Authorities are investigating the cause of a fire that destroyed a former Chesapeake Bay education center that was cherished by generations of students and other visitors.
The Fox Island structure, built in the 1920s as a rod-and-gun club, rested on pilings just above the Bay’s lapping waves.
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation purchased the building and the adjacent marshland in the 1970s. The nonprofit operated it as an environmental education center until 2019. Over the years, tens of thousands of children and adults visited the island, lying in the Bay just east of Virginia’s Tangier Island, for extended immersions in nature. The remote location could only be reached by boat.
Erosion and sea level rise scoured away most of what remained of Fox Island during the Bay Foundation’s ownership. The group ended programming there out of concern for visitor safety. It sold the property in 2020 for $70,0000 to a limited liability company, which reverted the facility back to a hunting lodge.
A fire on the night of Feb. 9 left little but singed pilings in its wake, according to photographs posted to social media. Virginia State Police and the Accomack County Sheriff’s Office launched a joint investigation but couldn’t immediately determine the fire’s origin or cause.
Hilary Harp Falk, the Bay Foundation’s president and CEO, said the building’s loss left many in her organization — and beyond — in mourning.
“Fox Island was the backdrop to thousands of students and teachers falling in love with the Chesapeake Bay,” she said. “Simply put, it was magic.”
