A more than 100-year-old Little Rock home saved from demolition earlier this year was destroyed Wednesday night by a fire.
The Schmelzer House at 1414 Park Lane — located just south of Interstate 630 near MacArthur Park — was built circa 1907 and has been vacant for more than a decade, said Patricia Blick, executive director of the Quapaw Quarter Association.
The city moved to demolish the deteriorated structure earlier this year, Blick said, but then a buyer who intended to restore it stepped up over the summer and the city backed off.
Blick said she didn't see any lightning Wednesday and as far as she knows, the house did not have active electric service, so she thinks it's likely someone got into the building and started the fire.
The cause of the fire is under investigation, according to the Little Rock Fire Department.
“It’s gone from a building to that could be rehabilitated to just nothing,” Blick said.
Fire Capt. Jacob Lear-Sadowsky said crews responded around 8:10 p.m., and the building was engulfed in flames when they arrived. He said the roof caved in while firefighters battled the blaze, but no injuries were reported.
Firefighters were on scene for about an hour. All that is left of the home is a pile of charred remains atop a foundation.
Blick said she heard about the fire Wednesday but didn’t know how much damage the building sustained until she visited Thursday morning.
“I was just amazed,” Blick said. “It is fully, fully gone.”
Lear-Sadowsky said older buildings in good condition hold up better to fire than newer ones, but if a building is dilapidated, it may burn faster. He said a lack of windows, for example, feeds fire because there will be more airflow in the building.
Blick provided a city report related to the proposed demolition that showed the home — which was listed as a contributing structure to the MacArthur Park Historic District — has been in disrepair since at least 1995.
Lighthouse, Inc. bought the building in 1996 and received various permits for work to bring the home up to code in the early 2000s, but most “expired without completion,” according to the report.
The city has listed it as unsafe and vacant since 2013, according to the report.
Blick said the loss of the building is especially great because the area, the MacArthur Park Historic District, is undergoing revitalization.
She said it's frustrating to lose the home, especially if it was caused by someone getting inside who wasn't supposed to be there. That's happened before where buildings have been damaged after not being properly secured, Blick said.
“I’m angry because this is constantly what we’re dealing with, these properties that are vacant and not secured,” Blick said. “I think we want to work with the city to get better enforcement to secure these buildings.”