Parts of Groton Inn Could Be Reused; Fire Investigation Continues

Last week, Groton residents, town employees, owner George Pergantis, and the people displaced by the August 2 Groton Inn fire continued to deal with the many problems brought by the sudden fiery loss of a town landmark, and this week may hold more challenges. But mail delivery resumed to the apartments behind the building, utilities were hooked up, workmen were on the site every day, and “memorial” flowers blossomed near the driveway. Here’s what’s been happening:

• A team of architectural preservation staffers from the National Park Service in Lowell, working as volunteers, toured the wreckage of the 333-year old Main Street building on Saturday morning to determine how much, if any, of the building could be saved.
• Groton Inn owner George Pergantis continued repairing two apartment buildings behind the inn that were condemned after the fire and utilities were cut off. Power and water were restored to the eight apartments last week, but a condemnation order from the Groton Board of Health stayed in effect. Another inspection on Wednesday, August 10, turned up more health and building violations, including problems with the septic system.
• Henry Bachteler, the only resident of an apartment in the inn building itself and the only person whose home was destroyed by the blaze, continued to stay with a friend from the First Parish Church temporarily while he looked for another rental in Groton.
• The investigation into the cause of the four-alarm fire continued, but no causes other than lightning or a kitchen mechanical problem have been ruled out. The investigation has helped State Fire Marshal Stephen Coan conclude that the Inn’s lack of a sprinkler system contributed to the extensive fire damage.

Historical Survey

In what could be good news for Pergantis and town preservationists, Richard Chilcoat said: “There is a core historic structure there, one story tall and some width that, if someone was willing to do it, could be salvaged, stabilized, and built around.”

Chilcoat, a member of the town Historic District Commission representing the Groton Historical Society and a National Park Service employee specializing in architectural preservation, organized Saturday’s hard-hat tour to gather information about the building’s condition and prospects for preservation. Several colleagues of Chilcoat’s from the Lowell office of the National Park Service joined him, John Ott of the Groton Historical Society, and other volunteers for the three-hour survey, the first look inside the burned out inn by professional historians and preservationists.

“It would be a substantial effort to demolish what needed to be demolished in a careful way and then stabilize it. But I think there is a core structure there that could be salvaged. That’s my business, you know, so I tend to take an optimistic view. It may not be a whole lot of that structure, but if an owner or buyer was inclined to do so, there’s a core structure that could be maintained,” he said.

Pergantis welcomed Chilcoat’s group to the inn, but he didn’t work with the survey team. Chilcoat worked with Mike Kinney and Paula Martin in the town building department and Michelle Collette in the planning department to coordinate with Pergantis and set up the survey. Pergontis has maintained since the fire that he believes the inn building is a total loss and will have to be demolished.

“It’s George’s property,” Ott said. “He was there during the whole thing, and he was interested in what they might find, but I think he still sees the building going away. He kept saying to people, to me and other people, that ‘If you want to take anything away, you can have it.’ But you know, no one wants to take anything because we’re hoping that something will come out of this that will let us salvage parts of the building. Hopefully, they’ll come up with some sort of idea, and maybe Richard, or Dan (Barton, an architect and member of the Historic District Commission), or Mark Haddad, or someone, will come up with an idea and can work with George to do something with some of the remains. People overall were pretty positive. It was a pretty good morning.”

Apartment Building Condemnation

Pergontis’s two four-unit apartment buildings were condemned immediately after the fire because water and electrical service were off; the utilities had run through the inn to reach the apartment buildings. The eight families who were renting apartments were relocated to motel rooms the night of the fire by the Red Cross, and Pergantis has paid for their lodging since then.

A visual inspection by Ira Grossman, the town’s District Sanitarian, turned up a list of 14 safety, health, and building violations at the two buildings, but Grossman was not able to inspect the insides of the individual apartments on August 4. On Monday, August 8th, The Board of Health agreed that the buildings should be reinspected after utilities were restored, and residents could return after other serious deficiencies were either fixed or under contract to be repaired. Pergantis said at the meeting that most of the violations had already been fixed. Additional inspections by the fire department and building commissioner must be completed before tenants return.

During Grossman’s follow-up inspection on August 10, he identified additional violations, including a failed septic system. Fire Chief Joseph Bosselait signed off on the apartment buildings’ fire alarms on the 10th. As a result of those inspections, Pergantis and his wife, Gloria, were allowed to move back into their personal apartment, but the tenants who had rented the other seven units from Pergantis were still barred from returning.

