Rebuilding Hope, Not Just Homes

LAGUNA BEACH —  Jackie Allen tries hard to focus on the future, imagining a time, perhaps late next year, when she will be home.

She will entertain guests again, something she has not felt able to do since the flames consumed her home and eight others on Buena Vista Way. She will stop feeling jumpy at the slightest provocation. And she will look out her window at the return of her neighborhood.

“This next year, everything’s going to be moving,” Allen said, a note of determination creeping into her voice. “We’re all going to feel better when we see the houses go up. That’s what we all need.”

One year after the Laguna firestorm raced down this narrow, hillside street, incinerating homes and disrupting lives, Buena Vista Way looks much as it did in the days just after the blaze was extinguished: a devastated landscape of barren slabs and twisted trees.

The extent of the trauma is equally clear along the street.

Sheila Patterson speaks of a vulnerability and fear she never had before. Allen’s eyes fill as she says she has tried without success to make her pleasant, but temporary, dwelling in South Laguna feel like a home.

And George Cary and Tom Homan say they are still unsettled, unable to regain the comfortable stability of life before the fire.

In other fire-ravaged Laguna neighborhoods, rebuilding is underway, with more than 70 homes going up throughout the city, and four already completed. But progress on Buena Vista has been agonizingly slow, marred by geological worries, insurance problems and bitter disputes among former neighbors.

In fact, by last week’s anniversary, not one of the street’s fire victims had received a permit to rebuild, though several were nearing that milestone.

“We’ve just been at a standstill,” said Allen, who hopes that she and her husband, Jim, will break ground for their new home on Buena Vista Way by the end of November. “I feel like we’ve all been on this constant hold ever since the fire.”

In another blow to the neighborhood’s recovery, nearly half the street’s fire victims have chosen not to return and another is wavering. With land values relatively low, those moving away also said they have no immediate plans to sell, raising the possibility that their lots might lie empty for years to come.

But despite the frustrations, the pace of recovery--and the mood--on Buena Vista is picking up.

Architectural plans for three new homes--the Allens’ at the north end of the street, the Pattersons’ across the way, and Homan’s next door--have emerged from Laguna’s design review process. If all goes well, the three should receive building permits by year’s end.

“I feel like I’ve got something tangible to focus on now,” Patterson said of her plans for a two-story dwelling. “There’s something I can point to, some evidence that I’m getting closer to moving back home.”

In the months since the fire, the nine families and individuals who lost their homes here have managed to remain surprisingly upbeat. Some said they have gained strength or insight from the experience; others use humor to cope with the anguish and frustrations it left behind.

“It’s not my house I miss, but the things in it,” Jackie Allen said, tears staining her face. “It’s your memories, things from your mother, your grandmother.”

“It’s that long list of things that Jackie wrote out for me to do,” Jim Allen said facetiously. “I miss that a lot.”

There are scattered signs of rebirth. Bright-green shoots have pushed up around the bases of many blackened trees and, here and there, architects’ placards and spindly wooden stakes hold promise that life will return to the burned-out end of this street.

The new homes will reflect an increased awareness of fire safety. Gone are the wooden decks and siding, the shake and shingle roofs. In their place will be concrete patios, stucco walls and tile or concrete roofs.

But making their houses more resistant to the flames is not the only lesson these fire survivors have learned.

Jim Allen, 64, said he takes more time to appreciate life each day. “I can’t really explain it, but a lot of those things I was rushing to don’t seem that important anymore,” said Allen, a former contractor who works in the county’s public works department.

Julie Ireland, 75, said that although her home survived, she takes pleasure in nature in a way she never did. “I would not have expressed myself in this manner before, but it was a thrill to see the tiny green shoots” coming up recently on a neighbor’s burned-out lot, she said.

Don Williamson, 80, and his wife, Jo, 78, lost their home of 37 years, along with a lifetime of belongings. Among the items they miss most are the hundreds of art books collected during Don’s tenure as director of Laguna’s Pageant of the Masters, and the costumes and mementos from the days they both spent as amateur actors at the Laguna Playhouse.

In the fire’s wake, Don Williamson said, he and his wife understand even more fully how much they cherish their relationships with friends, family and especially son Doug, daughter Jennie and son-in-law Geoff Riker.

