Fire Destroys Historic Book House Building in Lake Ronkonkoma

A piece of Lake Ronkonkoma history was destroyed in a fire Tuesday evening.

A vacant building on the lake that was occupied by the Book House for more than a quarter century went up in flames around 5:45 p.m.

The Ronkonkoma Fire Department responded to the blaze at the building on Lake Shore Road at Lincoln Road, south of Windows on the Lake. With a hand from the Nesconset Fire Department, the fire was under control in about 20 minutes. No injuries were reported.

Larry Holzapfel ran the Book House until it closed in 2005.

“It was a venue for people to browse through thousands of old books, talk to the owner Larry and feel engulfed by community spirit in a building hugging the water,” former Sachem Patch editor Chris Vaccaro wrote about the building, which dated back to the 1920s.

“We always left there with a bag of paperbacks,” Evelyn Vollgraff, president of the Lake Ronkonkoma Historical Society, told Patch in 2010. “We used to pack a lunch and go to the Brookhaven Town beach and have a picnic with our children. Larry was a great man and he would entertain the kids with story books.”

Read more about the Book House’s history here.

Photo 1: Facebook/Clare O’Keefe-Nickel

Photos 2-5: Buff N Stuff

Photos 6-9/video: Bryan Lopez