And Moira Vaughan, Nick Dekaney, Marisa Nuñez, Keleigh Arrington, Sydney-Leigh Brockington
Transcript of What happened at Nob Hill?
MOIRA VAUGHAN (Reporter): I’m Moira Vaughan.
NICK DEKANEY (Reporter): I’m Nick Dekaney.
DEKANEY: Now to a Newhouse Spotlight Team investigation. The place we’re focusing on tonight used to be sought after and even considered exclusive.
Now, there are deplorable living conditions. Tenants saying they’re living in squalor, with one lawsuit filed after another.
VAUGHAN: You’re about to go along with the Spotlight Team – on a journey – in a four-month investigation – to get to the bottom of what happened at Nob Hill?
VAUGHAN: This is a place you would never want to live
TENANT ROSE VERSHOT: Oh my god the ceiling is bulging.
VAUGHAN: Deplorable conditions… exposed wires, laundry rooms piled with trash, EVEN water coming through the ceiling.
VERSHOT: Not only has nothing been done to repair this this week
VAUGHAN: Tenants are fed up with living like this
TENANT ARIANNA MYERS: I’m just overwhelmed, and then I cry
VERSHOT: I just feel pretty hopeless.
TENANT JIM PRITCHETT: Why is this happening?
VAUGHAN: And where is this man who has made so many promises…and let all of these people down. It’s a story they never wanted you to see. But it wasn’t always like this. For you to fully understand how far Nob Hill has fallen, we need to start at a very different time in its history – when Nob Hill was referred to as Snob Hill.
PREVIOUS WORKER LORIE EASTMANN: We were lucky that anybody moved out, because everybody loved it there.
VAUGHAN: Former employee Lorie Eastman spent 34 years at Nob Hill— and remembers the building going by a different name
EASTMAN : Snob Hill
VAUGHAN: The complex was home to doctors, nurses, and retirees—a place people wanted to live.
EASTMAN: We had the Irish dancers. We would put on a big party every five years for the residents who had been there five years or more.
VAUGHAN: Now, tenants say that care is gone. This is what Nob Hill looks like today.
PRITCHETT: This has been like this for the past four weeks.
VAUGHAN: And this isn’t exactly the place you’d want to clean your clothes, or walk through the halls.
PRITCHETT: Look at this stuff. This is never like this when I first came. None of our halls gets vacuumed, none.
VAUGHAN: Tt’s bad enough living like this in full health… but imagine the burden for Ariana Myers
MYERS: And I’m just like well, I don’t know what to do!
VAUGHAN: Ariana has been on disability leave since January, and she just had surgery because she’s genetically likely to get breast cancer.
She’s had no heat in her apartment – and no one to help.
MYERS: I wake up shivering, and I have to hold my incisions because I’m so cold, and you guys get to sleep warmly in your house.
VAUGHAN: Ariana showed the Newhouse Spotlight team hundreds of phone call logs of her trying to reach out to management and the main office.
VERSHOT: Slowly but surely, water started dripping through the ceiling like rivers.
VAUGHAN: This is what Rose Vershot saw in her apartment two months ago.
VERSHOT: Water is coming down from the ceiling… out of the light… it is flooding the floor.
VAUGHAN: Rose calls the property manager, Joe Labita, a man of empty promises.
VERSHOT: He gave us a signed piece of paper saying in two weeks’ time this is all going to be turned around and good as new. They have not even started construction on that apartment to this day.
The Newhouse Spotlight team went through hundreds of code violations, sanctioning Nob Hill. Over six years, the property accumulated more than 300 documented code violations, and the numbers keep climbing. The most repeated violations tell the story of the building falling apart from the inside out – 30 citations for mechanical equipment failures, 27 for infestation, 54 for damaged interior surfaces, 51 citations for plumbing failures, 19 citations for heat supply failures — in a Syracuse winter. And the most alarming citation is that the property was cited 17 times for being a structure unfit for human occupancy.
ONONDAGA MAJORITY LEADER NODESIA HERNANDEZ: We’re losing lives. People are being killed. People. It’s too much. It needs to stop now. It needs to stop with this administration.
VAUGHAN: We reached out to Joe Labita for comment on addressing the code violations and management of the property, and did not hear back. In 2018, Nob Hill apartments were bought through a three-way joint venture – that’s when the problems started.
