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| MARCIA POBZEZNIK, Special to The Herald News | June 04, 2003 |
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Fire guts Tiverton Yacht Club |
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TIVERTON -- "The season must go on," Stephen DePaola said standing near the charred remains of the landmark Tiverton Yacht Club on Riverside Drive that was destroyed by an electrical fire early Tuesday morning. |
| Fire
investigators said the fire started in an electrical box between two rear
walls. No one was injured. The three-story historic building, with a wrap-around porch that overlooked the river, sat on a hill on the east side of Riverside Drive, off Main Road. It is believed to have dated back to the late 1800s. It was called the "Abner Tallman House," according to records in the tax assessor’s office. The Yacht Club bought it in 1956. "I knew we were probably going to lose it," said DePaola of Somerset, the commodore of the club, who got a call about the fire from a club member at 5 a.m. Tuesday. "It was gone before the phone call was made," Fire Chief Alan Jack said. He said several calls that were made to the station to report the fire just after 4:30 a.m. The fire probably started hours before it erupted to the outside of the building, said Jack. Building Inspector Robert Walker ordered the remains demolished as soon as possible. Portsmouth and Fall River fire departments helped Tiverton firefighters battle the blaze that was contained within 45 minutes after the first truck arrived, said Jack. The first firefighters on the scene found heavy smoke billowing from the building and flames shooting out the windows. The building construction was what firefighters refer to as "balloon" construction, said Jack. There are no fire stops, but lots of open space in the walls, filled with air that feeds a fire. The building was scheduled to undergo a fire safety inspection, but Jack said there is no way a visual inspection of the building would have determined that there was an electrical problem between the walls. The Yacht Club opened for the season Memorial Day weekend, but was only scheduled to be open on the weekends until the end of the school year in late June. Its swimming and sailing programs, scheduled to start the week of June 22, will begin as scheduled, said DePaola and Polly Ney, house chairman. "Our focus right now is to continue our programs," said Ney, who hopes to get electricity hooked up soon so the filters for the pool can run. The fire is believed to have started in the walls in the rear of the building, about halfway between the back stairs and the corner of the porch on the north side. Pat Curran, a former long-time member, had tears in her eyes as she shuffled through some old photographs in a drawer that lay on the back lawn. Precious few things were salvaged. A few charred log books from 2002 were on top of a charred desk, along with the remains of some nearly unidentifiable sailing plaques. "It’ll never be the same," said Curran, who was taking digital photographs to send to her daughter in Massachusetts and her son in Paris. "It’s just totaled. There’s nothing left. It’s very emotional for me." Curran’s father, the late Roland Foley, was a former commodore, as was her husband, Hank Curran. Curran said there was a long-time caretaker who lived on the third floor of the club for more than 30 years, until his death in the 1990s. Red Walsh used to start the sailing races by firing a gun or a cannon from the front porch. The porch overlooked the river and the Yacht Club’s beach and boat slips across the street. The most valuable things inside the club at the time of the fire were "memories" said Curran and Ney. "The perpetual trophies, the photographs of the boats, and the children," said DePaola. "It’s the sentimental-type things that can’t be replaced," said DePaola. "The history." Anthony Marsella, an investigator with the State Fire Marshal’s Office, who determined the cause of the fire, stood and looked at the remains one last time before he got into his car to leave. "You can’t rebuild something like that these days," said Marsella. "It’s an ornate building. If you wanted to build something like that these days it would cost millions." DePaola said the Yacht Club will rebuild. "We can rebuild," said DePaola. "We can’t replace a building like this." He said the programs will probably be run out of the sail training office in the rear of the former club. "We can’t skip a season," said DePaola, looking at the boats bobbing in the water. "The season must go on." The club has 200 memberships; some are family, some are couples, and some are single memberships. "It’s a sad, sad thing to see it like that," said Frank Raposa, one of the club’s three trustees and a former commodore. "Everybody had so much fun down there," he said. The Yacht Club started in 1946 and was originally located at the Standish Boat Yard, south of the present site. The club bought the Riverside Drive property in 1956. |
| ©The Herald News 2003 |
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