[DennisC]

Regarding my post on The Oak Birch Inn which started this discussion...

As I previously stated, when I went back to vacation at the Inn in '90 or '91, I found it had burned down, much to my utter shock. I tracked down the woman who had managed the inn in the 80's with her two daughters, and we had lunch. She kindly offered the little cottage to me that had been next to the inn to stay in the whole time I was there.

With regard to arson being the cause of the fire that destroyed the inn: that was definitely the belief that B. gave to me. As a matter of fact, she pretty much told me who she theorized "had it done." But I don't think arson was ever proved.

My first trip out there was in 1980 and I was really struck by the inn's charm. Although it was old then and in need of repair, the theatre was certainly there and I remember seeing a few good movies in it. B. told me the theatre was built in the 1940's. You could tell the seats were of that style.

As for just where the inn was: at the foot of Alton Bay (and I'm certinly no expert on the area's geography) but that's what I recall.

Now here's an ironic, if not very strange story, attached to the inn being "haunted". I will try to recall the story just as B. told it to me in August, 1980...

The inn was built around, what, 1907? 1917? It went through many owners. One owner was named "Heiner." Heiner and his son managed the inn for years in the 1950's or 1960's, if I remember correctly. One wintry night the inn was empty except for Heiner and his son. Heiner left the inn to go somewhere and was involved in an accident somewhere along a road close to the inn and was killed. For years after people who stayed at the inn claimed they saw a man in a tuxedo standing on the entry stairs or in the inn's hallways. He was allegedly described by people who never knew Heiner as being a perfect match of "Mr. Heiner." Again, I'm being told this in 1980 by B., and after hearing the story, I left to go down to a motel for a drink (think it was called the "Sandpoint" or "Sandy Point"). I sat down at the bar and got talking to the bartender and finally told him what I had just heard. He looked at me strangely and said he was Heiner's son!!

Irony or strangeness. You decide.

By the way, the first night I ever stayed at the inn in Aug., 1980, I had trouble sleeping because of what I thought was furniture or suitcases or something dragging across the floor in the room above me. That next morning I asked B. if she would give me a new room because "the people above me were making too much noise." B. laughed and said, "There IS nobody above you. This place is haunted..."

There was also a chamber maid named "Ina" who still worked there in the 1980's who had spent her entire life working at the Oak Birch Inn. She told me several stories of people who had seen "Mr. Heiner" standing on the stairs.....

Yet none of this detracts, in my mind, from the charm of the Oak Birch Inn and the great times I spent there in the 1980's.

Dennis