Matthew Farfan

The venerable Dr. Theodore Whitcher House, a landmark on Main Street in Beebe (Stanstead), was recently burned to the ground.

The house (left), which was built around 1870 in the style known as “Second Empire”, and which was home to a prominent local doctor, was the subject of a “practice burn” for the local fire department. A large crowd was on hand to see the splendid old mansion set ablaze.

The "oohs" and "ahs" were audible everywhere as the old home, with its gingerbread trim, bay windows and mansard roof, crumpled within a clowd of smoke and sparks.

The house’s owner for the past ten years, the granite company, Rock of Ages, had deemed the building much too deteriorated to repair, and refused to conduct any repairs.

The town, whose by-laws are designed to protect heritage properties such as the Whitcher House, hired an engineer to conduct a study of the building. His findings indicated that basic repairs, excluding such things as painting and finishing, would cost upwards of $100,000.

Deeming this price tag too onerous, the municipality, with regret, issued a demolition permit to the owner, who then gave permission to the fire department to conduct training exercises in the building, and then a controlled burn of the house itself.

Currently the lot stands empty, revealing the expanse of the modern Rock of Ages factory and its sprawling parking lot, which sit directly to the rear of where the house once stood. The demolition permit was issued on the condition that the owner erect a buffer zone of trees to hide the unsightly plant from the street.

(Photos: Matthew Farfan)