PRITCHETT: They cut the staff in half.
VAUGHAN: But it wasn’t until last March, when a new management company took over the property, that tenants say the conditions escalated –and for some turned fatal. A fire in February left an entire building unfit for occupancy. Two people died. In a place that was once called Snob Hill – it’s now fighting to be a place that people can safely call home
PRITCHETT: Good people are moving out. Good tenants who are responsible. Good, responsible tenants.
Moira: To read more about this investigation from our digital reporters, head to the bow below this story. For the Newhouse Spotlight Team, I’m Moira Vaughan.
SYRACUSE, N.Y. – Sean Stanyon woke up around 4:30 a.m. on Feb. 28, 2026 to his dog barking.
It smelled strongly of smoke. That’s when he noticed the fire trucks outside.
He took his dog, phone and wallet and started searching for an exit. He navigated the pitch-black hallways, coughing and gagging from inhaling the smoke. He eventually found the main exit and escaped.
“It was the scariest day of my life,” Stanyon said.
That night, his smoke alarm wasn’t working and the emergency lights in the hall weren’t functioning. If his dog hadn’t woken him up, he doesn’t know if he would have made it out alive.
Unfortunately, others weren’t as lucky. Two people died that night, including 78-year-old Augustus Grissett and 26-year-old Kaivon Barrott. The fire exposed years of unresolved safety complaints and hundreds of code violations at Nob Hill Apartments, a Syracuse complex now facing foreclosure, court action and mounting tenant complaints. Dating back to June 2020, the property accumulated at least 354 code violations. As of March 2026, 86 violations remain open.
Nob Hill is additionally facing issues from its mortgage lender, Fannie Mae. In January 2026, a foreclosure notice was issued to the apartment complex. The complex currently owes $53 million. Fannie Mae has since placed a receiver at the complex due to repeated failed repairs by the owners.
City of Syracuse v. Nob Hill Apartment Group LLC
The city of Syracuse filed a lawsuit against Nob Hill Apartment Group LLC in April 2025 for a “myriad” of violations, reporting over 100 violations in the original petition. These code violations include leaks, water damage, broken elevators, lack of maintenance upkeep, inactive key fobs, mold, pest infestations and dysfunctional heating systems. More than 20 violations were brought to court.
The initial petition stated that “elevators, dumbwaiters, and moving stairs shall be inspected and maintained in accord with the applicable provisions of the Safety Code for Elevators and Escalators for the City of Syracuse and the New York State Uniform Fire Prevention and Building Code.” The corrective action from the city was to “provide elevator certification and bring elevators up to code.” The violation was never corrected, prompting the city to issue an outstanding violation notice to the apartment complex on Dec. 10, 2024.
EXHIBIT A – NOVEMBER 2024 EMAIL THREAD
Additional violations were issued to the apartment group through 2024 to the beginning of 2025.
These violations are just two of many faced by Nob Hill. The violations amounted to fines of over $340,300 – fines which have not been paid to the city of Syracuse.
The Human Toll
Stanyon now lives in a smaller, fifth-floor apartment in Building 2 after the fire below his second-floor apartment in Building 3.
Between living with ongoing issues with mold, poor maintenance, unreliable elevators and a joint disability in his knee, Stanyon has been distressed for several months. He said when he reported the mold issue, maintenance had just painted over the mold. When he still lived in his old building, he recalls multiple flooding reports and about 165 vacant, uninhabitable apartments.
Now, living in Building 2, Stanyon’s heat is so unreliable that he wakes up early to start the hot shower to warm up his bathroom before getting ready.
Stanyon doesn’t have access to most of his belongings after the fire, as they are still in his old apartment. The fire, investigators said, was caused by an overworked space heater.
Concerns like these are everyday life for Nob Hill tenants. Phone calls take tenants straight to an artificial intelligence service system run by Destra Multifamily, the company managing Nob Hill. The inability to reach a real person when maintenance or repair is needed leads to days or even weeks of unlivable conditions, tenants said.
Nob Hill Apartments claims these conditions have been improving since Destra took over management in June 2025, but Jeremy Lloyd disagrees. He moved into Nob Hill in January 2026, seven months after Destra took over. He has lived with the ceiling leaking, roaches and his car was vandalized in Nob Hill’s parking lot. Lloyd said they eventually came to repair the leak, but he remains concerned about crime around Nob Hill, which he believes is connected to the deteriorating conditions.
