NASHUA – An ill-timed mortgage for an expansion just as the recession hit has sent Leda Lanes into bankruptcy reorganization, but owner Sean Howard has hopes that the Nashua landmark will emerge unscathed when court filings are finished.

“For the past five years, I’ve been focusing on mortgages, and brokers, and money. When this is done, hopefully, I can stop chasing money and I can focus on business,” he said.

Leda Lanes, which has hosted candlepin bowling on Amherst Street for more than 50 years, will continue operating as usual while the case goes through U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Concord, Howard said.

The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy March 7, citing debts that included a roughly $2.3 million mortgage and $350,000 in back property taxes owed to Nashua.

Howard said Tuesday that problems began with the construction of Leda’s Lighthouse, the glow-bowling addition, in 2008, just as construction costs soared and the economy stalled.

“Really, what led to it is the recession. Nobody gave me the memo five years ago, when we built a new building, about the economy,” Howard joked.

“We over-leveraged for the new building, even when the concrete was being poured, the sheetrock, it was too much. … We did short-term expensive money leases to get the job done, figuring in the five-year time, we would have had it remortgaged,” he said. “Really, I should have filed (for bankruptcy) five years ago.”

He said he was told that the reorganization “should be quick.”

Howard’s wife, Lynda, recently leased the former Milford Lanes, a candlepin bowling alley on Elm Street in Milford, and has reopened it. Howard said that operation was separate from Leda Lanes, and is not part of the bankruptcy filing.

Howard’s father and uncle, Ray and Edgar Simoneau, opened Leda Lanes in 1959 on what was then a largely rural portion of Amherst Street. Leda was the name of the Simoneau’s mother.

The 18-lane center was built on a 3.5-acre lot, work that required moving a chicken coop the seller threw into the deal.

The Simoneaus opened Leda Lanes after owning Plaza Alleys, an arcade on Railroad Square, at a time when Amherst Street west of what is now the F.E Everett Turnpike was a rural road. Many predicted that the business was too far out of the city to succeed.

Over the decades, several expansions turned Leda Lanes into a 36-lane facility with the Kegler’s Den restaurant, plus Leda’s Lighthouse across the parking lot.

Candlepin bowling is a specialty in New England and eastern Canada. Its smaller balls and pins make it more difficult than 10-pin bowling, even when factoring in that three balls are bowled each frame instead of two.

The sport peaked in the 1970s and has been struggling in recent years, hurt by lack of television coverage due to its regional nature.

Press accounts indicate that two-thirds of the New England candlepin houses that were open in the late 1980s have shut, according to Ralph Semb, president of the International Candlepin Bowling Association.

David Brooks can be reached at 594-6531 or dbrooks@nashua
telegraph.com. Also, follow Brooks on Twitter (@Telegraph_DaveB).