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Former historic Cape Cod inn being transformed into vacation home for sick children

FALMOUTH, Mass. — A dream vacation home is being built on Cape Cod.

The major makeover to renovate the former historic Elm Arch Inn in Falmouth is taking major work.

“It was sitting vacant for at least 12 years, so there was a lot of water running through it and there was a lot of bad stuff going on so we gutted the place out,” said Tim O’Connell.

O’Connell bought the former inn two years ago. He’s restoring it into an 11-bedroom vacation home for kids fighting cancer.

It will be called Tommy’s Place – named in memory of a friend, Tommy Leonard.

The kids will be able to come with their families for one-week vacations, free of charge, to enjoy the Cape.

“The whole thing we want to do is provide fun and provide a respite for these families to get away and just be able to relax and be in their own company and be out of the hospitals out of their home environment out of the doctor’s offices,” O’Connell said.

One of the kids looking forward to spending a week at the house is 7-year-old Danny Sheehan of Marshfield.

When Danny was four, doctors diagnosed him with pineoblastoma, a very rare and aggressive form of brain cancer, and leptomeningeal disease, cancer in the cerebral spinal fluid.

The Marshfield Police Department is helping Danny raise funds to decorate one of the bedrooms and it will be called ‘Danny’s Room.'

“I’m so excited for Tommy’s Place to be built. In my room I would want lots of Doritos in it because I love Doritos,” Sheehan said.

If all goes as planned, Tommy’s Place is set to open in the summer of 2021, with at least one bedroom full of Doritos.

You can donate to Tommy’s Place, here.