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topicnews · October 25, 2024

Chef Will Gilson on rebuilding Herb Lyceum after a fire

Chef Will Gilson on rebuilding Herb Lyceum after a fire

No one had died, but when I lost the restaurant that shaped my childhood and launched my career, I went through the five stages of grief.

On September 1st, The Herb Lyceum, our beloved 19th-century restaurant and carriage house on the property where I grew up, stood smoldering and wet from the fire that the Groton Fire Department had spent hours putting out. Heartbroken, all I could do was sit and type through tears, remembering a place that meant so much to so many.

When Dad called to tell me about the fire, I drove over as quickly as I could. Even when I spoke to the police, I couldn’t imagine that what was happening couldn’t be fixed. Over the past three decades, the property has weathered a divorce settlement, a bank foreclosure attempt, and the comings and goings of countless chefs. Long neglected, it has recently been reborn in grand style, becoming the site of countless weddings, special events and memorial services for our own family members. Surely it would survive a small fire, I thought. But when I saw it with my own eyes, I knew it. Whatever we had built in this incarnation was dead.

The herbal lyceum before and after the fire.By Will Gilson

Dad and I were both too emotional to comfort each other. He wanted someone to take the blame and I became angry when he pointed the finger at my kitchen team as custodians of the room. (The State Police Fire Investigation Team still has not determined what caused the fire.)

Dad is perhaps the hardest working person I know, and he and I had built much of the house together. We now watched it burn. Maybe we didn’t hammer every nail, but we had previously taken it from the professional ashes and incorporated it into something we were proud of. Anger prevented us from seeing beyond our memories and knowing that a building could be rebuilt. I was angry that he couldn’t see that – he was angry that I couldn’t see that the memories and legacy were now just ashes. We were both angry, both right and wrong.

We went into crisis mode when we should have been mourning the loss. While firefighters attempted to shut off an already burning gas line, our team worked to find a venue for a wedding we had planned for that day. Then I thought: How could we host weddings? How quickly could the building be bulldozed? I just wanted to sit and be sad. I remembered my excitement when my wife and I got married there, but I suppressed it. There must be a way to ensure that our guests can still enjoy what remains of our burned building. I was convinced that a quick recovery would help us.

Will Gilson is cooking at the family restaurant The Herb Lyceum at the age of 16.By Will Gilson

My memories flashed back to elementary school, playing in the trenches dug for the building’s plumbing and power. That’s where I met my best childhood friend – his stepfather was the contractor we hired to finish the building. I celebrated my middle school, high school, and college graduations there. I played beer pong on dinner tables at an age when I shouldn’t have. I prepared food for my father’s wedding and eventually his wife’s funeral in the exact same place. The depression I feel over this loss is tied to my best and worst memories.

I told Dad we would rebuild it. “Sure you will,” he said, “but it will never be the same.” He’s right. In my area, almost every closed company and every renovation was once a dream. The Herb Lyceum was part of our Lyceum and 30 years is a hell of a time.

My children are too young to understand what their father and grandfather are going through. But I owe it to them to look for ways this can be rebuilt, reimagined and reborn – with the same love, hard work and commitment that got us this far. As we build new memories, this is just one chapter of our family legacy.

Chef Will Gilson lives in Acton. Send comments to magazine@globe.com. Gilson and his team hosted 15 of them previously planned weddings on the premises since the fire, with the help of the community. The burned structure remains as insurance companies have still not determined the cause of the fire. There is one GoFundMe Reconstruction campaign.

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