“I am asking for help,” he said. “I work hard for nothing but God has my back.”
Lloyd is deaf, and having these issues in his Nob Hill apartment has been stressful due to the lack of communication between him and Nob Hill Apartments and management.
How Nob Hill Changed
Nob Hill hasn’t always been this way. Once referred to as “Snob Hill,” the complex was once regarded as a large-scale luxury apartment complex. Lorie Eastman spent 34 happy years working at the apartment building and remembers the parties staff threw to honor tenants who had lived there for five years. “We were lucky if anyone moved out because everybody just loved it there,” she said.
Now, laundry rooms are covered wall to wall with garbage bags. Tenants can’t help but wonder what went wrong.
Nob Hill began declining around 2018 after it was purchased by Windsor Hospitality, Basalt Capital LLC and Sinatra & Company Real Estate through a joint venture called Nob Hill Apartment Group LLC.
Former property manager Mayfair Management Group testified in court that maintenance issues went unresolved because requests for repair funding were repeatedly denied by the ownership group.
Since then, several management companies have cycled through Nob Hill, but ownership has remained the same. Joe Labita is the current property manager representing Destra, which took over management in spring 2025.
Although Destra is new, it is tied to Windsor Hospitality through Patrick Nesbitt Jr., whose family leads Windsor Hospitality. Court testimony from Mayfair said Nesbitt Jr. signed the contract transferring management of Nob Hill to Destra on behalf of Nob Hill Apartment Group LLC.
Sinatra & Company said in an email that it has not had operational or managerial control over Nob Hill for years and declined to comment further on current or future litigation.
Joe Labita’s Court Appearance
On April 13, 2026, Labita made his second appearance in court. A group of tenants huddled in a corner of the courtroom.
Labita testified in court saying that largely all the code violations have been addressed – “almost 95%,” he said. Tenants could be heard murmuring in frustration from the back of the room.
Labita read complaints off of papers he brought with him, stating the repair order numbers. He stated reports that were addressed, but didn’t have dates for when any of the repairs were done.
At one point, Labita said the key fob system to get let into the building is functional. A majority of the room reacted to this. Tenants in attendance shook their heads in disbelief. As of late April, the key fob system did not work.
Labita, when talking about a particular unit, said the complaints have been addressed and repairs have been made. At this point, a voice erupted from the back of the room, objecting to his statement. It was Stanyon. Stanyon sat next to the cross-examiner and explained that these repairs had in fact not been made.
Being held accountable
Tenants continue to face broken elevators, leaking, poor heating facilities, and more. Violations are still outstanding — nearly six years after initial violations were filed against Nob Hill Apartment Group LLC. After six attempts by the Newhouse Spotlight Team to reach Labita for an interview or comment, he did not respond. Nesbitt Jr. also did not respond to comment.
“I want to see some kind of decent settlement where we can go somewhere else to live,” Stanyon said. “It’s scary because we (try to) get back on our feet and save money, but we’re not staying in a safe place.”
Onondaga County Legislature Majority Leader Nodesia Hernandez told the Newhouse Spotlight Team on the chamber floor that she is fed up with Syracuse’s recent history of hazardous buildings. “We’re losing lives. People are being killed. It’s too much. It needs to stop.”
LISTEN NOW
AUDIO EXTRA! City’s History With Hazardous Buildings. Nick Dekaney advances the story.
Most tenants cannot leave Nob Hill because they cannot afford to. Over the past year, Stanyon has juggled court appearances and work while seeking justice for Nob Hill tenants and trying to make ends meet so he can eventually move out.
Stanyon said he has spent the past more than two years in a cycle of filing maintenance complaints and waiting for responses. He said living at Nob Hill has left him depressed and fearful.
Recalling the night of the fire, Stanyon remembers looking out the window and seeing what he described as a ball of fire.
“It was a sign from God,” Stanyon said. “I don’t belong there anymore.”
Dylan van Breda contributed to this report.
Producers: Sydney Brockington, Keleigh Arrington, Roxanne Boychuk, Nick Dekaney and Marisa Nuñez