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BEYOND THE BLAZE
The unsung heroes of the Veranda House fire.
In the early morning hours of Saturday, July 9th, a lit cigarette smoldered beneath the front porch of the historic Veranda House hotel. By 6:45 a.m., that cigarette had sparked the most devastating fire Nantucket had seen in decades, a fire that would strain the island to its limits—but also provide a stirring example of the strength of Nantucket’s community.
Soon, the fire had engulfed the hotel, ultimately destroying it and two neighboring homes. Firefighters battled the blaze all day long, fighting through heat exhaustion and thick smoke to contain the inferno to as few buildings as possible. As they fought, an island held its breath.
Nantucket knows the damage a fire can cause. In 1846, a third of the town was reduced to ash, leveled by what would become known as the Great Fire. Flames roared from building to building unchecked, spreading across the water on oil slicks and setting fire to the ships docked in the harbor. Fire engines were destroyed, and explosions rocked the waterfront.
The Veranda House fire could have been the second Great Fire. The buildings in the area were packed together tightly, and the lack of a sprinkler system in the hotel combined with the fact that the fire initially set off no alarms meant that by the time the fire department arrived, the blaze was already sizeable. The fire department has had concerns since the 1950s about the possibility of a fire in the Veranda House.
The firefighters’ tireless efforts and the quick thinking of locals who alerted them to the flames allowed them to corral the inferno to just three buildings, saving the town from devastation. Perhaps the only thing the Veranda House fire ultimately shared with the Great Fire was the lack of casualties; in both cases, the heroics of first responders saved dozens of lives, and the fires killed no one.
But as the firefighters marshaled the inferno, a second front was developing in the streets of Nantucket. The visitors staying in the Veranda House and the locals living in the homes nearby had been forced from their rooms early in the morning, leaving everything behind.
“Our rooms were completely engulfed in flames and gone. We were shaking; we were just holding on to each other. We were terrified,” said Alexandra Murray, who was staying at the Veranda House when the fire broke out. “We lost everything in the fire. We didn’t get any of our luggage...everything went up in flames.”
They needed help—and the Nantucket community was ready. Laura Fletcher, a real estate broker for Great Point Properties, got an email from one of her clients on the morning of the 9th reading: “We were at the Veranda House that just burned down. We lost everything.” Without hesitation, she sprang into action.
“I met them immediately, and they truly lost everything—her pocketbook, their luggage, their electronics,” Fletcher said. They had only managed to grab their phones before leaving the burning building and had even lost their car keys. One woman wasn’t wearing shoes. “A woman on the street took off her shoes and gave them to my client,” Fletcher said. “I had some cash on me, so I just gave them everything I had so they could buy toiletries and things.”
Fletcher reached out to her friends and colleagues for aid, and the response was swift and generous. “Within thirty minutes, we had over fifty articles of clothing,” she said. “Someone had gone out to the pharmacy and bought all new toiletries...it was truly just an incredible turnout. The Rose and Crown donated lunch. Core donated clothing. The Nantucket community...take[s] care of our own, and that includes visitors.
Across the island, a dozen similar stories were unfolding. One post on Facebook about the fire garnered fifty comments and twenty-five offers of help, ranging from essentials like food and clothing to a boat trip around the harbor. One person even offered free counseling to the victims of the fire. “There was no pause for anyone who saw us to stop and ask if we needed anything,” Murray said. “It was above and beyond generous and kind for them to do that for us.”
From Vineyard Vines to Stephanie’s and from Faregrounds Restaurant to B-ACK Yard BBQ, the offers kept pouring in. The fire victims had access to free meals from half a dozen restaurants and free clothes from just as many shops. When Frank Harris, whose home burned down in the fire, arrived at Island Kitchen after it closed, the restaurant opened back up just for him and gave him his meal for free.
And it wasn’t just companies. Island residents like Barb Cedergren, Edgar Pérez and Jamie Howarth offered to cook dinner, buy drinks and get whatever clothing was needed for those displaced by the fire. Murray recounted multiple island residents stopping them in the street and offering them shoes, clothes and food.
Denise Badders-Perry, the founder of ACK Gift Bags, thinks this response exemplifies Nantucket as a community. “Of course we’re going to help each other out,” she said. Badders-Perry offered to do whatever she could for those affected by the fire, and when a client of hers told her that she needed a bag to put her toiletries in, Badders-Perry gave her one without a second thought. “I’d like to think someone would help me if I was in trouble,” she said. “It’s just really good to give goodness.”
The community’s generosity extended beyond the victims of the fire to the firefighters who controlled it. The Hospital Thrift Shop offered clothes to the firefighters, and the Rose and Crown made and delivered forty sandwiches to them. When it became clear that the firefighters who had come from the Cape to help would be staying through the evening, the Rose and Crown also gave them dinner.
“We just felt we should do whatever we could to help whoever was involved with it,” said Rose and Crown general manager Debba Pitcock. Underlying the effort was a strong sense of togetherness. Nantucket’s response was not just individual companies and people giving what they could—it was a community coming together and realizing its potential. “We can’t forget who we are as a community,” Badders-Perry said. “We can’t forget.”
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