Wades Beach: Out of the Ashes

A brief update today. Last weekend we drove to Greenport and met with our architect, Rob Brown of Fairweather-Brown. He told us his ideas for the revamped house are "brewing" and that we'll see some sketches in a couple weeks. We looked at his portfolio and really like the work he has done. We are going for a similar style to what the house used to be like: a beach cottage, not modern or fancy.

We also went to Sag Harbor to pick up clothes and linens that we had professionally cleaned, to get the smoke stink out. "You're the fire people!" was the phrase of the day in the dry cleaners.

We are still waiting on the insurance check to arrive. The other day I submitted my spreadsheet of all the personal items that were lost, right down to the 1969 Chitty Chitty Bang Bang metal lunch box. We had about 850 CDs that melted, I don't think we will get $15 each for this, like I put down. If we get $1 that would be more like it.

Thanks for all the calls and emails about the house!

Labels: Aftermath

What every home should have: a scow and a pod.

Today I’ll post an update of what has been happening the last ten days with the house and the effects of the fire. I’ll begin with today. We have an architect on the job. His name is Rob Brown and he is with the Greenport firm Fairweather Brown. Chrissie really likes his work, and met him at the house a couple weeks ago. I spoke to him today, and he’s working on sketches to show us in about 2 weeks. We talked about things I never knew existed, such as mudrooms. One thing I forgot to ask about was putting solar panels on the roof; Chrissie and I are trying to be “green” in some small way. The next step with the architects is that they will send a team to the house tomorrow to measure it.

I was out last Saturday for half a day when the demolition started. Chrissie stayed behind in the city. It is a good thing, because these guys were smashing down walls and cutting out the fire-damaged parts. The house is now 100 percent empty of all contents. A couple of scows were put on the lawn and then carted away, filled with debris, damaged furniture, and junk. We lost a lot of things, such as clothes, books, and fixtures. All that went out the door. What they are doing is preparing the house for construction, or I guess re-construction. We can save the exterior walls and some of the framing, but to do so they must remove all the drywall, insulation, and moldings. The reason is so that mold does not grow in the wet parts when the temperature heats up. Right now it is too cold for mold to grow, but that will happen if the house does not get aired out.

The demo crew took out every interior door, kitchen cabinets, fixture, window treatments (not even a year old). The house is now just a shell. They are to finish on Monday, and I am glad I will not be there. It will be pretty bare by then.

We also had a furniture expert come out and look at our furniture, stored in a pod on the front lawn. He is going to come and cart it all to Mattituck to his shop to clean and refinish it. Insurance will cover it. It is a good thing, because the wooden furniture has smoke damage, and can be cleaned. The majority of the furniture can be saved.

I was really busy in my day out there. I admit I was really pissed off that the crew threw out some things I wanted to salvage that were not damaged, like my Dress Blues that was hanging in a closet, Chrissie’s work clothes that were still in dry cleaning bags, and some books that were not in the place I said I’d put all things I wanted to save. Basically I had one spare bedroom to stage my rescue operation. This was important to me, because it was things like college yearbooks, photo albums, and special books (our two baby books were located; Chrissie’s partially char-broiled) and old clothes. While the demo went on, I shuttled out the good stuff to the shed or the car.

I also made some good saves, which was a relief. When the crew pulled the ceiling down, what was left of the attic came down to the living room floor. It was a mangled mess of what had been cardboard boxes. The funniest was when a couple hundred pennies rained down on a demo crew guy; that was my retirement fund! He looked like he was in shock as a rain of copper came down on him. The pennies were swept up and thrown in the bin. But I did manage to locate a set of teacups and plates my grandparents had picked up in Ireland in the early 1970s as tourists. I am sure they are worth very little, but these are pretty much the only items I inherited from them. It was a little bit of a relief, because one box that burned up in the attic was my grandfather’s World War II medals and ribbons from his U.S. Navy service. I always had wanted to mount and frame them, now that won’t ever happen.



But the biggest find was still yet to come. A big chunk of burned out boxes fell out of the old attic to the floor below. I saw mixed in with the pile of blackened charred debris was a box in a familiar blue color. It was hard to miss, as it was “Tiffany Blue.” I took my gloves off and dipped into the mess, and pulled out the long blue box. I knew right away what it was even before I opened it up: the silver cake cutter from our wedding. It was burned on the tip, right on the handle where “C + K” is engraved. I picked it up and was so happy. Then right after that, I heard a tinkling sound, like the sound you hear when you drop silverware onto a table. I found a burned and blackened knife, fork, and spoon. They were very very small, because these belonged to Chrissie’s mom as a baby. She died 10 years ago, so anything of hers we have is a real treasure. I was pretty thrilled to put them in my pocket and take them back to Harlem that night. They are soaking in the kitchen sink, and the blackness is coming off.

Labels: Aftermath

This was an Elvis doll I had in its original box.

