If Your House Burns Down

If you ponder construction, as I do in this column, sometimes you have to face the possibility of destruction, and think about rebuilding….

Photo: Brant Ward, The ChronicleA friend of mine was on vacation in Europe when he found out that his beloved big old family lakeside house in Oklahoma had burned down.  His grandparents had designed it and his father had built it in the 50’s, beside a lake, and generations of cousins had gathered there summers and holidays.  Struck by lightening in the middle of the night, it was gone in just a couple hours.  No one was home, or living there at the time.  A neighbor discovered it in the morning, a smoking shell.

From Switzerland, hiking around Mt. Blanc, he posted old photos of the house, and new ones his cousins had sent him of the fire’s aftermath, just the massive rockwork foundation and charred remains.  He wrote (grieving through Facebook) how hard it was to be so far away, while cousins and nieces and nephews streamed in from all over the country to mourn the loss, sift through the ashes, share old memories.

And to talk about how to rebuild the beloved home. The stone foundation was still intact and strong, and they even found the old plans.  A cousin was a contractor.  They had good insurance.  After many family meetings they agreed on a design.  Now he posts rebuilding pictures while he spends extended time there.

But they are not recreating an identical copy of the old house.  They’re adding more sleeping porches, making the family room bigger, improving the heat. They are keeping the signature rockwork foundation and the general line of the house, but expanding it for the needs of the family today. And putting on a roof of fire resistant shingles.

1991 Oakland Hills FireWhen our friend told us this story, it got my husband and me thinking about what we would do if our house burned down.  (We live in the woods, in a fire dangerous area - it’s probably more a case of when, not if it burns down.)  Would we rebuild?  And would we rebuild the same kind of house or a different one?  When Ron designed and built this house 45 years ago, he was a young bachelor and first time builder.  In 1969 there were no requirements for conserving energy (windows, insulation etc).  Some parts of the house don’t have the seal of approval from the county.  (We’ve added a room or two or three since the building inspector left – please don’t tell Monterey County.) 

So we are older and wiser, our needs are simpler, and there is room for improvement.  We imagine we would rebuild.  But not on the steep slope we are on now, rather on a lower more accessible spot on our property.  And that we build smaller and downsize a bit, for ease and energy efficiency.  We would lose some of the dramatic views, but it would be a more sensible house. 

At the same time we would probably keep some of the same features of the old house, as did my friend and his family: local materials, open beam ceilings, wood burning stove.  It would be a leaner version of our beloved old house.

Others I talked with about this possibility agreed - they would certainly rebuild, but smaller.  (I am aware this is a first world problem, that we own a house and have fire insurance.)  But we, and many friends, are of an age where downsizing and ease of living are appealing.  What about folks who are younger or live in the suburbs or cities, what would they do, or have they done, after devastating fires?

I looked up what happened after some big California fires in the past.  In 1991 the Oakland Hills Fire raged for three days in a compact residential hillside neighborhood and destroyed 3000 homes, 25 lives lost.  Follow up stories revealed some interesting trends:

-folks who had lost loved ones in the fire mostly did not want to return or rebuild – too painful and they moved away.

-but most did rebuild, saying it was part of the healing process, to prove they were not undone by the forces of chance or destruction and that they could chose the future, not stay stuck in the past.

-no one build the same house.

-and no one built smaller.

1991 Oakland Hills FireThe Oakland Hills neighborhood had been old, when houses were smaller and yards were larger.  Huge old trees and too much brush kept folks a little isolated, there was not a lot of neighborhood camaraderie.  But with it all gone, down to smoking foundations, and (unlike my friend’s house) with the stark memories of loss of life as well as home, they realized how very much had changed.  And how there was no going back. 

For some, no going back meant taking the insurance money and moving away, from sorrow or because they could get so much more away from the expensive Bay Area. 

For others, the rebuilding was part of the healing. They connected much more with neighbors than they had before, from shared sorrow and loss, and just from more open space.  They saw a neighbor rebuilding and they said, I could do that. They encouraged each other.  Their views of San Francisco and the Bay had been tremendous and valuable.  But with the old trees burned they could see more of that great view. They decided to build higher, and started to realize they could improve also, a bigger garage, more bedrooms.  The new houses have much more square footage, and are more modern.  And they are of very varied design, when before they were more similar.  They cover much more of the lot, less yard.  And speculators came in after the fire and built new homes on previous open lots, taking advantage of that value and view.

Such a different outcome from my imagined smaller house or my friend’s attempt to recreate the past with a few improvements.  But then my friend’s house, and ours, are the only houses in sight in a rural area, while Oakland was a dense neighborhood of upwardly mobile folks.  Our homes are as much about the past as the future.  The Oakland survivors do still have memorials and still tell the fire stories, but they are all about the future.

You look up “burned homes – rebuild?” and get links to stories about the Oakland Fire, the Santa Barbara Fire, the Lake County Fire, the Dome Fire, the San Diego Fires – it goes on and on.  It many cases the burned houses were on the edges of open space, even in Oakland and San Diego, on windy hillside roads with too much brush.  I remember thinking, well, if you are going to live in such a dangerous place….and then looking around at where I live, and rewriting that list of what to take in case we are forced to evacuate.

It’s good to plan and good to know it’s all temporary and good to know it’s just stuff, and that the most precious possession is life and family…..And good to hear stories of rebuilding, small or large, going forward.

Copyright © 2016 Deborah Streeter