Friendly Crossways Retreat and Conference Center

My husband and I LOVED Friendly Crossways, and so did all our guests. It was the perfect setting for our laid back and casual outdoor wedding. Everyone was wowed by how beautiful and idyllic the grounds were. It was a truly magical place to get married. We loved everything about it. The venue is beautiful and magical, Mary Helan and Keith are such wonderful people, and Mary Helan’s food is to die for. We spent the entire weekend at Friendly Crossways with family and friends and the venue created a perfect setting to make our unique vision a reality. Mary Helan was a pleasure to work with. She was accommodating, communicative, and was invested in helping us achieve our unique vision. Let me break it down for you because there is so much to rave about!
1. The Venue: Friendly Crossways is beautiful, the lush green natural beauty of the open spaces and forest as well as the beautiful large farmhouse. And the property is very large. There were at least 3 – 4 different sites on the property we could choose to have the ceremony. They allow you to have your ceremony wherever you’d like on the property as long as it isn’t too close to the honey bees :) Friendly Crossways met all the requirements my husband and I were looking for in a venue. We are from New England and wanted a location that was easy for friends and family to get to. We wanted to have a rural wedding, amongst farmland and forest and Friendly Crossways definitely fit the bill! We also wanted to rent a venue that had on-​site lodging for our close friends. Friendly Crossways can accommodate up to 60ish people! The venue operates as a hostel when not used for weddings, so when I say accommodations, it is pretty rustic. There are 13 private rooms and two huge bunk rooms that can accommodate up to 35 people. All bathrooms are shared. Our friends were more interested in staying on site than having the luxuries of a hotel so it worked very well. The Holiday Inn is also about 10 minutes away, which is very convenient for guests. Another awesome feature of FC is they have a firepit for campfires! Keith made a campfire both nights which our guests loved.
2. Keith and Mary Helan: They were committed to helping us make our wedding day exactly how we envisioned it. We corresponded frequently in the months leading up to the wedding and Mary Helan was always quick to respond. When we weren’t as good at responding to emails right away, she was understanding that wedding planning can be overwhelming, and kept reminding us that it shouldn’t be stressful and we should be having fun planning our wedding with her. It was such a relief to work with someone who is as laid back as we are. Mary Helan listened to the vision we had for our wedding and helped us actualize it. It was awesome that she was invested in making our wedding feel as uniquely like «us» as a couple, as we were striving for it to be.
3. The Food: Mary Helan catered the wedding reception and the food was incredible. A lot of the ingredients came straight from her garden and everything was fresh. My husband is a vegetarian and she has great vegetarian options, he was very satisfied. She also made delicious pies, using blueberries from her blueberry bushes! She provided us with a very large and diverse menu to pick and choose from and was open to trying new dishes if we wanted anything specific. At the last minute she emailed to tell me she was modifying the ingredients slightly so that she could use even fresher ingredients from her garden! When we were leaving on Sunday she surprised us with an incredible blueberry pie she made just for my husband and I to take with us on our mini-​moon in Maine. She could not be more thoughtful.
If I could I’d give more than 5 stars!

(This is on behalf of members of the retreat planning team of Moishe Kavod House)
We had our annual retreat at Friendly Crossways. It was a wonderful place for our community to come together, be out of the city, and relax!
Mary Helan was SOO very very helpful in for months in advance of the retreat, during the retreat and post retreat. She was wonderful to work with and extremely patient.
The facility was beautiful and allowed for a variety of activities, including a huge outdoor field!
Overall, it was a wonderful weekend, and we really enjoyed the space.

I recently stayed at Friendly Crossways for a weekend workshop retreat, and had a wonderful time. It was convenient — I came up by commuter rail from Cambridge, and the station was only a few minutes’ drive away from the center, and they’ll send a shuttle for you. Plenty of parking for those driving up.
The food was incredible, even though it was prepared for 50 of us at a time. Healthy, fresh, delicious, but still indulgent (there were almost always fresh-​baked cookies after lunch and amazing home-​made whipped cream-​topped crumbles or some such for dinner). Mary was extremely accommodating (and positive and attentive) towards the various dietary restrictions in our group.
The lodgings were homey and comfortable. If you’re looking for fancy hotels, then this is not going to be your style (most of the rooms use shared bathrooms, for example, and most of the beds are twin beds, and we cleared our own dishes), but it’s by no means spartan: it’s very pretty and rustic and cozy and clean, with unique quilts on all the beds and spacious comfy shared common areas and expansive grounds (lawns and woods) for walking/​running/​exploring. I really felt that the space and the somewhat motherly staff helped encourage a comfortable, family-​like aura over our whole weekend experience.

