By Ellen Morrissey
Photographs by Linda Campos

Molly Lyon-Joseph felt a palpable energy the first time she entered the building on Church Street in Lenox, home to her latest restaurant, Bea’s House. “As soon as I got into the space, I felt the magic behind it,” says the proprietor of local favorites Frankie’s and Pizzeria Boema. “There was so much love there.”

She credits those warm feelings to the legacy of Café Lucia, the beloved Berkshires institution owned and operated for decades by Jim Lucie and Nadine Atalla. Several years ago, after talking shop in a pottery class they took together, Molly and Nadine grew close. “When Nadine sold the business in 2021 after losing Jim,” Molly explains, “there was a lot of sadness. It was hard for her to let it go.”

Suffice it to say, Nadine left the space in good hands. Once Molly decided to open a new restaurant there, she did a deep dive into the bones of the 1853 building, studying its past in order to inform its future. “As we’re remaking it, I’m thinking of the Victorian time period and being thoughtful with trim pieces and other details.”

She’s also keeping much of the redesign work within her own family—in more ways than one. Molly’s father and brother, aka William Lyon Carpentry and Son, are handling the structural and finish carpentry. Wine dinners and other events are being planned with her sister, Mary Daire, of Daire Bottleshop & Provisions, right up the street in Lenox. For the interiors, Molly is incorporating family heirlooms from her grandparents’ house in Pittsfield, where her mother and aunts grew up. And, as always, her husband, David Joseph, serves as her “biggest support system” in countless decisions big and small at Bea’s Place.

Her longtime collaborator Zack Sosne of bramble! interior design studio consulted on several of the finishing touches. “She’s got a great eye, and just needed someone to bounce ideas off of,” he says, including things like paint colors, bathroom wallpaper, tile, and fabric on the bar seating. The result is a bit of a departure from their other projects. “Boema is playful and the space is very open,” Zack says, “but Bea’s is more intimate and sexy, a little romantic, with darker finishes and warmer tones. Definitely a date-night vibe.”

Warm touches abound throughout Bea’s House, from the vintage glassware to the Persian rugs to the layered lighting cast from a mix of table and floor lamps, and sconces. “When you walk in, you feel like you’re entering someone’s home,” Molly says. “I want people to feel like they can take a break from this crazy world, to feel comfortable and taken care of.”

Molly’s personal approach to hospitality starts with the Bea’s staff. Her team includes several people who have worked with her for many years. That family feeling extends to the greater community as well, down to the high school level. Molly is determined to bring local teens on board and offer them positive work experiences, just like the one she had in her first restaurant gig at 14 years old.

Chef Jorge Rivadeneyra is at the helm in the kitchen, with a menu that features timeless dishes inspired by the seasons and built as much as possible on the bounty of the Berkshires. The cuisine is described as New American, featuring a range of global influences and flavors rather than a single culinary direction. Diners can expect homemade pastas and breads, roast chicken with thyme jus in the dining room, and smash burgers with house-made aioli and frites at the Parisian-inspired bar. Molly has tapped Jane Burns, “a local hero in the bar world” and beverage director at Pizzeria Boema, to take the mixology up a notch at Bea’s.

The hardest part of this new venture may have been coming up with the name, which took more than a year. [Editor’s note: We love the name!] They finally settled on a simple one. Bea’s House combines Molly’s middle name with the notion of a familiar place to gather and retreat. The goal is to seamlessly offer the same warm hospitality and generous spirit that inhabited the space for decades, but with a new cast of characters, a modern classic menu, some special house cocktails, and a bountiful garden filled with flowers and food.

“That’s my purpose and my passion,” says Molly. “I love creating spaces for the community.”