Historic Groton home destroyed by fire still hosting wedding events

GROTON, Mass. — After a devastating fire destroyed a 19th Century Carriage House in Groton, the owners said they’re still hosting events on the property.

The Massachusetts State Fire Marshal said the cause of the fire is still not known and that’s why the owner said the charred building is still standing.

“We’ve lost a lot of memories,” said Will Gilson, chef and partner of the Cambridge Street Hospitality Group.

Gilson said he grew up at 368 Main Street in Groton, also known as the Herb Lyceum. He said it’s a farm that also hosts weddings and private dinners.

“We’ve been doing weddings here since I had my wedding here, so, 2016,” he said.

Gilson said on September 1, the Carriage House caught fire destroying the kitchen and dining room.

Jessica Gardner and Seth Botos said their wedding was scheduled for eight days later.

“Our reaction was, ‘How are we going to pull this off?’” said Gardner.

But, they did.

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Historic Groton home destroyed by fire still hosting wedding events

Gilson said everything else on the property is untouched and they’re catering food from restaurants they own in Cambridge, plus getting help from the community.

“We’ve had people reach out offering their homes offering property their services flowers whatever they can to help us get through this,” said Gilson.

Botos said their wedding ceremony was at a rented house but everything else happened as planned at the Herb Lyceum.

“We were right on the property staying the whole time the whole weekend we had our rehearsal there you could see the burned-out building right behind us and they also still let us have a little late night after party there,” he said.

The couple encourages future guests to trust everything will work out.

“They’re going to work as hard as possible to make it as good or better,” said Botos.

Gilson said once they get the green light to knock down the burnt building they’ll start making new memories.

“Humpty Dumpty can break but it took a lot of people to try to get him back to one piece,” he said.

Here’s a link to the GoFundMe page if you’d like to donate.

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