ABOUT US

Formerly a neglected motel property that sat abandoned by its owners and inhabited only by raccoons for the better part of a decade, in October of 2004 master Tibetan stonemason Sonam Lama, who had been living in Greenfield since 1987, purchased the site and totally rehabilitated and repurposed the property into a thriving business anchor and retail attraction. Sonam also turned the buildings’ edifices into marvelous examples of traditional Tibetan construction and architectural details, featuring gorgeous, colorful, hand-wrought fascia and frieze boards, as well as stone siding, cornices, and window nooks.

Sonam then designed and built a tranquil lotus pond surrounding a statue of the Buddha, and next a chorten, (in Sanskrit: stupa), a Buddhist sacred structure and place of worship believed to have significant healing and inspirational power. Built with five levels that represent, from the ground up: the elements of earth, water, fire, wind, and space, chortens are both precious representations of the enlightenment of the Buddha, and exquisite examples of ancient Tibetan art and architecture.

Sonam honored the 1300-year-old tradition of chorten construction by incorporating mindfulness, blessings, and mantras into its design. The public is welcome to visit this unique and rare attraction, which is open with free parking during Mondays through Fridays, 9am to 5pm. It is requested that with respect to and in honor of the sacred nature of the chorten, that it is never to be seated or climbed upon. The tradition is that one walks clockwise around the chorten while meditating or praying, to receive blessings and peaceful benefits.

The Tibetan Plaza is also home to an array of creative and innovative retail and service businesses serving the Pioneer Valley and beyond: BetterBike, inventors of the PEBL micro car ebike; Deerfield Healing Arts, offering energy-based body-mind therapies for adults and children; Hillside Pizza - Deerfield, offering a locally-sourced organic menu and philanthropic fundraising; Blue Crow Botanicals, offering organically grown herbs made into medicinal herbal extracts; InBody Movement, offering yoga, tai chi, qigong, and more; Energy Works Acupucture & Chinese Herbal Medicine, offering natural healing through acupuncture & herbs; and Sonam’s Stonewalls and Art, Tibetan Plaza’s owner’s flagship enterprise, designing and building masonry projects for residential, commercial, institutional, and specialty applications with clients including the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, folk icon Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary, and actor Richard Gere.

Tibetan Plaza

of South Deerfield, Massachusetts, USA

ABOUT US