Tonight, August 15th, the Board of Health will review the status of the buildings again. Pergontis is reported to have filed an appeal of the most recent condemnation order, but could not be reached for comment. Members of the board were updated by Grossman last week, but cannot discuss developments among themselves outside of a public meeting.

Henry Bachteler

As Henry Bachteler tells his story, with just a little humor, he was burned out of his apartment Tuesday night and spent Wednesday trying to recover. He says he was told to come to a meeting at 10 on Thursday morning to find out how to salvage what was left from his two-bedroom apartment.

But Groton officer Rachael Mead said no residents were allowed on to the property and turned him away. Bachteler said: “So I walked down along the Lawrence Academy property, I did not cross the line. George (Pergantis) was sitting down there and we talked, and I asked he wanted some coffee. He said sure, so I went down to Main Street (Cafe) and got him coffee, and got myself a sandwich, and brought it back. And I had to step across the line to give him his coffee. As I did, the fire chief said ‘You shouldn’t be back here,’ but one of George’s sons said that George asked me to sit down.”

Bachteler said he and Bosselait talked for a few minutes, and arranged for him to come back late in the afternoon with a rental truck so he could be escorted into his burned out apartment. While Bachteler was on the phone reserving a truck, Bosselait walked from the back of the inn down the parking lot toward Main Street. Off the phone, Bachteler walked toward him to confirm the pickup time… and that’s when things went down hill.

Officer Mead was unhappy that Bachteler was inside the protected area after she had told him to stay out. When she told him not to return, he pointed out that he was supposed to pick up his belongings in a few hours. The volume of the discussion went up to argument levels, and Bachteler was arrested for trespassing at 12:32 p.m., cuffed, put into a cruiser, and booked. An hour or so later, he was arraigned in Ayer District Court. A probation officer listened to his story and arranged to have the charges dismissed, although he was to perform 10 hours of community service time to cover court costs, he said.

Since then, Bachteler has been looking for another apartment in Groton and finishing the removal of the rest of his belongings. By Sunday, August 14, he was pretty much done, down to deciding if he could salvage a few now-bedraggled house plants and a mattress.

Investigation Continues; Lack of Sprinklers Contributed to Loss

Fire Marshal Stephen Coan said that the investigation into the cause of the fire has entered its second phase. The first phase, of physical evidence collection and examination of the fire scene, has wound down and ended when the property was released back to Pergantis last week. But there isn’t any way to predict how long the current phase, the analysis of data, will last.

As part of the process, the Groton Electric Light Department shipped the inn’s “smart” electric meters off for expert analysis of what was happening on the power circuits at the time of the fire. Because some meters may have been damaged in the fire, it was impossible to predict what information may be recovered, according to GELD manager Kevin Kelly.

“The investigation needs to follow the evidence, and there’s no cookie-cutter approach or time frame to the development of evidence in a situation like this,” Coan said. “So there are times when we can very quickly find evidence to render a cause, and there are times when we can never render a cause. If the evidence can’t take us to a point where we can definitively name a cause, then we don’t. That’s why you see fires that remain undetermined. But there is no time frame — it depends on where the evidence takes us.”

“In an older building like this, the amount of burn and the amount of damage does make it more difficult for the investigative team, both from the aspect of gaining access to the building, to areas they really want to look at, and to gather evidence in. And because a fast-moving and long-term fire like that can destroy more evidence. But I would suggest very strongly that the outcome would have been different if it had been a sprinklered building.”

“Many, many times, we see, when sprinklers are installed in a building and a fire occurs, those sprinklers hold the fire in check until the fire department can arrive. In may cases, the fire department’s operation is just a mop up and overhaul; the fire is contained by the sprinkler systems. Yes, sprinkler systems are a life-saving tool, but sprinklers are clearly for property conservation and play a major role in the outcome of building fires. Again, I recognize the cost.”

“One of the things that some communities have used is the Community Preservation Act funds. There are fire chiefs and communities that have used Community Preservation money for sprinklering buildings. One of the communities that did this a number of years ago is Nantucket, to save some of the old whaling captain’s homes and houses of worship and public buildings int he communities — the historical treasures. So there are some opportunities for assistance,” Coan said.

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