Methuen's October Runs Through Two Searles Buildings: The Great Organ, a Silent Film, and an Estate Whose Future Is Still Open
October 8, 2026
October 8, 2026
When did you last stand inside a building Edward F. Searles put up? In October, Methuen offers two chances on separate weekends. One is at a hall that has held concerts for more than a century. The other is at an estate the city owns, with no settled plan for what it becomes.
Searles built the hall at 192 Broadway, which opened in 1909 as Serlo Organ Hall. Today it is Methuen Memorial Music Hall, and its October 2026 schedule has something on most weekends. The Edward F. Searles Estate is a different story. The Sisters of the Presentation of Mary lived there for more than 65 years, and the city bought it in 2024. The city tried to sell it this spring, and that effort produced no buyer. On Sunday, Oct. 18, the public can walk the grounds anyway.
Between them, the two buildings show how a Searles property can stay in use for more than a century, and how far along the estate is on that path today.
The first Saturday of October packs three events into one day, and two of them happen at the music hall.
Pipes and Pipes and Methuen Day overlap from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., so you can see the organ and the cars in the morning and still catch the downtown festival before it wraps up at 3. The evening screening needs a ticket. The morning program doesn't.
The film is the more unusual night out. A silent feature with a live organist at a hall built for one particular instrument is something Methuen can host in a way few places can, because of what that instrument is.
The E.F. Walcker firm built the Great Organ in 1863 for Boston Music Hall. It was removed from that hall in 1884. Searles bought it at auction in 1897, moved it to Methuen, and built Serlo Organ Hall as its new home.
So the hall on Broadway was designed around a single object that was already more than 30 years old when Searles bought it. More than a century later, the hall's calendar still centers on that object. The October 2026 schedule groups its events under "Summer Concert Series on The Great Organ," and the organ shows up both in the free daytime program and the ticketed film night.
That's what it looks like when a Searles building has a steady program and an audience that keeps coming back. The estate across town has neither yet.
The city opened bids for the Edward F. Searles Estate on March 23, 2026, and got one: a proposal from the Aulson Company, a Methuen-based firm. In his statement that day, Mayor Beauregard pointed to Aulson's record in historic restoration, including work on the U.S. Capitol Dome. He also said the terms of the sale didn't match the market:
"As we unpack the proposal, it's clear that the purchase price and current RFP terms established by the prior City Council don't fully reflect the realities of the market."
The next day, March 24, Purchasing Director Lauri L. Antonacci sent a memo to all bidders and residents. It said the Aulson response did not meet the minimum criteria, so the city would make no award under that solicitation. The city's bid page still marks that solicitation as closed.
We found no new request for proposals, no council vote on what happens to the estate, and no new timeline published between April and the end of September. The City Council agenda for Sept. 8 includes a requested update on estate expenses and revenues, and that's the most recent official item on the estate we found.
In his March statement, the mayor said his main goal was the restoration, preservation and adaptive reuse of the estate, more than getting the highest sale price. As of today, that goal has no buyer or process attached to it. That's why the October tour matters. Visitors will see the estate before anyone has decided what it becomes.
Upkeep of the grounds has fallen partly to volunteers. In August, the Friends of the Searles Estate asked for help clearing invasive vines and plants that had overgrown the fronts of the buildings and nearby areas. MethuenLife reported that ten volunteers showed up on the first day, Aug. 19. They pulled out Chinese wisteria, Oriental bittersweet and buckthorn, among other species. The Friends planned four cleanup dates, including a talk by Nate Whitmer on how to identify and remove invasive plants and why to restore native ones in home gardens.
The same story notes how well the Sisters of the Presentation of Mary kept the estate during their decades there, and how quickly it overgrew once they left. So if you take the tour, the front of the main residence you see will be the cleared version, after a month of volunteer work.
The Friends of the Searles Estate and the City of Methuen are offering a free guided tour of the grounds and buildings on Sunday, Oct. 18, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Each tour group is limited to 20 people, and spots are reserved through the Friends' site. The Friends list 12 buildings on the estate.
With only 20 places per tour, reserve early rather than counting on walking up.
The same afternoon, Ella & Company performs at the music hall at 3 p.m. That puts both Searles buildings in one day: the estate in the morning and the hall in the afternoon, with a two-hour gap for lunch. You'd be visiting a property whose future hasn't been decided, then one that has been programmed in some form since 1909.
If you want food before or after, two places opened this year. School Street Foods opened June 6 at 289 Merrimack St., in the former Methuen House of Pizza space, and sells Latin American pastries, including pastelitos. Namaste Bazaar opened July 16 at 436 Broadway, in the former JoAnn Fabrics. It combines an Indian grocery, a bakery and a café.
Oct. 3 and Oct. 18 are the busiest days, but the hall's schedule continues through November. All of these take place at 192 Broadway:
These listings are for upcoming events, so dates and ticket prices can change. Check the hall's event pages before you head out.
The estate has no published calendar beyond the Oct. 18 tour. For now, that tour is the only public program on its schedule.
Juan Concepcion follows how Methuen's historic properties and downtown projects affect the streets around them, and he can walk you through what a change at the Searles Estate could mean for nearby homeowners, in English or Spanish. If the estate's next step has you thinking about your own plans in Methuen, schedule a consultation.
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