as the Ty-Rods car club captured their full attention, something I never could have managed to make happen myself.
As we stepped out, I gave the building a once-over with a trained, critical eye. The place was still standing— and when I saw that the building’s weathered stone facade hadn’t been replaced by vinyl siding, I breathed a heavy sigh of relief. For the youngest in our cohort— kids who’d only ever seen castles portrayed in Disney movies— Hebert’s headquarters must’ve been deemed satisfactory, because they skipped inside without a moment’s hesitation.
And let’s be real— once you actually go inside of Hebert’s, it stops being a mansion and becomes straight-up candy shop. There’s no distinguished butler in a tuxedo to greet you by your last name, and lead you off to a private elevator that ends up in the secret sub-basement, where they hide the subterranean rivers of dark chocolate. No, when you come inside you’re greeted by rows upon rows of handmade chocolates instead, with the seasonal displays positioned front and center so the kids won’t be able to miss them.
Fortunately, I’ve never met a single kid who’s ever complained about getting dragged inside a candy store. And in back of the sales floor, the piece de resistance was still standing— the ice cream bar. We found it just as I’d remembered it, in all its stainless steel glory, with rows upon rows of candy toppings to choose from. It was emotionally overwhelming, almost, and I needed a moment to take it all in.
Unfortunately, that brief moment was all the kids needed to grab their own self-serve cups and start helping themselves. As I watched them pile layers upon layers of candy toppings over the soft serve ice cream, those mid-afternoon desserts grew to astronomical heights. The whole lot of us were having so much fun— at least until I realized that Hebert’s sold these “build your own” ice cream sundaes according to weight!
But an hour later, once everybody in our party was properly sugared up, even the fact that my wallet felt significantly lighter couldn’t dampen my spirits. Somehow, someway, we’d managed to defy the odds and pass down a small piece of my childhood for the next generation’s enjoyment.
And I guess you can’t really put a price tag on something like that.
Love it!