The year since the fire has included measures of joy and aggravation, he said.

“The joys are that nobody was hurt, and we lost everything but we’re getting it back,” said Williamson, whose family is among those now leaving the street. “Some of it is really kind of exciting. You can’t change location and every possession without thinking in terms of beginning a different kind of a life.”

The old life, for the Williamsons and others on this peaceful, winding street overlooking the Pacific, was quiet and secluded. Few residents knew their neighbors well. One, college professor Christian Werner, knew none of them at all.

Except for Ireland, who often walked her two tiny dogs to the street’s dead-end and chatted with those along her route, and Patterson, 40, an attorney who frequently jogged through the area, most of the rest lived in pleasant isolation from one another. That is, until the October afternoon when a wildfire roared into their Temple Hills neighborhood, the last section of Laguna to burn.

Over the next several days, the street’s residents returned to find their homes and possessions gone. Many greeted each other for the first time, exchanging names along with condolences.

The barriers continued to fall as they shared information and frustrations about insurance and architects, foundations and geology. Several spoke of budding friendships and of a new spirit of community that might develop as they all rebuilt.

But several events have intervened.

Between January and April, resident after resident decided not to return. The reasons varied from a reluctance to go through the trials of rebuilding to concerns about reports that geologists had found evidence of potential instability beneath some lots.

The news that so many were leaving hit hard for the few who remained.

“You just start to feel like you know your neighbors a little better and then half of them move away,” said Jackie Allen, who has lived on the street for 19 years. “You get closer to them because of the fire, but then they’re all gone.”

Joseph Becker, 34, a businessman who had rented out his Buena Vista Way property, was the first to decide against rebuilding. In 1991, he said, he had spent $300,000 remodeling the three-story stucco house he owned next to the Allens and was not interested in another construction project.

Becker put his lot on the market in January but the listing has since expired. He plans to wait for the market to improve, he said.

Next were the Williamsons, who had lived in a distinctive A-frame house that Don, an architect, had designed.

Prompted by fears of an ancient landslide in their neighborhood that later was found to be smaller and less serious than feared, the Williamsons purchased a lot on Morningside Drive in Laguna’s Bluebird Canyon. They expect to begin construction on their new home before the end of the year.

“We still love Buena Vista and we’ll hang on to that (lot) for a while, but we’re really just as happy with Morningside,” he said.

George Cary and Marlene Wright, who had lived in a multilevel house between Becker’s and Werner’s properties, reached a settlement with their insurer in March. Prompted by geological issues and a longtime desire to find a larger, flatter lot for their children, they bought land on a hilltop overlooking Buena Vista.

Their rebuilding plans finally emerged two weeks ago from the design review process after they made changes in response to neighbors’ protests that the house would block their ocean views. But one neighbor remains unhappy and has appealed to the City Council.

The delay has “cost a lot emotionally,” said Cary, 43, an attorney in Newport Beach. “That’s really the most difficult thing: the frustration of not being able to get back to where we were, with a stable home, a place to raise our kids and have some peace and quiet.

“We still feel like we’re living out of a suitcase.”

James Kelly and Robert Mangel, whose Spanish-style dwelling had stood beside the Williamsons’, also opted to leave Buena Vista last spring.

Kelly, 45, the director of the department of social work at Cal State Long Beach, and Mangel, 44, an emergency room physician, bought an oceanfront house in Laguna’s Woods Cove.

Their reasons included fears that an already rocky relationship with one neighbor might worsen during the rebuilding process, Kelly said, but mainly, they just needed to move forward after months on hold.

Yet another property owner is undecided about rebuilding. Loretta Edger, who had rented her Buena Vista house to a tenant but often visited from her home in Illinois, said she worries about the time commitment involved in construction.

“There’s a part of me that has already designed the (new) house,” said Edger, a former teacher and real estate agent. “I can see it in my mind. But there’s another part that doesn’t want to be there all the time, and I’m not the kind of person who could rebuild from afar. I still don’t know.”

However, even those committed to rebuilding have not had an easy time.

Werner, 59, the acting dean of social sciences at UC Irvine, has not reached a settlement with his insurer, the California Casualty Group, and accused the company last week of “nickel-and-diming me to death.”

