70 years ago, fire destroyed Heights landmark

The blaze burned so brightly in the early morning hours of June 26, 1942, that it could be seen by people from miles away.

Although winds were relatively calm, burning shingles were found five miles from the hotel.

That’s the way former Shelter Islander Tom Young, who was 15, remembers the fire that destroyed the New Prospect Hotel 70 years ago this week, a day before it was to open for the season. Mr. Young lived on Shelter Island for 77 years before moving to South Carolina seven years ago to be near his daughter.

“It was a monster of a building,” Mr. Young said in a telephone interview about the five-story, 150-room hotel that was a favorite haunt of Clark Gable and other luminaries. Eighteen guests who’d already checked in were able to get out safely and there were no serious injuries.

Mr. Young remembers dancing there as a nine-year-old with his 10-year-old “date” to the music of Wes Smith and his Isle of Dreams Orchestra.

“The Heights had class when it was there,” Mr. Young, who worked for LILCO for years, said of the hotel. “It hasn’t had the same class since.”

The original structure was built as Prospect House in 1872 and was a social center for Heights residents, according to a history  written by Shelter Island residents Patricia and Edward Shillingburg in 2005. A fire damaged the building in 1923 and when it reopened the following year, it was renamed the New Prospect Hotel. There was a time when only Heights association residents were allowed to attend social events at the hotel, according to the Shillingburgs, but that changed by the 1930s.

“The fire was a major blow to the social fabric of not just the Heights but of the whole Island,” according to the Shillingburgs.

Mr. Young recalls the night of the fire. He watched the hotel burn with his father, Tom Young Sr., who was superintendent of the old Shelter Island Light and Power Company before it was sold to LILCO. His father had received a call from the telephone operator, Mrs. Raynor, who told him firefighters needed him to turn off power to the hotel.

“The whole sky was lit up,” Mr. Young said. He still remembers his father’s words as the elder Tom Young looked out his window from his home near South Ferry: “God damn, they’ll never save it!”

The fire had started in the hotel bakery but quickly spread to engulf the entire building. When father and son got near the hotel, the 15-year-old had to crouch behind hedges “because it was so hot.” Meanwhile, Tom Sr. and lineman Abe Schaible headed toward the hotel yard to climb a 25-foot pole that held the transformers for the hotel. Before they got there, a barrel of naptha cleaning solution in the yard exploded. Mr. Schaible said later that had he been on the pole at the time of the explosion, the blast “would have scared him to death” — if not done a lot more harm than that.

The hotel was due to open for the season the day after the fire, Mr. Young said. But the guests and 60 hotel workers who were sleeping in the annex escaped. The Shillingburgs reported that Frank Ivers of Boston suffered a leg injury jumping from a second-story window and occupants lost most of their personal effects. The annex, where the workers were living, didn’t burn but was later demolished.

Local firefighters were assisted by volunteers from Greenport, Mr. Young said. The Shillingburgs said firefighters from throughout the area came to Shelter Island to assist in containing the blaze they feared would spread to other structures in the Heights.

“If the wind had been blowing, the Heights would have lost a lot of its houses,” Mr. Young said. Still, he was struck by a certain beauty in the otherwise tragic scene: “You should have seen the beautiful colors” of the flames, caused by various pieces of metal, including copper nails. Green, blue, orange, red and yellow flames licked the sky.

Firefighters were able to save cases of liquor that had been delivered in anticipation of the guests who were due to arrive the following day, Mr. Young said.

He speculated that had the fire been just a day later when the hotel would have been filled with guests, there could have been a significant loss of lives.

There were debates about rebuilding the hotel, according to the Shillingburgs. There were also those who wanted to re-open the annex, but the Heights Property Owners Corporation wasn’t willing to sell the building or operate it as either a boarding house or inn. Ultimately, they abandoned any thought of its restoration and today, Islanders know the site as Prospect Park.