Historic Edgerton, WI, Supper Club Floor Collapses During Blaze
The Wisconsin State Journal
(TNS)
The Lake House Inn, Edgerton's historic supper club and site of countless wedding receptions, anniversary dinners and other local celebrations, was destroyed by fire Sunday night.
Shortly before 8:30 p.m. Sunday, fire crews and the Rock County Sheriff’s Office were sent to a reported fire at the property, at 1612 E. Hotel Drive, just off Lake Koshkonong near Interstate 39/90.
When emergency responders arrived at the scene, the structure was “fully engulfed in flames,” Sheriff's Office Sgt. Allen Peters said.
Ten firefighting units and 14 water tenders from surrounding jurisdictions helped with the response, since the property is far from any municipal water supply. But the supper club, which was closed at the time of the fire, was deemed a total loss.
“The second floor over the kitchen area collapsed in about 15 to 20 minutes,” Lakeside Fire-Rescue Chief Randall Pickering said. “You could tell the fire had a pretty good head start inside that kitchen area before anyone even saw it.”
Two firefighters were injured after coming into contact with an electrically charged air conditioning unit, Pickering said. Both firefighters were treated at the scene and were reported to be doing well.
No other injuries were reported, and the cause is under investigation.
The fire occurred less than 24 hours after a nearby house was destroyed by a fire. That fire, in the Mallwood Estates subdivision about half a mile from the inn, was reported about 11:30 p.m. Saturday.
Authorities have not found any evidence suggesting the two fires were related, Pickering said, but their proximity prompted officials to bring in the state Fire Marshal’s Office to help with the investigation.
“We want to make sure that we have the people with the highest degree of investigative capabilities involved in looking at these (fires),” Pickering said.
Arson has not been ruled out, Pickering said, although he said investigators have found nothing suggesting that.
“Right now, there are a lot of possibilities” for the causes, he said. “There are always people on the properties that may have smoked a cigarette. Where did the butt of the cigarette go? Electrical is one that we're looking real closely at, at least related to the house fire.”
Crews had been conducting some cleaning work at the Lake House on Sunday afternoon, he said. “So where are the rags? What was being cleaned? What is the potential of spontaneous combustion from oily or greasy rags? All of those are things that are being looked at pretty closely.”
Lake House Inn’s owner, Lori McGowan, could not be reached for comment Monday.
Claudine Manor, owner of Savannah and Pearl, a boutique clothing and gift store located inside the Lake House Inn, had just restocked a new line of winter clothing after the Christmas shopping season and was gearing up for Valentine’s Day when the fire destroyed everything.
She’d purchased the boutique just three months ago. Buying the store had been an easy decision, said Manor, who had fallen in love with it as a customer, in part because of the aesthetics and history of the Lake House Inn.
The boutique was previously an overflow dining room at the inn. Even with renovations — including five chandeliers — the boutique always felt like it fit perfectly into the building, Manor said.
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The fire also destroyed the Savannah and Pearl clothing and gift boutique, which previously served as an overflow dining room.
Customers regularly recalled attending wedding receptions at the inn, eating there years ago — or encountering one of the 17 ghosts said to reside at the historic site, Manor said.
Learning of the fire was “utter devastation,” Manor said. Many of her customers feel like a part of their history is gone as well.”
The Lake House Inn’s history traces back to the 1830s, more than a decade before Wisconsin entered the Union. The land was purchased by New Yorker Isaac Bronson from the federal government in 1835, according to a historical narrative on the Lake House Inn’s website.
The property was later sold to Azor Kinney, who built the farmhouse in 1847 that would become part of the Lake House Inn.
The second and third floors of the hotel were added in 1871, when it became known as the Taylor House until it was renamed the Koshkonong Hotel a few years later. The property passed hands for decades before it was named the Lake House Inn in the 1960s. It closed in 2016 due to increasing maintenance costs but was reopened in 2022 under new ownership.
Mikey Rottier of the Edgerton Reporter contributed to this report.
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