yep, exactly the same thing happened with a forum I was not only a member but also one of 2 Mods
he was a younger guy a businessman and he thought that a forum for older people would be a great success, finacially as well as anything else. He funded it himself... but eventually he just couldn't put up with the nonsense that people cause... he worked full time, he didnt have the patience to come home and have to deal with the crap, and he shut it down.
Friendships made over several years gone.. gone forever...photos gone.. people very upset, didn't know what to do, where to go... in the few days leading up to the closure, I must have got a hundred PM's as a mod people giving me their private email addresses, so they wouldn't lose touch....it was heartbreaking ...