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Platters of beef Wellington, gorgonzola basil purses, and spinach and feta beurrecks, were passed among the crowd gathered under turrets which 100 years ago to the day, went up in flames.
On that afternoon in 1900, fire broke out in the hotel across the street, eventually spreading to the Casino and its attached Towers. Only the stonework, constructed of Westerly granite, remained.
David Ousterhout, chairman of the Towers Committee and a former Narragansett Town Council member, recalled the day in 1988 when he and the council president, Timothy Haxton, met at the then-darkened building.
“It was all locked up. We stood up on the third floor and said this is a mess.” Did he wonder how they’d return it to its former, architectural glory?
“No, 1 knew we’d get it to this point,” he said, as tuxedo-clad men and women in gowns circulated around him. The massive white tent set up next to the arch, where the Casino once stood, was decorated with centerpieces of hydrangea, roses, ivy and potted palms.
Since that moment in 1988, Ousterhout and dozens of other community volunteers enamoured with the structure, worked toward meeting many major goals in its restoration.
The building has been brought up to code, heat was added to the lower floors, there’s improved access, an elevator, and the structure has been the scene for weddings, proms - and Tuesday’s elegant Brilliant Ball, which was modelled after one held across the street in the Rockingham Hotel just days before the devastating fire.
An award was accepted Tuesday night by Zechariah Chafee, son the late Senator John H. Chafee for the part the latter played in the history Towers. Chafee is credited with saving the building, said Kate Vivian, Towers coordinator. In the late ‘60 while he was governor, Chafee oversaw the purchase of it for $10,000 with state contingency funds, with the stipulation that the town undertake reconstruction costs.
“The next step is heat and year-round use,” said Ousterhout, noting that the building is already booked Saturdays throughout next season, May through October.
But on Tuesday night, under a bright moon, ballgoers were enjoying the September moment, learning Victorian dances taught by an instructor sampling a large variety of food - including cookies shaped like The Towers — and admiring several costumes typical of era.
One couple from Old Mystic, Connecticut, Bob and Cathie Jung arrived wearing Victorian outfits, complete with old-fashioned “foundations” underneath - Cathie’s pinched her waist to a tiny 18 inches.
“It’s something I do all the time,” she said, a mesh veil covering her face. She could breathe just fine, she said, and often wears Victorian clothing, which she does not find uncomfortable.
Her husband wasn’t uncomfortable either, he said, despite his own tight corset an article of clothing which was “very common in European military,” he said.
Ted Panagiotis, a long-time Narragansett resident, didn’t wear a Victorian outfit but also didn’t miss a chance to crack a joke, claiming he was wearing the same suit that he wore when he “helped Dewey with the hoses.” Spanish-American war hero, Admiral George Dewey, was in Narragansett Pier when the 1900 fire broke out and reportedly helped fight back the flames.
While most ballgoers realized that they were dancing under the stars, what they might not have known was that they were also dancing beneath the artwork and personal messages of hundreds of Narragansett schoolchildren.
Keith Lescarbeau, of Narragansett, the contractor who last May replaced the cupola to the building and organized it’s reroofing, said the shingles were all personally inscribed.
“It was so much fun, so much joy,” he said of the project. “It’s the life story of the town.”
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