A fire early Monday morning burned down the old Fennell family home on property slated for apartments behind Sam’s Club in Lady Lake.
Smoke from the fire was visible from quite some distance. Information about how the fire may have started was not immediately available. The house was slated for demolition as part of the apartment project.
The Fennell home was situated in a 44-acre heavily wooded site at County Road 25 and Griffin Avenue. The complex to be constructed at the site will be called the Lady Lake Square apartments. The developer of the apartments is the Benchmark Group, which has a long relationship with the Town of Lady Lake. Benchmark has brought in a host of successful retail including Best Buy, Sam’s Club, Texas Roadhouse, Longhorn Steakhouse and Lady Lake Commons which includes Miller’s Ale House and Earth Fare.
Benchmark acquired the property from the Fennell family in 2016. The Fennells made the land available for Lady Lake to build its town hall 20 years ago. The street that runs beside town hall is named Fennell Boulevard.
