Lightning may be to blame for destroying the Barr Mansion wedding reception site.
What was once a lavish ballroom, complete with a five-story glass wall, is now an empty, burned out shell. Fire marshals believe lightning from strong storms Wednesday morning is to blame. Brides who had their hearts set on entertaining guests here are now heart-broken.
We spoke to Shannon Hamilton, scheduled to wed next Saturday, from her Arlington home.
"I was shaking, I was crying. I was like. 'Oh my goodness, what do we do now? What’s next?' So were just waiting, trying to hold it together,” said Hamilton.
Hamilton and her fiance both live in North Texas, but they felt the Barr Mansion was worth the drive.
"I've always wanted to get married with the grass under my feet, you know, my 4-year-old's dream wedding,” said Hamilton.
The original mansion is untouched, but her favorite feature, the Artisan Ballroom is gone.
"It was open and different and let a lot of light in. It was gorgeous. That's pretty much what we fell in love with,” said Hamilton.
Jennifer Goldston stopped by to snap pictures for her niece, who has a wedding booked on July 16th.
"This is a wedding she's been planning to be here for some time now, so it's devastating,” explains Goldston.
Co-owner Mark McAfee does not expect any weddings to be cancelled.
"We will come out of it, and we will come out good, by the time it's all said and done,” he predicted. "We are going to construct a structured tent on the property. It will be decorated and lit and chandeliered to the hilt. We’ll have that done by tomorrow night theoretically, certainly by Friday. So, the show will go on."
The damage is estimated at $500,000. Also lost are decorative timbers out of a historic pre-Revolutionary barn shipped in from New York.
"All I care about are my clients. This is obviously a big setback, but all I can think about now is taking care of my next brides,” said McAfee.
McAfee will re-construct the Artisan Ballroom. He thinks the walls can be saved. He hopes to have a new and improved ballroom in four months.
