Day after day, thousands of people passed by an unassuming, three-storey building on the corner of New Gower and Springdale streets in St. John's. Operated by the Hull family, the ground floor was rented to a commission merchant; the top two floors and annex building were used as a private hospital for aged and infirm patients. In the dead of winter, on February 10, 1948, the simple lighting of a defective oil stove in the main building set off a chain of events that burned the Hull Home and its Annex to the ground. When the smoke cleared, searchers found death in every room and hallway.