The charred remains of a vacant building are seen Monday at the former Elan School on Number Five Road in Poland. The cause of the blaze early Sunday morning has not been determined. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

POLAND — The Maine Office of State Fire Marshal has not yet determined the cause of the fire that leveled a vacant building at the former Elan School early Sunday morning.

Poland Fire Rescue was joined by several fire departments to extinguish the flames devouring one of several abandoned buildings at 70 Number Five Road. There was no electricity to the building.

Chief Thomas Printup said the fire caused minor damage to an adjacent building and started to spread into the woods.

No injuries were reported.

The private school for troubled teens was opened in 1970 by the late Joseph Ricci, former owner of Scarborough Downs and once candidate for Maine governorship. The school cited declining enrollment for its April 2011 closure and attributed allegations and testimonies of abuse over the years to the enrollment problem.

Windows in a building at the former Elan School in Poland are boarded Monday. A fire of unknown origin leveled one building at the property on Number Five Road. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel’s 2002 murder trial and conviction brought attention to the Elan School where Skakel spent some of his teen years. Skakel allegedly confessed to several residents his involvement in the murder of his Greenwich, Connecticut, neighbor Martha Moxley in 1975.

Skakel was arrested in 2000 and convicted in 2002. He served 11 years of a 20-year sentence when his conviction was overturned in 2013 on the grounds his trial lawyer did not represent him adequately.

Elan School made the news again in 2016, years after its closure, over the death of 15-year-old resident Phil Williams Jr. in 1982. Williams died after he was forced to fight another resident in a boxing match when he complained of a headache, according to several witnesses to the fight.

Former Elan resident Mark Babitz obtained Williams’ incomplete death certificate and names of witnesses to the fight. Williams’ sister Pam Newell was 12 years old and in foster care at the time and was told her brother died of a brain aneurysm. Babitz and Newell presented the information to Maine State Police who opened an investigation.

Trying to expose Elan School’s dark past to the world, Babitz was a big part of a documentary film “The Last Stop,” which was created by another former Elan resident, filmmaker Todd Nilssen. The film was composed of interviews with past Elan residents and of reenactments based on situations that allegedly occurred at the school.

The property was sold in 2015 to local retired veterinarian Stephen Kinney who lives nearby on Colbath Road.

Kinney was not available for comment on Sunday’s fire.

A page of a book and a piece of a trophy lies Monday on Number Five Road in Poland where a building at the former Elan School burned early Sunday morning. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

One of Kinney’s neighbors, who asked not to be named, said Kinney is quite upset over the incident.

“He’s angry that place has been vandalized and violated so often, (but) the property is a magnet for trouble that quite a few handfuls of people have bad memories about.”

The neighbor said he’s lived on Colbath Road for many years and has had run-ins with residents from the school while it was open and with alumni of the school returning to see its current condition.

The neighbor said when Elan was open his new car was stolen by a group of residents who also helped themselves to some money and all of his beer.

“(Residents) would walk down the driveway sometimes. They’d knock on the door and would want to know how they could get a cab to get to Portland.”

Boarded up buildings are seen Monday at the former Elan School on Number Five Road in Poland. The charred remains of one building area seen after it burned early Sunday morning. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

The neighbor said a few years ago he saw a man driving down to the school and asked him what he was doing.

“’Just visiting my old school,’” the man was quoted as saying.

Asked if he was one of the residents who was looking to face old demons, the man said it was a loaded question.

“’Look,’ the guy said. ‘50% of us came out here and it helped us, and 50% of us never got past it,’” the neighbor recounted.

Chris Spurr has lived about four houses down from the school the past 21 years, the first seven while the school was still open.

“It’s quiet and, honestly, you’d never notice its even there,” Spurr said, adding that the last years of the school were fairly quiet. “We never had a problem. It was probably three or four years of activity with a lot of students — 50 to 60 — and then it was really quiet.”

The school had quite the track team at one point, Spurr said. The athletes would regularly jog up Number Five Road onto Colbath Road and back down again.

Spurr said since the documentary film “The Last Stop” was released in 2017, renewed interest in the school’s dark past brought out a variety of visitors from local teens up to hijinks to ghost hunters, amateur sleuths, cultists and general wanderers.

“It’s been a pain with the traffic and the kids going into the buildings and that kind of stuff,” Spurr said. “You know, as long as we keep allowing kids to go in there, stuff like this could happen. Now, it may not have been (kids), it just seems highly coincidental when you have kids in and out of there.”

The former Elan School property is seen Monday on Number Five Road in Poland. A fire of unknown origin leveled one building early Sunday morning. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal