An auction firm has been hired to sell Ravenwood Manor, a multimillion-dollar fire-damaged property donated to Salisbury Township.

The Salisbury Township Board of Commissioners voted 4-0, with one commissioner absent at the Aug. 8 meeting, to approve a resolution engaging Tranzon Alderfer, Harleysville, Montgomery County, for the sale of 3015 Barrington Lane.

Bob Dann, associate broker-auctioner, Tranzon Alderfer, attended the Aug. 8 meeting.

The auction is to be online. Dates for the start and closing of bids have not been announced.

Salisbury Township commissioners Vice President Rodney Conn made the motion, seconded by Commissioner Alok Patnaik, to bring the motion to a vote.

Township commissioners voted 3-0, with two commissioners absent at the March 28 meeting, to authorize entering into a donation agreement with Ravenwood Manor, LLC. Conn made the motion, seconded by Commissioner Heather Lipkin, to bring the motion to a vote.

Attorney Jason A. Ulrich, partner, Gross McGinley LLP, township solicitor, said at the March 28 meeting “this generous donation” ... “will be favorable for the township.”

Ravenwood Manor, off Lindberg Avenue and overlooking Oxford Drive (24th Street) in western Salisbury, was damaged in a fire Nov. 16, 2021, one day after title to the property was transferred to a group of New York investors.

The mansion, which sold for $6.4 million, was built in 1997 for William and Phyllis Grube. A turret with a ballroom, movie theater and game room added in 2016, was destroyed in the fire and subsequently demolished.

After the fire, the property estimated value was $1,733,461, according to Realtor.com.

The house was stated to be 38,000-square-feet with six bedrooms, an elevator, kitchen island, sauna, fireplace, 14.5 bathrooms and a 16-car garage on a. 4.62-acre lot.

According to a Nov. 30, 2021, article in The Press, Grube in 2016 was listed as president and CEO of Night Vision Devices, Inc., Whitehall Township, which he founded in 1971. The firm supplies night-vision equipment to law enforcement and the military. Grub was a former owner of the Cosmopolitan Restaurant, Allentown. William Grube died in 2022.

The Press article stated a housewarming party was held Nov. 15, 2021, at Ravenwood Manor, when “two tour buses of persons connected to the new owners arrived from New York.”

Two firefighters from Cetronia Fire Department, South Whitehall Township, were injured in the fire, The Press article reported.

“The cause of the fire is listed as: undetermined. The origin of the fire was found to be in the stairwell level 1.5-2.5,” Salisbury Township Chief of Police Donald Sabo stated in an email response to a question Aug. 12 as to the cause of the Ravenwood Manor fire by a reporter for The Press.

“Generally speaking with undetermined causes, the case can be reevaluated at any time with additional information,” Sabo said.

“Usually, too much damage or mass loss is noted to hinder the final cause of the fire, or testing and analysis did not yield any definite answers. Undetermined causes remain open,” Sabo said.