ANTRIM — According to fire chief Michael Beauchamp, Bakery 42 has escaped significant damage after a massive fire destroyed all three floors of an attached building at 46 Main St. on Monday night.

Trends of Fashion Salon, however, was not so fortunate. It and most of the main building have been destroyed, according to property owner Ken Raymond, who said he expects the building will be a complete loss.

“It will probably have to be torn down,” said Raymond Tuesday evening.
Beauchamp agreed, saying the building should be leveled as soon as investigators finish their work.

“The bulldozers will be next,” said Beauchamp. “I just hope it’s soon. It’s not safe.”
According to Raymond, the building won’t stay down for long.

“Personally, I would like to rebuild. People like this building. It’s kind of an icon. To restore it to as close as possible to what it was I think would be a wonderful thing.”

Raymond said his decisions will be informed by the reports from the fire marshal and his insurance company, but he has no intention of backing down from the challenge. A significant renovation project was nearly complete at the time of the fire, he said, and an updated building remains his goal.

“We were on home stretch, but it happened and no one got hurt,” said Raymond. “We’ll move forward from here. I mean, why stop now? It’s just a speed bump.”
A firewall between the main building and the bakery annex held up, said Beauchamp, preserving the bakery and a vacant commercial unit between the bakery and the main building.

Raymond said he has offered to put the salon in the vacant unit so that the employees can get back to serving their customers.

“This is their livelihood,” said Raymond. “I want them up and running.”
Cindy Crockett, owner of Bakery 42, said she is thankful that the bakery is largely undamaged.

“All I can say is thank God for firewalls and building codes,” she said.
After a quick once-over by a professional cleaning crew, the bakery could be reopened by next week, said Crockett on Tuesday.

“The landlord has been terrific, the entire town of Antrim has been wonderful and supportive,” said Crockett. “We’re really grateful. We’re definitely coming back. The bakery is OK.”

Crockett thanked all the firefighters, who she watched battle the fire Monday night.
“They did a fantastic job,” said Crockett, who said such a fire might have spread up and down Main Street in decades past.

Beauchamp said the fire had flared back up at intervals throughout the night. A hotspot erupted shortly before 2 a.m., and another began at 4:30 a.m.
“One broke out in the front and it got going,” said Beauchamp. “We got a little tense there for a minute.”

By noon Tuesday, the building had stopped smoking and Beauchamp said he was confident the fire had been extinguished. He praised the efforts of a dozen nearby towns and said the successful response was a credit to the mutual aid system.

Max Schultz, Hillsborough district chief fire marshal, was at the fire until midnight Monday.
He was accompanied Tuesday morning by another fire marshal and an agent from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. As of midday Tuesday, Schultz said he had not yet reached any conclusions. He said the district fire marshal office also houses the local ATF office, and the presence of an ATF officer at the scene is standard operating procedure. At 1 p.m. Tuesday, Officer Ryan Storro said the marshals had been working onsite since 8:30 that morning.

“Especially when it’s a historic building right in the middle of town, they’re going to be a little more particular,” said Storro. Storro said the renovation of the apartment spaces above the first-floor businesses had been just two weeks from completion. “Hopefully we’ll get some answers from the investigation.”

Beauchamp said he had a few ideas about the origin of the fire, but would not specify until the investigation was complete. However, he expressed strong opposition to the idea that the origin of the fire was electrical in nature.

Parts of the building had collapsed into the center of the structure. Part of the second floor fell into the Trends of Fashion Salon, where a shampoo display could be seen almost undisturbed amid the charred rubble. Manager Ann Avery of Bennington said she had stopped by the salon just hours before the fire started. She fed Gilbert the Fish, who did not survive the fire, and said everything had looked perfectly normal.

“It’s pretty devastating,” said Avery. “I’ve been thinking about how lucky I was to work here. It’s like a family. We will come back stronger.”

Avery said she and owner Paula Brissette have already received numerous offers of business space from both businesses and individuals. She said the licensing process to establish a salon is relatively easy, but would be required before any of the salon’s stylists would be allowed to cut hair.

Kim Delisle of Rindge, who has been working at the salon since it opened five years ago, will soon face some paperwork of her own.

“I just got my new license,” said Delisle. “It’s in there on the wall, so I guess I’ll have to get another one.”

Delisle said the fact that the business’s sign had not been damaged was a good omen.
“The sign is still here,” said Delisle. “We’re going to be here forever.”

Monday night’s fire was a two-alarm fire, although firefighters at the scene Tuesday said the amount of fire apparatus onsite more closely resembled a three-alarm response.

Shortly before 6 p.m., the fire broke out on the second or third floor. Officer Brian Lord was the first on the scene, and worked from 2 p.m. Monday until 4:30 a.m. Tuesday. Police evacuated the building to the north of 46 Main. Officials shut down power to Main Street, which remained closed for hours.

On Tuesday morning, the Mansard roof of the 1848 building was gone.

Following two unsuccessful auctions, the 7,466 square-foot building had been under new ownership since purchased in August.