WELLFLEET — A fire that tore quickly through a building at 70 Main St. on the morning of Sept. 11 destroyed the recently opened lounge at the Copper Swan Inn and left six of the workers who rented rooms on the upper story with no possessions and no place to live.
The state fire marshal’s office determined that the fire most likely started on the second floor, where workers were housed. The cause had not been determined by the Independent’s Sept. 12 press time but is not considered suspicious, according to a statement from Wellfleet Fire Chief Richard Pauley released Tuesday. Damage is estimated at $300,000.
The tenants made it safely out, but two firefighters who suffered minor cases of smoke inhalation and heat exhaustion were treated at Cape Cod Hospital. One tenant works at the Fox & Crow Café and one at the Copper Swan Inn. The others work at other local businesses.
The Fox & Crow, which is housed in a building attached to the one that burned, was unscathed except for light smoke damage, according to the fire chief.
The construction of the wooden building allowed the fire to spread quickly inside the walls and up to the attic, and the narrow hallways and multiple stairways inside made work difficult for firefighters, Pauley said.
“We had a lot of trouble with the fire when it got up to the attic,” the chief said. “It was very stubborn to put out.”
The fire was reported by one of the building’s occupants at about 6:30 a.m. and was under control by 9:15, according to the chief. Personnel from seven departments from Yarmouth to Truro responded.
John O’Toole, who owns the property with his husband, Grant Hester, stood outside the inn the couple operates as fire crews wrapped up.
“It’s probably a total loss,” said a distraught O’Toole. “There are holes in the roof, holes in the walls, and holes in the floors.”
He and Hester opened the new lounge on the main floor of the building in July. It is now a charred mess. The damaged building was boarded up by late Monday.
O’Toole and Hester offered rooms to each of the six workers for the coming two weeks. Red Cross spokesman Jeff Hall said his organization provided the displaced workers with personal care kits as well as debit cards for $500 to $600 to help them through the next few weeks. “It’s just a stopgap,” Hall said. The Red Cross will continue working to help them find housing.
One worker, a seasonal employee from Argentina who works at a local restaurant and chose to withhold his name, said he was awakened by the sound of the first alarm. “I thought it was someone smoking,” he said. Shortly after that, a second alarm sounded. “I opened the door and saw smoke,” he said. “I grabbed my passport and some documents and ran out.”
Realizing he had left his laptop and a backpack with his headphones and wallet, he covered his nose and mouth with a T-shirt and went back in. The smoke was getting heavy, so he grabbed what he could and left. “It happened so fast, there are some parts I don’t remember,” he said. “I’m grateful I’m okay.”
His suitcase full of clothing, a $300 wetsuit he recently purchased, some money, silver rings, and his phone system were destroyed in the fire. He also lost some sentimental items, including photographs, he said.
The building that burned had already drawn fire dept. attention. In late June, Pauley came to perform a required inspection of the lounge, which was set to open, and found some minor violations that had to be addressed. He then inspected the employees’ rooms above the lounge and ordered a stove removed from a former bedroom that had been converted to a kitchen, saying it was a fire hazard.
The state fire marshal, Chief Pauley, and Deputy Chief Joseph Cappello conducted a joint inspection of all the buildings on the Copper Swan property in mid-July. Some violations, such as storage of flammable equipment in the basements of the buildings, were easy fixes. Others would be expensive and take some time.
The buildings lacked required heat and smoke detection systems that are linked to a control box and connected to an alarm company. Fire officials gave O’Toole and Hester until May 1, 2024 to install the systems in the lounge and employee housing, which were destroyed in this week’s fire, as well as in the Fox & Crow Café and the Copper Swan Inn.
Fire officials also found a fire suppression system in the hood of the commercial stove in the kitchen that served the lounge to be in very poor condition. O’Toole said Monday that the stove was not in use.
The condition of the employee quarters is one of the issues that sparked a battle between Trudy Vermehren, who leases the space for the Fox & Crow, and her landlords, O’Toole and Hester.
Earlier this summer, Vermehren withheld an $8,000 rent payment due on the employee housing because of its condition. That, and an overdue $6,000 payment to cover the final month’s rent on a five-year lease, prompted O’Toole and Hester to file an eviction order against Vermehren in Orleans District Court.
The case, and a countersuit for $200,000 in damages for loss of investment and business that Vermehren filed against the landlords, are pending in court.
While the building occupied by the Fox & Crow is 150 years old and the Copper Swan Inn is more than 200 years old, the building that burned dates back only to 1935 and is known as the “Hodge Podge House.”
It is described in the state’s inventory of historic properties as “a conglomerate of small buildings and building components moved to the site from elsewhere in Wellfleet and cobbled together” by then-property owner and amateur builder Joseph Price Jr. The Hodge Podge House served as an addition to the restaurant and bar, the space now occupied by the Fox & Crow.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article, published in print on Sept. 14, reported incorrect information about where the displaced tenants work. Only one of them, not all six, works at the Fox & Crow Café.
