Three caretakers are out of the Westport mansion they have been staying in after fire tore through it on Sunday night.
Fire started in the great room, a library, at the 17 Quarter Mile Road home of the late Leo Nevas, an attorney and international human rights advocate. He passed away in August.
The 911 call was made just before 9 p.m., according to WestportNow and the Hartford Courant.
Police rescued a dog that had gotten out of the house but there is no word on any injuries to the residents. The caretakers insisted on going back inside, a fire official told Westport Now.
Nevas was an international human rights advocate, a philanthropist and a leader in the Jewish community whose contributions were detailed in an obituary published by the American Jewish World Service.
In 1936, he joined his brother Bernard Nevas’ law office and opened a law office in Westport 1942 when his brother passed away.
Leo Nevas traveled to the U.S.S.R. in 1965 and became friendly with Andrei Sakharov, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and father of the Soviet Union's human rights movement.
Local
The sprawling 3,000 square foot house is in an area without hydrants, Assistant Fire Chief Robert Yost told Westport Now.
The sprawling 3,000 square foot house is in an area without hydrants, Assistant Fire Chief Robert Yost told Westport Now. The house was appraised at almost $1.7 million and assessed at almost $1.2 million, according to the online assessors database.
