Arson Probers Call Blaze at Golden Door ‘Suspicious’

Investigators Monday sifted through charred rubble in search of the source of the fire that caused $1.5 million in damage--including the destruction of irreplaceable Japanese works of art--at the Golden Door health and beauty spa north of here.

San Diego County sheriff’s arson probers called the fire “suspicious” but stopped short of labeling it arson; they said they were investigating the possibility that the blaze began accidentally in the spa’s laundry area.

Chief Harry Townsend of the San Marcos Fire Protection District said his own investigators are not yet ready to blame the fire--the largest ever battled by his department--on arson.

In either event, Golden Door officials were busy Monday consulting insurance investigators and making plans to reopen for business with a temporary kitchen.

Deborah Szekely, the spa’s owner, was expected to inspect the damage Monday night after cutting short a trip in Costa Rica, where she was on business in her role as president of the Inter-American Foundation.

A Golden Door spokeswoman said a reopening date might be announced today. The spa serves 32 guests who each pay $2,500 a week to undergo a strict physical regimen, accompanied by a gourmet diet.

None of the spa’s residential quarters or workout rooms was damaged in the fire, which took more than 150 firefighters more than two hours to control.

The blaze, which broke out just before 10 p.m. Saturday, destroyed the kitchen and much of the administrative wing of the complex --along with business and computer records, including files on the resort’s famous clientele, who range from political power brokers and entertainers to wealthy business and professional people.

Perhaps the greatest loss was some of the Japanese art that adorned the deceptively unobtrusive complex, constructed in 1975 to resemble a Japanese inn. Destroyed were rare vases and hand-painted Japanese rice-paper screens, including one valued at $35,000 that was said to be irreplaceable because of restrictions Japan has placed on exports.

Fire officials put the damage to the structure itself at $500,000 but said the ruined contents, including the art, were worth $1 million.

Lt. Doug Clements of the sheriff’s arson and explosives unit said Monday that, while his investigators still consider the fire “suspicious in origin,” they are withdrawing earlier statements that it was deliberately set and will continue the probe with San Marcos fire investigators.

“It may be a month before we have this figured out,” Clements said.

While there were indications that the fire began in an administrative office, the first firemen at the scene reported that flames were shooting from the laundry room, which is on the other side of a breezeway from the administrative office.

The fire spread quickly through the service and administrative building because there were no fire walls in the attic to slow the flames, Townsend said. Such fire walls were not required at the time the building was built, he noted. (The original Golden Door opened about a mile east of its current site in 1959 and was relocated in 1975 to the present site.)

Also hampering firefighting efforts was the use of fireproof concrete roof tiles, which did not burn and thereby blocked efforts to pour water onto the fire from above. Instead, firemen had to break through walls and direct their streams of water in from the side.

Much of the structural damage came when the roof eventually caved in.