NEW SHOREHAM, R.I. (WJAR) — Decades of history were destroyed in minutes after a massive fire tore through Block Island’s historic Harborside Inn.

The fire started in the kitchen and quickly moved through the top floor of the hotel, bringing down part of the roof.

While the Rhode Island state fire marshal deemed it a total loss, a Connecticut family is crediting their babysitter for saving their young sons from the fire.

Brian Blumenthal said he went out with his wife Friday night, leaving their kids sleeping at the hotel with their babysitter.

When the fire broke out, the boys, just 5 and 7 years old, didn't wake up to the alarm and had to be carried outside.

It just escalated very quickly," Blumenthal said. "They were outside in their pajamas. They had to be, you know, carried out basically because they were sleeping right through the alarm. Thank God she was there."

When they made it back to the hotel, there was smoke and fire everywhere.

To hear the next day that there were no injuries, that's unbelievable when you see such an incident like that," he said.

Blumenthal's a musician and had been on the island performing. All of his equipment was lost in the fire.

When you go on a trip, you know, you bring the essentials," he said. "I had the essentials to play music and the essentials to have a vacation. I lost all those essentials: my passport, key fobs, cost quite a bit of money. It's all added up to a lot of loss."

He's now performing shows with old equipment and figuring out what insurance will cover.

But he said none of that hassle compares to the thoughts of what could've happened to his sons if not for their babysitter.

"They get a lot of hugs because I can't stop thinking about it," he said. "I certainly don't think I'll ever forget it. It's definitely imprinted on my mind and in my heart because you just keep thinking well what if, right?"

A family member set up a GoFundMe campaign to help Blumenthal with expenses.

Meanwhile, the historic hotel will be torn down.

First built in 1879 as The Pequot House, according to the Block Island Historical Society, it underwent several ownership and name changes before becoming The Harborside Inn.

When people come in off the ferry, this is what strikes them," Janet Dionis of the Block Island Historical Society told WJAR. "It will be missed. It's kind of just reminiscent of days past that's difficult to recreate. So, when you're looking for kind of a nice vacation experience, we have that old world charm in the architecture."

Many on the island, like Anita Gonsalves, who owns The Ice Cream Place next door, have a connection to historic building one way or another.

"It's surreal, it really is," she said. "I mean, my first job in 1982 -- I was a chambermaid in that building and I was also a waitress in that building," said Gonsalves.

Dionis also worked there before her job with the historical society.

"I actually worked in the lobby of that hotel," she said. "I used to sell tickets for the ghost tours and it's just one of those charming, old Victorian lobbies. It's an era that passed."

It was that Victorian architecture that may have contributed to its demise.

Uneven floors and low ceilings and lots of quirks and non standard doorways but that's what people love about it," Dionis said.

Despite a working sprinkler system and passing a compliance inspection in April, the fire quickly spread throughout the old wood of the building.

"It's kind of a marvel that the structures lasted as long as they did and it shows the care of the people that are part of sort of stewarding the building," she said.

With so much lost, there's still hope that some items, including the hotel's original call box, will be able to be saved before the build comes down entirely.

"The call box or a hotel enunciator -- it was some kind of device where a little lever would switch or a dial would move if someone in one of the rooms needed service," she said. "That's always the hope but it has to be done safely. Everybody tries to salvage bits of old buildings that can lend character even to a new building."

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