It’s all gone
Wilmot man loses classic Porsche, priceless antiques in carriage house fire
Kent Robinson’s mint 1984 Porsche is toast. Literally.
It went up in smoke and flames along with an upstairs filled with antiques, collectibles, and family memorabilia when the old carriage house, the last remnant of Cook farm in Wilmot, caught fire mid-morning March 8.
Robinson was in the house with family dog Jill when he saw smoke billowing past his window – the same window that would later crack from the heat of the fire.
Robinson’s first reaction was to get the dog out of the house and safe, call 911, and contact wife Shannon who was at work.
He’d gone out to the carriage house earlier to start the Porsche, something he did every two or three weeks in the winter. He doesn’t know if there is any connection between that and the fire. But having been in the insurance business for many years he said he wasn’t going to speculate. He’d let the firefighters do their job.
Kingston fire chief Watson Armstrong said the building was totally involved when he arrived, and the first concern was the nearby house – about 10 metres away. Firefighters from Middleton and Nictaux were also called out via the structure fire protocol.
Lawrencetown was later called to the scene.
Highway 1 was down to one lane for several hours as fire trucks took up position to fight the blaze on the corner of Highway 1 and Cook Avenue. Traffic at times was backed up half a kilometre.
Robinson called the fire in at about 10 a.m.
Later, when the fire was under control and firefighters were turning over rubble and dousing hot spots, Shannon was back in the house and noticed cracked windows. Shrubs and rose bushes were scorched.
Firefighters were still on the scene at 1 p.m. but the road was opened to two-way traffic by that time.
Robinson said when they moved back home from Calgary 11 years ago, the house wasn’t big enough for everything they brought with them, so they stored a lot of their belongings in the upstairs of the carriage house.
The only thing left of the building was his Coronation Street sign that had been tacked to the side of the carriage house. Firefighters saved the sign when that part of the building was affected.
The car and the carriage house were insured. An excavator pulled down the remains of the building on March 10. Fire destroyed this carriage house March 8 in Wilmot on the corner of Cook Avenue and Highway 1. The fire was so intense at the beginning that it cracked nearby windows in the house. Homeowner Kent Robinson lost his mint 1984 Porsche and an upstairs filled with antiques, collectibles, and family memorabilia.