ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, May 13, 1996 TAG: 9605130126
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: ATLANTA
SOURCE: Associated Press
The apartment house where Margaret Mitchell began writing ``Gone With the Wind'' was extensively damaged by fire Sunday for the second time in two years, and investigators blamed arson.
The three-story brick building, which Mitchell affectionately called ``The Dump,'' was to be opened to the public June 30 following a $4.5 million restoration financed by Daimler-Benz, the German automaker.
``They torched this sucker,'' said Fire Department Lt. Roy Awana. ``I'm 99.9 percent sure that something was poured on the floor of the house.''
He added that firefighters smelled gasoline.
The midtown building was unoccupied, and no one was injured.
The only rooms spared by the blaze were the basement and the apartment Mitchell once occupied.
Eighty percent of the building was destroyed, battalion Chief Wallace Lane said.
``I don't know what to say,'' said Mary Rose Taylor, who led a drive to preserve the building, which once was slated for demolition. ``I feel numb.''
Taylor helped begin the grass-roots effort to salvage the building in 1987 and helped gather more support after an arson fire nearly destroyed it in September 1994. Mitchell's apartment survived that blaze as well. No one was arrested.
The building had been closed Friday afternoon by construction workers, said Margaret Anne Lane, executive director of Margaret Mitchell House Inc.
No furnishings, draperies or carpeting had been installed yet, she said. A security system had not been activated.
Mitchell and her husband, John Marsh, moved into the apartment in 1925, just after their wedding. One year later, she began writing her novel. They moved out in 1932.
Margaret Mitchell House, a nonprofit group, had planned to run the house as a museum and its third floor as a reception hall.
Peter Bizer of Munich, Germany, who helped coordinate the Daimler-Benz sponsorship of the renovation, said the company hadn't decided whether to abandon the project.
``I really feel very sorry for Atlanta,'' said Bizer, president of P.B. Promotions Atlanta Inc. ``The house was one of the few interesting landmarks, especially for Europeans.''
LENGTH: Medium: 53 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. The Atlanta house Margaret Mitchell lived in whileby CNBwriting "Gone With the Wind" caught fire Sunday.