BRATTLEBORO-Brian Robertshaw, owner of Beadniks at 117 Main St., had just gone downstairs - ironically, with a watering can, to get water to care for the plants inside his shop on the ground floor - when he heard an unfamiliar high-pitched hiss.
"At first, I thought it might have been a broken water pipe because it's an old building and pipes have burst before," said Robertshaw as he recounted the Sept. 23 fire that displaced tenants and turned his business upside down.
"As I came up the stairs, suddenly all the alarms in the building started going off," he remembers, "and water started coming in."
At first, Robertshaw started grabbing wastebaskets, anticipating that they'd have a dripping leak from the ceiling, as he had experienced at other points in his 33 years in the storefront.
But the water came much more quickly than he anticipated.
"The water just kept coming, and soon there was an actual waterfall coming through the ceiling," he said. "We tried to catch it in every bucket we had, but very quickly it overwhelmed us, and there was a pond inside the store."
The Brattleboro Fire Department arrived immediately, along with the Brattleboro Police Department.
They learned that a fire on the fourth floor had set off the sprinkler system, which contained the fire to one apartment.
But the water swiftly saturated the building.
According to the owner of half of the building, Bill Lynch, each side of the building shares a common staircase to access the upper-story apartments, six on each side.
"The building was built in 1840 of brick and framed in the inside," he told The Commons.
Both sides of the building share the sprinkler system, which is controlled from the basement on the other side of the building. According to a Sept. 24 news release from the fire department, firefighters "began to find sprinkler controls to shut the sprinkler system down. The controls for the sprinkler system were in the basement of 119 Main St.; the door was locked and crews forced entry."
Even though the damage was mostly confined to 117 Main St., "all the tenants in the building had to leave because the electricity had to be shut off," Lynch said.
According to town listers' records, the other half of the building has been owned by Steven Freeland and Sung E. Whang of South Burlington since 2008. The Commons was unable to reach them for comment.
Lynch said he has "provided assistance to his tenants," who are all rehoused at present.
The entire building is drying out now, he said, and then the walls, floors and ceilings will need to be removed because of the water damage.
"It was a shock, that's for sure," said Lynch, "but the good news is that no one was injured or hurt, and no pets were harmed, so that's good," he said.
Demolition was scheduled to start just as this issue of The Commons was going to press on Oct. 8.
Lynch hopes that the building can be restored depending on the nature of any other damages that might be present that haven't yet been revealed.
For his part, Beadnik's owner is tired and sore from cleaning and packing up the remaining contents of his store - over a million individual beads - but feels buoyed and embraced by the community.
"I'm overwhelmed with the support in general and the local businesses have been so kind," Robertshaw said. "Amy's Bakery has been feeding us for two weeks as folks came to help pack up the store. Greg Worden [of Vermont Artisan Designs] has been checking in regularly to help. Woody [Woodworth] from Burrows has given us some office space to use in the store."
He said that "Penelope Wurr, Altiplano - all the stores around us - have been so supportive and helpful, as has the Downtown Brattleboro Alliance and so many others."
"I feel held by the community and I'm so very grateful," said Robertshaw, his face brightening with the thought.
Robertshaw is also director of The Lost Foundation, "a small nonprofit with an educational mission to preserve ancient and antique beads and artifacts as a source of education and inspiration for future generations," according to the text of a GoFundMe fundraiser begun by five-year employee Madeline Pixley.
"Lost" is an acronym for "learning opportunities and sustainable teaching," something important to Robertshaw, who is also a teacher at Kindle Farm School.
The museum was housed in the basement of the store and kept out-of-print books about beads, antique beads, and a special assemblage of unique items he began collecting when he was a child.
When Robertsaw was 10 and in the Cub Scouts, he was interested in all things Native American. "We'd always be out in the woods, and on a campout I found a coin from the 1700s that had a picture of a Native American carrying a long bow. On the back it said, 'Commonwealth of Massachusetts,'" he recalled.
A neighbor in his 80s had a book that showed the early coins of the USA.
"My neighbor turned a page and said, 'That's one of the first coins in America!' My 10-year-old mind wondered what they had used before money was minted."
Another neighbor had a cornfield where Robertshaw used to play and, knowing the young boy's interest in history, gave him another influential treasure.
"He said, 'Put out your hand,' and when I did, he dumped a bunch of beads in my hand, and he said, 'A [Native American] must have dropped them a couple of hundred years ago. I found them in the cornfield.'"
Robertsaw described the feeling he had at that moment.
"I was amazed that you could hold something in your hand that somebody else had in their hands 200 years before you. It was thrilling," he said.
He began collecting old beads and studied how they go back 150,000 years in the human timeline. They were used as global currency. The word "bead" derives from a Middle English word that meant "prayer" or "to pray."
"Now they can be a simple fashion accessories, but really, beads were the first art form made by humans," Robertclark observed.
"I'm a bona fide bead geek," he says, laughing. "That's what the bead museum is all about."
Many years after his Cub Scout days, Robertshaw began experimenting with print making, and he also enjoyed working with beads, creating art in the style of indigenous peoples.
"I had made a piece with beads, feathers, leather, and found objects that was showing in a gallery," he says. "A customer came by and said, 'Could I just buy one of these beads?'"
He said that "a light bulb went off."
"Shortly after that, I started selling beads. Eventually, I found my way to Brattleboro and founded Beadniks in the same storefront I'm in now in 1992," he remembers with a smile.
The store has weathered a lot of the ups and downs on Main Street through the years, as the economy has waxed and waned.
"I think that's what has kept us alive, really. We're one of the few places in town where you can spend a penny!" Robertshaw says, chuckling.
He goes on to explain that he has always had a few rules for his business.
"The first is that we're going to have fun," he says. "The second is that we want to treat people the way we want to be treated."
It's a family business.
"I have three daughters, who all grew up in the store. They are the loves of my life. If you've ever been inside the store, you've likely met all three over the years," he says.
"Hazel, the youngest, does the window displays, Ida has worked the counter for many years, and until recently, Tansy was the store manager," Robertshaw continues. "All three have worked there and picked out the candy, toys, and gifts for the store as well."
Reality sets back in, and the smile leaves Robertshaw's face.
"We're out of business," he says. "Optimistically, we'll dry things out and put it all back together, which has happened before. But this is much worse than a broken pipe. The building is going to have to be gutted. My insurance will carry us for a while, but certainly not for the length of time this will be drawn out."
With the help of a large and kind crew, the entire staff, including clerks and cashiers, have spent the last two weeks lifting, packing, and storing the store's inventory.
"None of that work was in their job description, but the staff has been wonderful. Family helped, too, but so did folks from up and down Main Street," he says. "Customers have come by and helped."
Robertshaw describes the effort as "a huge outpouring of support from so many people."
"I appreciate it," he says. "I had no idea how the store has impacted so many people - enough that they are willing to do all this hard work to help. It's quite gratifying."
Ideally, says Robertshaw, "we'd love to stay where we are. We've put a lot of time in at 117 Main St."
He has not yet started the process of inventorying the thousands of still-soggy items that are packed away.
"I must find all the invoices, open every box that we've packed. It's all trashed. But the good news is that a crystal is a crystal; a stone bead, a stone bead. Water can't hurt those things."
Robertshaw pauses as he thinks about the huge tasks in front of him. He reassures himself.
"It will all be OK," he says. "I firmly believe that challenges are opportunities for growth and change. It is what it is, we'll learn what we can, and we'll move forward.
"Beads have taught me to be patient," he says. "They can sit for a long time and still shine."
This News item by Fran Lynggaard Hansen was written for The Commons.