Stonecroft Inn Still Without Power

Jason Crandall, owner of Stonecroft Country Inn on Pumpkin Hill Road, has a talent for looking on the bright side. On Aug. 28, the night before tropical storm Irene hit the region, Crandall was busy entertaining some 75 wedding guests at his inn.

“It was a beautiful wedding,” he said of the party that had been planned for twice as many guests before Irene forced nearly 100 people to send their regrets.

The next morning, at around 6 a.m., Stonecroft lost power. “We had to cancel the brunch,” he said.

They have been in the dark ever since. “On the website they’re saying we’ll have power by Sunday midnight,” Crandall said on Saturday, speaking over the drone of two generators that have been running non-stop since the power went out a week ago.

He has been able to salvage some of the food in his walk-in freezer, but more food had to be thrown out. “We lost the freezer and three of the fridges. We have our walk-in running with that one generator, but you can only put so much in there.”

Worse, he has lost a week’s worth of business that includes Labor Day weekend. “We’re always busy on Labor Day,” he said. “That’s why we usually don’t do weddings on Labor Day weekend, because we want to leave it open for our regular guests.

“So not only did we have this wedding cut in half and almost all the food tossed because of spoilage, but we’ve been closed all week,” he said. “And now we’re losing what should have been a sold-out weekend.”

In the fine print

There’s more. This week Crandall’s insurance company – Hanover Insurance – informed him that the coverage he thought he had for loss of business due to a power outage does not apply to damage to above-ground transmission lines and equipment.

“I remembered we had coverage if we had a power failure,” he said. “Of course, your agent doesn’t say ‘due to this’ or ‘due to that.’ He said if you lose power you’re covered for spoilage of food and you’re also covered for loss of business.”

But this week Crandall received an email from an insurance company adjuster. “He said he had researched our policy and that it specifically excludes loss of power from outside the property if it’s above-ground damage.

“So in other words, they’re not covering that.”

Crandall could not estimate how much the storm will end up costing him. “We’ve just started to put all that together, but it’s significant,” he said.

His 15 or so employees also have been affected. “Unfortunately, all of the people who work here – and most of them are part-time – none of them have been able to work,” he said.

“It’s just the old thing where, you know, you think you’re covered. And the way things are worded… I mean, I’ve never heard of substations or transfer whatever. Even my insurance agent didn’t know anything about that.”

Crandall said he has serious concerns about his business. The winter season was not great, and now this. “It’s been tough,” he said. “I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

But he’s glad they got the wedding in.

“A lot of weddings in the area were canceled,” he said. “They were disappointed because of all the people who couldn’t make it. But we really specialize in 75- to 85-person weddings, so it worked out perfectly.”

Crandall said Stonecroft has done 35 weddings in the past three years. So far not one has been rained out. Not even this one. 

“It was a beautiful night,” he said.