NORRIDGEWOCK -- Year by year, little by little, Mo and Christine Memmolo had made improvements to the historic Georgian Federal-style brick home they purchased back in 1995.

The Memmolos had put a new roof on the "Dole house," built in 1820 by a man whose descendants created the Dole pineapple fortune. They had installed a new heating system and bathroom, and put up new wallpaper.

They knew they couldn't restore the inside to its former grandeur, but the home was in much better shape than it was 12 years ago.

Was is the operative word.

Sunday night's fire nullified all that effort.

"We've been going step by step fixing it," Christine Memmolo said Tuesday, from Chris's Boston North, a small convenience store the couple runs across River Road from their former home. "I'm left empty now."

But they persevere.

Christine Memmolo, her back aching from an accident two years ago, switched from her chair to a special wheelchair as she spoke. The wheelchair, she explained, relieves the pain in her legs and back.

Mo Memmolo provided coffee for a visitor, insisting it was free of charge. He attended to the customers who occasionally ventured into the old building.

Across the road, a member of the state Fire Marshal's Office was trying to figure out what caused the fire that started in the kitchen and ripped through the ceiling into the attic. By the time firefighters arrived around midnight, the fire was overpowering. They could not save the house, which ranks among the most historic in Norridgewock.

Christine Memmolo said she hasn't been inside since the couple left early Sunday evening for dinner and shopping with a friend in Waterville. She's afraid she might not be ready.

"They won't let me in right now because they're afraid of what I'm going to see," she said. "The only thing I've got out of there right now is my cat."

Of more immediate concern: a place to sleep. The Red Cross has set the Memmolos up with temporary housing at the Towne Motel in nearby Skowhegan. John Owens, owner of Owens Oil in Madison, has offered them the second home he owns in Bingham.

"I can't imagine what it feels like to have nothing," said Owens, who knew Christine Memmolo's parents and does business with the family.

Twelve years ago, the Memmolos moved here from East Boston. Like everyone else, they liked what they saw when they laid eyes on the home built by Amos Fletcher along the Kennebec River.

Some special touches inside the Dole house were gone by then. The French glass windows, oak stair cases, the marble -- all had been removed.

But the enormous rooms impressed them and they bought the home. The Memmolos knew they couldn't restore the inside fully but there was work to be done, and they got started.

"Where would you go to get French glass windows or an oak stairway?" Mo Memmolo asked.

The couple got a clearer understanding of the home's value last summer. On a hot August day, members of the Dole family stopped alongside the road.

"The family came to see where their great-grandmother and great-grandfather lived," Christine Memmolo said. "They came by and took pictures of the house. That the house was still standing -- that we were remodeling it and taking care of it."

Memmolo said that the Doles did not venture inside. Perhaps they should have.

"There's not much hope for it," Mo Memmolo said.

Fire Marshal's Office Inspector Scott Richardson said he was still unsure what caused the fire.

"We've got a lot of digging to do," Richardson said.

Larry Grard -- 474-9534, Ext. 343

lgrard@centralmaine.com