This is the first time I have not been disappointed by food prepared for more than 40 people at a time.
It is as homecooked as it gets, fresh, delicious, and amazing. A huge bravo to the team — besides the conference I could always look forward to the tasty meals and desserts!
A+++ would attend again, highly recommended intimate retreat location. Great hiking right by the grounds too.

I recently attended a wedding at the Friendly Crossways and although I had a great weekend with family and friends, I think my perspective is different than most of the previous reviewers.
As others mentioned there were no other options close by in the Harvard area to stay, so we decided to stay on site (even though I tried to find alternative arrangements). We arrived on Friday and found our room, which had only twin beds (the same for almost all rooms) but were yet to receive our linens (sheets/​towels/​pillow cases). We did get those later and as another reviewer mentioned they were very worn. You could also not bring in your own pillows or linens (as I had brought) and the party would be fined if they saw you doing so.
The bathroom/​showers which I saw were pretty outdated and dingy (except the ones near the front door which appear to be newer). They weren’t unclean, but were just in desperate need of some TLC. We were also informed of a strict 5 minute shower policy which there are signs posted for in the bathroom.
As most have said, it is very much a DIY venue, even so far as to washing your own dishes throughout the weekend. We did help out with a lot throughout the weekend which was fun helping our friends set up their wedding and be a part of it, but many times we would need to ask Mary or Keith (the owners of the property) for assistance or direction with a given task. Most of the time they were very friendly and helpful, but not all the time. I certainly understand they have a job to do, and tasks the Bride/​Groom set up for them, and that helping me wasn’t on their priority list, but at least be a little bit pleasant because we are paying you to be there.
I would have to agree that the food they provided was excellent, and they were able to meet the needs of many dietary issues in our group. If I was reviewing only their food it would be 5 stars, no question. They used fresh ingredients and were very passionate about what came out of the kitchen.
The other issue was the firewood. We were lectured that it was to be a «camp fire» and not a «bonfire». We were only provided with about 6 tiny pieces of wood to keep the fire going for our allotted 2 hours… and NO wood was to be put on after 11pm as the fire had to be completely out by midnight…
It was nice to be able to just walk back to my room after the wedding/​reception. The ceremony was beautiful set back under the trees on the lawn. If you are looking for a DIY wedding where you have to do just about everything for set up and break down then this is probably your place.

My husband and I got married in August 2013 and we could not be happier that we chose Friendly Crossways. Mary Helan and Keith (owners, caterers, grill-​masters, lovely people) were so great to work with. We wanted a relaxed, outdoor wedding with plenty of space for our guests. We had 150 people who fit easily on the lawn for the ceremony and in the tent for the reception. Mary Helan catered the meal which was INCREDIBLE. We had tomato-​corn pie and grilled chicken with mango-​cilantro salsa and a number of delicious sides. We had a fun bonfire at the end of the ceremony and about 40 or so of our guests were able to stay over in the house. I can’t recommend this venue highly enough!

My husband and I just had our wedding at Friendly Crossways. We had our families and a few friends spend the weekend with us and it was the perfect weekend for us all. We were able to be relaxed and Mary gave us the flexibility to make the weekend fit our personalities and do the food the way we wanted. Her husband Keith was also always there with a smile to make sure we had everything we needed.
Mary catered an hors d’oevres reception before our ceremony. The raspberry goat cheese tarts were to die for and the table of crudités and crostini and toppings was beautiful. She made the presentation into a rainbow of delicious offerings, which everyone loved.
I can’t imagine another location that would have been such a relaxing wedding experience for us and our guests.

i came here for a retreat last weekend and was really quite pleased with the accommodations. Though there were 50+ of us on the trip, I never once had to wait to use a bathroom or a shower. The dorming facilities were clean and well-​maintained, the common areas were sizable, able to be air conditioned, and the owner, Mary Helen, is a beekeeper with on-​site bees (aka on-​site fresh honeycomb mmmm).
Quick tips:
~If you want to go for a run/​walk, there are definitely places to do it. I’d looked up the Black Pond Trail to squeeze in a run, but that path is meant for woody hiking, not a jog. I wouldn’t venture through here unless I had on long pants/​long sleeves for tick protection.
~Make sure you bust out the serious business bug spray for an evening bonfire — those mosquitos do not mess around!

