What Will Be the Next Chapter for the Otis Poultry Farm?
By Peter Sohn
September 2026
My wife and I are "newcomers" to Otis by the standards of a town going back to 1810 (at least), but when we bought our home in 1991, the Otis Poultry Farm ("OPF") was very nearly a "household name." That is, when we said that we lived in Otis, people as far away as Brooklyn or the Bronx - likely as not - would say, "Isn't there some kind of farm-and-store there? Their chicken pot pies are AMAZING!"
Photo by Elaine Sohn
Well, as they say, nothing is forever, although OPF logged well over a century, having been established in 1904. Four or five generations of the Pyenson family owned and operated it until 2025. It fell to Andy to turn off the lights for the last time at that point.
The 12,000-square-foot store, resembling an old-time trading post, sold groceries, gifts, knick-knacks, breads and pies, local cheese and maple products, fudge, hand-packed candy, eggs, wine and spirits, classic wooden toys and moccasins. For a time, it operated as a restaurant.
In 2006 following a long-term drop in demand, the 25,000 or so chickens, including the 6,000 laying hens that had produced 5,000 eggs a day, were "retired."
After Massachusetts legalized cannabis and Otis gave the town's "green light" to a dispensary, Andy Pyenson had inked a deal that would have turned the property into a combination growing-and-retail operation. As it happened, that went off the rails at some point, (Andy referred to the people he had contracted with in a colorful, if unprintable, fashion.)
Some of you may know that the town's community garden is located right off Route 8 on a portion of the property, and the "chainsaw sculptor," Ken Packie, has a kind of outdoor gallery there, too. As we drove by these last few years in the summer, those two – and the closed store, plus the six hen houses – were all that was left of this former landmark.
But THEN ... one day, we saw the landscaping (see photo left). And a week or two later, we saw that some work was being done on the main building. There's now a sign and some enormous rocks that go with it saying "Mountain Goat Masonry." Nothing else, EXCEPT ... this reporter put his nose up to the front door window and looked inside. It looks like some sheetrock was put up and painted, and ... who knows? Maybe, it will be up-and-running next summer, and we’ll all know.
Some of the work being done to the property is new landscaping. Photo by Elaine Sohn