Blaze wrecks $1M West Haven cabin
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Staff Report - Published: January 6, 2009
WEST HAVEN — One of the most expensive and extravagant homes in town was consumed in a fire that razed all but the chimney of the lofty log cabin at 6831 Main Road to the ground, town fire officials said Monday.
The house and connected two-car garage burned despite the efforts of 30 firefighters from three departments who struggled for five hours on Sunday to control the blaze that West Haven Fire Chief Tom Fucile and Assistant Fire Chief Ron Wood said Monday had fully engulfed the home when they arrived.
No one was injured in the blaze.
"It was pretty much all gone by the time we got there," said Wood, who was among the first to arrive at the home around noon on Sunday. "I thought we could maybe save the garage, but when the roof on the house came down I pulled everybody back. I said, 'It's not worth losing a life to save it.'"
While not worth a life, Wood reckoned the five-year-old home, custom-made with exotic woods, stones from the ocean floor and other high-priced amenities, was easily worth in excess of $1 million.
"It's by far the nicest, most unique house in town," Fucile said.
The home's owner, John Ferreira, wasn't at the house on Sunday. Ferreira, who lives in Massachusetts and uses the house as a second home, had lent the building to a friend who was staying there during the weekend.
Fucile and Wood said Ferreira's friend wasn't home when the fire started, but returned while firefighters were trying to extinguish the blaze.
While the fire chiefs said the fire's origins are unclear, Ferreira's friend told them that he left a bucket of hot coals from a wood stove in the house sitting on the outside deck when he left. Fucile and Wood said the super-heated metal bucket may have started the fire, which neither said was suspicious.
Fucile said the fire was not under investigation. Firefighters from Fair Haven and Benson assisted at the scene.
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