Tragedy As Historic Inn Burns To Ground, One Of Its Owners DIes

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GoodScout

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Terrible news in our town yesterday as one of our small Inns burned to the ground and the husband of the elderly husband & wife team that owned it for 20 years died in the blaze: http://newportdispatch.com/2015/02/28/fatal-fire-engulfs-english-rose-inn-in-westfield/
I only interacted with the couple a few times, but they seemed nice. I think they were at that point where their infirmities were forcing them to try and find a buyer, but the condition of their aging inn kept them from doing so. One person at the scene reported that the husband, despite being infirm and having to spend a lot of his day in a wheelchair, was down in a crawlspace trying to thaw some pipes when the fire started. His wife apparently was taken to the hospital with some injuries. The husband is missing and presumed dead.
There are so many lessons to be learned from this, but I just feel horrible. We just did our semi-annual replacement of all our smoke-detector backup batteries just last week, and I think I'll do some wiring inspections today. Just so sad.
 
It is terribly sad. And sad to say, I would be the thawing the pipes in the crawl space did it. That poor lady......
 
how awful ... i hope he expired quickly and didn't suffer. it's just too terrible to imagine. i agree, his poor wife.
 
I am so so sorry to hear this.
Really puts everything into perspective as we live in and operate these inns. From the wheelchair to the loss of life (and a beloved spouse).
Phin will you do us a favor and keep us posted on anything you think pertinent please?
 
It was to cancer, but West Virginia lost a very special man this week. This is his story as I heard him tell it.
He was a successful lawyer who played golf on Saturdays like any successful lawyer until his wife pointed out that he had a family. So they started taking the $5 greens fees (does that tell you how long ago this started?) and the family went "junking". The kids were to buy something with that $5 that they did not recognize and they would spend the week researching what it was.
He then became a successful banker. They had a successful banker's house in the city of Huntington. Then his wife said - we should move to the country and buy this farm with an old farmhouse on it. He said he was never so git in his life because when he got home at night and on weekends he was cutting and splitting wood to keep the house warm - and fixing up the house also.
When the Marshall University plane crashed, he was named interim President of Marshall.
Then they discovered they had acquired so many things on their junking trips that they turned their property into a museum dedicated to every man with rooms set up with the latest and greatest up-to-date household starting in the middle 1800s if I remember correctly. There was a latest most up-to-date room for every era that had advances - from bear fat candles to oil lamps, the invention of ice boxes then to refrigerators - each advancement that changed how people lived. They also had a farmhouse on the property that became a guesthouse for visitors to the Museum. They added a couple original log structures they moved to the property and renovated into more guesthouses. It became the Her itage Fa rm Mus eum and they became members of our State B & B Association as well as the State Museum Association.
Mike Per ry (do not want us found in searches on his name) was a wonderful person who I was honored to be acquainted with. I just wanted to share the loss to our State Wednesday. His family will continue the Farm I hope (and think they will as they were also involved with it over the years).
 
Omg...this is horrible news. We stayed at a lovely inn a couple of years ago that had a fire about a a year ago where luckily no one was hurt and the owners are fortunate enough to be rebuilding bigger and better.
 
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