| Issue #40, January 12, 2007 |
House Flattened
Two Local Residents Run for their Lives in Teardown Mixup
By Dan Rattiner
A 38-year-old woman and her 10-year-old son narrowly escaped certain death in Hampton Harbor last Friday when a bulldozer company tore down their house with them in it.
“It was one of the scariest experiences of our lives,” said Sara Thompson of 17 Oak Harbor Road, who spoke to this newspaper from a neighbor’s house on that street the next day.
According to Ms. Thompson, at 4 p.m. in the afternoon, she was watching television in the living room while her son, who had just come home from school, was also in the living room, playing a video game with his earphones on.
“At first, I thought it was part of the movie,” she said. “I was watching Terminator 2 and it was at a part where various buildings were getting knocked down and there was a lot of machine gun fire. But then there were sparks from the TV, the screen went dark, the pictures came flying off the wall and I saw this huge bulldozer blade come right toward the sofa. I couldn’t believe it.”
Ms. Thompson leaped up, grabbed her son around his waist and simply ran barefoot with him on her hip out through the kitchen and out the back door into the yard. Their dog Fido came running with them, barking as he went.
“It was pretty bad,” Ms. Thompson concluded. “After we got out, we just stood on the lawn and watched the whole house just get mashed to the ground. We tried going over to the bulldozer operator to tell him to stop what he was doing, but he too was wearing earphones and he just waved us away. We lost everything. Then we saw that the house next to ours had been mashed to the ground and we thought he was some kind of maniac. We ran across the street to the Wilson’s house and called the police.”
At the present time, the whole incident is under police investigation. But through information pieced together by this newspaper, we have been able to create something of a timeline of what happened.
Local summer resident and wealthy New York City chemical plant owner Harrison Wright Smith had planned to buy both the Thompson property and the Elgin property next door, tear down the houses, combine the properties and build a huge ten bedroom mansion there. He had closed on the Elgin property weeks ago, but only the day before had signed the papers with Bill “Hollerin’” Thompson, who is now a resident of South Carolina.
“Hollerin did what?” Ms. Thompson said when told of the plan. “I’m still negotiating the divorce.”
Normally, to tear down a house, you have to get permission well in advance. The police have to be notified, the neighbors informed, and the permit posted on a fence or tree at the front of the property. The tearing down of small houses for the building of big new ones has become a routine event in Hampton Harbor. More than 150 such “teardowns” as they are called, have taken place here in the past six months.
In this case, however, lawyers for Harrison Wright Smith approached the town on Thursday, the day before, and requested a quick permit. The sale had taken place a few days before and they had the deed. Mr. Smith and his new young bride had left to go on safari in Africa, and he had said he wanted to see their new house under construction when they got back in three weeks. Given Mr. Smith’s status in the community — he is on numerous charitable boards — the permit was granted. And so, on Thursday around 2 p.m., the bulldozers came in.
Apparently noise of the tearing down of the Elgin property next door was confused by Ms. Thompson with the movie she was watching. She was not confused when the bulldozer turned to her house. As for her son Thaddeus, he was completely baffled about what was happening.
“I was playing the new version of Street Murder on the Xbox I got for Christmas. I was right in the middle of one of the best parts, where the cops have the carjackers surrounded and there is a shootout, and I was winning when suddenly my mom picked me right up and carried me out. It ripped the earphones right off my ears.”
The Thompson house had been in the family for five generations, and, according to Mrs. Thompson, she lost everything.
“My mother’s wedding dress was in there,” Ms. Thompson said of the modest four-bedroom house. “Pictures of the old farm. Photo albums of when we went to Disney World.”
Thaddeus seemed equally upset.
“It was WEEKS before I got the Version Four of Street Murder. I don’t know where I can get another one.”
Attempts to reach Harrison Wright Smith were unsuccessful. We were able to reach an assistant to Mr. Smith’s personal secretary, however, who said, “Mr. Smith is very sad.”
A spokesperson for Mr. Smith at the Manhattan public relations firm of Welson and Belford issued this statement.
“Mr. Smith regrets the loss of life. He was good friends with Ms. Thompson and her son, and is deeply grieved. He particularly offers condolences to Mr. Thompson, a fine man with a good heart and many talents in the rug cleaning industry.”
On Monday, Hedgerow Builders began moving onto the site with surveyors, foundation builders and framers to begin construction of the new architectural award-winning mansion that is to be built on the property. The contractor has promised that as they begin their work, if they find anything of value that they think might be of interest to the Thompsons, they will turn it over to them.
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