I have been a member of Hosteling International for a few years now and have stayed at several hostels in the U.S. and Canada. This is not the oldest HI American hostel for a reason — it is an immaculate, beautiful, calming and just plain wonderful place to stay. Imagine a converted family home and barn turned into a hostel with all the features that make it great for people seeking quiet and a look at a life that often escapes us. People gripe about its location — five miles from a train stay, 3.5 miles from the nearest general store, but isn’t that the point? In my two days there, I saw no fast food — rather, I walked seven miles every day, back and forth, to the Harvard General Store to pick up groceries and enjoy the charming area. Mary Helan and her husband are wonderful hosts and you must buy some of her award-​winning honey!

I got married at FC last weekend. I would recommend it to anyone willing to do a little bit of legwork on their own.
The grounds are beautiful and Mary Helan is a wonderful, resourceful chef who uses a great deal of vegetables from her own farm. If you are into that sort of thing, which I am, you will be overjoyed.
As part of the package, you can have people stay over in the hostel during the weekend. If your friends and family are the fun/​laid-​back type, you can’t have a more fun scenario than FC.
The other joy of FC is that the owners are not looking to gauge you when they hear the word ‘wedding.’ You are given a great deal of freedom if you are willing to put in some work.
Beautiful place.

We held a weekend family reunion at Friendly Crossways and it was absolutely wonderful. Unlike a formal hotel, this was like a huge campy home where little family groups clustered around the fireplace, sat together in the living room, perched on the bunks in the dorm rooms, played touch football in the yard in the dark, stood in the foyer to chat and hung out in the lower game room, meeting, greeting, playing games and catching up. There was lots of bonding and relaxing while our families got to know eachother and reunited.
The food was such a surprise, I was expecting solid camp style food — no, this was decadent, scrumptuous and really impressively delicious. Mary Helan is a true chef, not to mention doing nearly everything else in this family-​run operation. (Her honey is out of this world!)
We combined our family reunion with our wedding at the nearby Harvard UU Church and booked their Fellowship Hall for our reception. What a perfect setting and feeling to blend our two families. We had a ball! Harvard is gorgeous, the UU Church is perfect, and Friendly Crossways provided the homey base for it all. For some guests, we booked rooms at the nearby Holiday Inn in Boxborough. That worked out well too.
We highly recommend Friendly Crossways for friendliness, beauty, and the wonderfully nourishing environment, not to mention her amazing chocolate mousse! YUM!!!

There aren’t really any hotels in or around Harvard, so when friends booked their wedding at this retreat center my husband and I decided to stay on site. It has a cozy, woodsy feel… Akin to «glamping» but not akin to a hotel experience. Bathrooms are shared and double beds are few and far between. There’s no way to lock most rooms. It’s actually a hostel and I know they do retreats for nonprofits and religious church groups all the time. Friends got married under the apple tree in the fields outside. Very pretty!
The reservation process was a little bit too casual (again, not a hotel!) and the linens grossed me out a little. But they only charge you $ 25-​$ 60 to stay as a hostel guest and the facilities are adequate.
Since there are no other hotel options nearby, I appreciated the fact that Friendly Crossways opens their doors to overnight guests. It could benefit from a linen overhaul for sure, but to do that they would have to charge a lot more money to guests. Oh well.

The family that runs this retreat and conference center are warm and welcoming. There was little that they won’t do to accommodate us when I was helping to plan a ladies’ retreat here. Very homey and warm atmosphere. The meals were prepared and cooked on site and each were awesome and delicious. The Turners are great people and I’m a big fan of theirs.

I came here for a retreat about a month ago with some student leaders and organizations at my school. For being seemingly in the middle of nowhere, it’s got a wonderful woodsy vibe and great caretakers. Friendly Crossways is a family-​owned conference center in what used to be a farm about 50 years ago. Our host, Mary, took care of all our meals (home cooked). The facilities themselves are very clean and has that cottage feel — our sleeping area was a set of cots and bunkbeds that seemed to come out of a camp magazine. Very cozy and comfortable place to bond and do what you need to do during a retreat or conference.