Groton wedding venue Herb Lyceum bounces back from fire with support from neighbors

Three weeks before their big day, the wedding venue Kali and Joey Espinola dreamed of getting married at caught fire. The special date was still far away, but Kali Espinola was already panicking, not knowing if they would get married at Herb Lyceum, a country-to-table restaurant and event space in Groton.

“I didn’t believe it at first,” she said, “and then I started to understand.”

Drawn to the herb gardens, greenhouses and a 19th-century carriage house, couples like the Espinolas have long chosen this idyllic location for their wedding. But early on September 1, the shed, where the kitchen, refrigeration, offices and dining room were located, caught fire. That sent Herb Lyceum’s owners, the Gilson family, scrambling to make sure the bride and groom would still be able to get married.

But they weren’t alone: ​​Groton neighbors came to help. A local camp donated its kitchen, the Groton Inn donated event space, a private school offered a field.

Herb Lyceum has been owned by several generations of the Gilson family since the 1800s. Thirty years ago, David Gilson, the current owner, transformed the property’s 19th century coach house into an event space. The Labor Day fire started in the kitchen, but the cause is still unknown.

The Groton Inn hosted a wedding of 45 guests on Sept. 1, the day of the fire, and local restaurants provided food, Will Gilson said.

“I think that’s one of the most heartwarming things about this tragedy: people are being selfless and offering whatever they can,” said Will Gilson, David Gilson’s son and a Cambridge-based chef.

In the backyard of their home, less than a mile away, Gina Perini and Peter Benedict hosted two weddings for Herb Lyceum. Overlooking hundreds of acres of conservation land with roaming cows and Gibbet Hill, the meadow’s curves of lush green trees already speckled with orange and red provided a charming place for couples to proclaim their love vows for life in front of friends and family.

Fairy lights were hung around three white tents erected in the couple’s garden to welcome guests.

The couple have lived in the house for 17 years and use it for their own family’s weddings. Perini said they are happy and grateful to be able to help other couples and help the Gilsons keep their business running.

“It’s kind of one of those things that in a small town, when one person faces adversity, we all feel it and we want to do something,” Perini said. “It kind of restored to me that beautiful sense of community and the fact that there’s a lot of really good in the world.”

The fire didn’t destroy everything. The greenhouses and guesthouses owned by the Gilson family on the property still stand. And three weeks after the incident, the Gilsons found a way to stay on the land.

In addition to community support, the Gilson family has a GoFundMe page to raise money to rebuild the shed. “Even if nothing can replace the century-old beams and wood used during the renovation, the spirit of the building remains,” we can read on the website. They raised $30,000 of their $500,000 goal.

Although the venue is far from completely restored, Kali, 29, and Joey Espinola, 32, who live in Chelmsford, couldn’t imagine getting married anywhere else.

“We’ve been dreaming of spending this day there for so long and we didn’t want to change our minds,” Kali Espinola said.

“All of this makes me really grateful to be getting married in Groton.”

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Natalie La Roche Pietri can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow her @natalaroche.