SALT LAKE CITY — For the last few weeks, Oscar Preciado, owner of Gravity Services Company, has been landscaping, painting and making repairs on the Chateau Normandie apartment building.
“It's just kind of crazy,” he said. “Just out of nowhere one day we get a call, and it's just like, oh, the building is burning down as we speak.”
Crews put out fires at Chateau Normandie twice within 24 hours. When the Salt Lake City Fire Department first came out Thursday afternoon, one person went to the hospital with minor injuries, officials said. Then just after midnight, firefighters were called back to the unoccupied apartments again.
“It went up for sale, and then few days later, there's a fire,” said Preciado. “This kind of affects it all.”
Chris Merritt, Utah State Preservation Officer, said this building tells a story of what was happening in Salt Lake City at that time.
“This apartment boom of early 20th century was a new demographic,” he said. “It was the first real density increase in Salt Lake City, and this was also home to single or widowed women for the first time, being able to own their own apartments or rent their own apartments in the early 20th century. So there's a lot of history. There's only one Chateau Normandie.”
Early 20th-century buildings were actually deemed “fireproof” at the time, said Merritt.
“They switched from a lot of wood frame structures to more brick and stone, but obviously the brick facade and substructure doesn't mean that the interior is fireproof,” he said. “Old wood in the rafters, the floors, the walls, plus older electrical always has some potential risk to historic buildings.”
Preciado is still in shock, oping he can keep restoring Chateau Normandie so the owners can sell the building, he said.
“There's nothing I can do to change,” said Preciado. “All I can do is just wait for the fire to burn out and see the aftermath.”
Investigators are still working to determine the cause of the fires.
