A 'vertical community' to rise again

Condo owners to rebuild after fire

Smoke poured out of the former Hotel Eaton during the New Year's Eve fire that killed two people. Residents plan to rebuild. (David Kamerman/Globe Staff)

Last weekend, not quite three weeks since a New Year's Eve fire ravaged the old Hotel Eaton condos at 309 Emerson St., former residents met quietly at the L Street Bathhouse to talk about the future.

In the aftermath of the fire, which killed two residents, the remaining 17 condo owners have begun to face the emotionally fraught tasks of dealing with their neighbors' deaths, their own homelessness, and rebuilding their lives. Now they are beginning to make plans for rebuilding the historic South Boston site they call home.

Almost all of the owners have committed to rebuilding their units and say they are looking forward to living in a safer building.

"We'll retain the best things from before the fire, but use the opportunity to upgrade to bring the building from the 19th century into the 21st century," said Michael Burggren, a 10-year resident and trustee of the building. The plan is to keep the old facade and layout while adding a sprinkler system.

The building, erected in 1887 as a hotel, has some catching up to do with building and safety codes. Though the condos were fitted with a central fire alarm in 1991, fire sprinklers (an invention made popular around the time the Hotel Eaton was built) were never installed.

That feature could have helped stop the fire that traveled from the first floor up to the roof, heavily damaging the entire building.

Having agreed to move ahead, the owners must next hire an architect and builder to reconstruct the condos, which varied in size and had values averaging $300,000. The building's insurance policy will cover the costs, Burggren said.

For the time being, many residents are living with relatives, and some took leave from their jobs. "People are just getting back to work now," said Ruth Scully-Hall, who owned a unit on the first floor.

But the former neighbors, whom Burggren calls a close-knit group, stay in touch through daily phone calls and meet up at the fire site. In fact, the scene outside the burnt building two Fridays ago was more like a block party than a group of neighbors salvaging what they could from their destroyed homes.

Condo owners chatted and joked as they padded around on the ash-blackened snow wearing safety hats, watching workmen pry wood and debris from inside the brick building and fling chairs, cabinets, and luggage into a large trash container. Workers smashed chairs and threw the bits onto the mountain of wreckage.

The crowd watched intently as two workers tried to pry open a coin-operated washing machine and dryer, dragged up from the flooded basement.

One man stood atop the washer pulling with the blade of a cutting tool. The metal finally gave and everyone cheered, as about $20 worth of dirty quarters tumbled out.

Watching all the activity, Scully-Hall said the demolition process serves as a much-needed diversion from the sadness of losing her home.

Pat Wallace, a resident of the building for 20 years, lived in one of the hardest-hit units and for safety reasons was not allowed to enter it to retrieve her things.

Even the walls are gone, she said.

Burggren, who lived in the unit across the hall, retrieved some sooty credit cards and a large abstract painting from his unit.

"It's not the best, but it's got sentimental value," he said as he held up the slightly garish piece of art.

Mark O'Neill, head of Boston Emergency Service, an outfit that specializes in boarding up buildings struck by fire, was there the night of the blaze and is overseeing the cleanup.

"What the fire didn't get, the water did," said O'Neill, a big man covered in ash, holding a cutting tool in one hand.

The houses on either side of the old hotel - both light blue - remained untouched. Three of the Eaton's four outside walls are intact.

Potted plants on the fire escapes don't look healthy, but they weren't scorched. "Those were dead before the fire," O'Neill joked.

These days, Eaton's residents are trying to focus on rebirth.

"We're going to rebuild and stay a community - a vertical community," Burggren said.

"She's coming back," Scully-Hall said, "stronger than ever."