The latest of several conflicts, Werner said, is over how much the insurer will pay toward his new foundation, which must be upgraded from the old one to meet current codes. The difference between the cost of the old and new foundations may amount to more than $50,000, he said.

James M. Sevey, senior vice president of California Casualty, said the complaint is unfair, in part because the question of whether the more expensive foundation is necessary has not been resolved.

The company has tried to be responsive to Werner’s concerns, Sevey said. In March, he said, it agreed to waive the cap on the professor’s standard homeowner’s policy.

“We have a duty to Dr. Werner to make sure he receives the benefit of his policy, but also to all of our other policyholders not to be too liberal (in settling claims),” Sevey said. “We’re trying to balance those duties.”

But with several of his neighbors on the brink of rebuilding, Werner said he remains frustrated at the slow progress of his claim and looks forward to the day he can rebuild his house and replant his beloved garden of vines, trees and shrubs from all over the world.

“Sometimes, these frustrations do get me down temporarily, but it does not last,” said Werner, who emigrated from Germany nearly 30 years ago. “I have lots of good friends, I get a lot of support from this (university) system.”

For several current and former Buena Vista residents, though, one of the most distressing aspects of the fire’s aftermath was a bitter conflict between two former--and future--neighbors over rebuilding plans.

Sheila Patterson and Tom Homan had lived beside each other on the uphill side of Buena Vista Way for more than five years. Their houses were the only two on that side of the street to burn.

But when Homan produced his plans for reconstruction, Patterson and several residents on the street above objected, leading to multiple design review hearings and numerous revisions before the plans were approved. The dispute, which centered on whether Homan’s new house would block the views of his neighbors, at times degenerated to angry name-calling, with both Patterson and Homan characterizing the other as greedy.

But each last week expressed relief that a compromise has been reached and said they could paper over their problems.

“We’ll be all right,” said Homan, 41, who heads an industrial distribution company in Irvine. “I’m sure we both just want the neighborhood to be peaceful and friendly again.”

Patterson agreed. “We’ll put it behind us; how can you not?” she asked. “I’m not going to live next to a guy and not live there as neighbors.”

They and others hope that they have rounded a corner, that the long, difficult year for this tiny street and so many of its residents is finally at an end.

“We just need to put it all behind us now and try to go on,” Jackie Allen said. “It doesn’t do any of us any good to focus on what a tough year it’s been. We need to get back on track with our lives.”

BUENA VISTA WAY CHRONOLOGY

OCTOBER, 1993

Fire destroys nearly 400 homes in Laguna area, including nine on Buena Vista Way.

DECEMBER

Buena Vista Way fire survivors meet with adjusters, architects and builders, pay endless visits to the disaster relief center and City Hall, and begin the process of compiling lists of belongings.

JANUARY, 1994

Joseph Becker, who had rented his house to a tenant, settles with his insurer and puts his lot up for sale.

FEBRUARY

Budding solidarity among the street’s fire victims is dashed by reports that ancient landslides may prohibit or delay rebuilding.

Citing landslide worries, Don and Jo Williamson, 37-year residents of the street, buy a lot in Laguna’s Bluebird Canyon.

MARCH

George Cary and Marlene Wright settle with their insurers and buy land on a hilltop across a canyon from their old street.

APRIL

After weeks of rumors, city officials ask geologists to study the stability of Temple Hills, including Buena Vista.

James Kelly and Robert Mangel reach settlement with their insurer and buy an existing house in Laguna’s Woods Cove.

JUNE

Jim and Jackie Allen, whose lot lies outside the slide study area, are the first of the street’s fire victims to emerge from Laguna’s design review process with approval of their plans.

JULY

Landslide fears subside. Geologists release final report on the Temple Hills slide area. A slide was found but is smaller than expected and easier to stabilize. Residents can rebuild once private geologists sign off on their lots.

AUGUST

The Williamsons’ plans for their new home are endorsed by design review board. Two weeks later, Sheila Patterson’s plans for rebuilding on Buena Vista Way are approved.

SEPTEMBER

Plans for Cary and Wright’s new home are approved, but one prospective neighbor has appealed the decision to the City Council.

OCTOBER

After multiple hearings and objections from neighbors, Tom Homan’s revised plans for his new Buena Vista Way home are approved. The neighbors, including Patterson, had argued that the house would obstruct their views.