We are continuing the aftermath of the fire, which was two weeks ago. On Thursday and Friday we had two long, grueling days at the house. It is a real mess, of course, and standing in the cold and muck out there is no fun. Chrissie was there all day Thursday, and I came out Friday to join her.

On Thursday she met with the architect who we think we will use. He showed Chrissie some houses and jobs he's done locally, which is a big plus. We want to use all local people to rebuild the house. She also had one contractor come out to meet her, and they went and looked at a house on the other side of the island that he worked on. She loved it.

But the big thing to happen on Thursday was the cleanup began in earnest. We have a big pod in front of the house. Workers started carting out salvageable items to it, such as dressers, bed frames, and big furniture. They got most of the stuff in there that we can save. There are two kind of items left: the total loss stuff (pretty much anything that was in the attic or the living room, which is totally destroyed) and the things we can take to have cleaned. The former is the bulk of it. For the latter, this is mostly clothing, pictures, and some books. My comics could be saved, even though there is smoke and water damage to some. But what we spent a lot of time doing was picking out clothes and putting them in big plastic bags, to haul away to be cleaned. Something else we saved and carted off was 12 framed pictures; the insurance will pay to have them professionally matted and framed.


Two Star Wars ships melted together...

Our sister-in-law created this for our wedding.
Dirty, but not destroyed.
Speaking of insurance, that is what we did from 10 am to 2 pm on Friday. To add to this drag of a day was the weather. It was 40, windy, and rained like a S.O.B. all day. A real lashing cold rain, which came through the tarp on the roof at times. But what we did with the adjuster was talk about the personal property. The house is going to be covered for the rebuild; now we go over the work of replacing what was lost. We spent several hours cataloging what was in each room, closet, and hallway. We are being 100 percent honest here, and not claiming a valuable jewelry collection or fine art was lost. Still, we want to get a check to cover what was lost.

This is a real tedious process. But we ended on a high note on Friday. We met with another contractor, also a local guy. He was so upbeat and positive, a real good guy. He thinks the house can be fixed up in six months. I came away feeling like this was not an insurmountable task to build the house all over.

The next thing to happen is the cleaning guys are going back out this week to get the kitchen packed up. I will go out Saturday for the next phase: demolition. Chrissie does not want to be there for that.

Labels: Aftermath

Chrissie is at the house today with the cleaning crew. Apparently they are saying all the books in the house are not going to be saved. This is a real bummer. About 200 of them were Chrissie's dad's books. And while I don't think I would ever get around to reading a bio of Nixon,Reagan, or Margaret Thatcher, I did like that we had his collection of biographies. And a lot on the Civil War, the Classics, and quite a bit of humor (her dad was a fan of Robert Benchley, I learned). They are also telling her the pictures on the walls must be tossed out, because of the stink of smoke. I am fighting that one. I want to get them cleaned and saved.

And the pod is still on the front of the house. Not sure if it will stay there or be moved. I am looking forward to going there tomorrow and meeting with the architect and contractors.

Labels: Aftermath

I just got a call that the pod is on the property. This is what we will store our belongings in for 6 months while the house is rebuilt. Apparently, it is big. And ugly. I will get a look at it Friday when we go out there. I wonder if we will be getting a port-a-potty too?

Labels: Aftermath

I forgot to mention that last weekend I posted another 60 or so photos from the morning after the fire. What happened was that I only had my cell phone with me (the first pix). We borrowed Hillary's camera (our next door neighbor, God bless her and Ian). We got a CD of pix from them a few days ago.

In these pix you can clearly see the damage. And also here is the culprit, the faulty pipes that failed and sent burning embers from the fireplace to the walls. Also, the front bedroom and back bedroom are not too bad; except for the ceiling holes. Master bedroom? Forget about it.

The exterior also shows the big hole in the roof, now covered in a big blue tarp.

I really do not have it in me to take any more photos of the damaged house, until we start building again. I like to remember how it was.

Labels: Aftermath

This week the local newspaper wrote about our fire which happened on Saturday, Jan. 19, 2008. I love how the Shelter Island Reporter relied on a photo supplied by the cops. It is nice and orange, isn't it? Since the account is not available without subscribing to the paper, here is what is has to say:

Chimney fire burns through roof

A chimney fire broke out Saturday evening at an occupied house located at 99 South Midway Road. The Fire Department responded after being dispatched at 7:35 p.m.

Fire Chief Ron Jernick said that while the fire was out within half an hour, the damage was quite extensive. “They’ll probably have to rebuild from scratch,” he said, adding, “Their roof is pretty much gone. That’s the main thing.”

The fire “started in and around the fireplace,” Chief Jernick said.

Supplementing the efforts of the Ladies Auxiliary, neighbors Abby and Fred Dress brought coffee for the volunteers, which in addition to Island firefighters included a Greenport rapid intervention team, members of the local Red Cross ambulance corps and a disaster services team to assist the homeowner. A Sag Harbor fire crew stood by at the Center Firehouse in case there was another alarm call.

Flames from a fire that started near the fireplace burst through the chimney box, consuming a large portion of the roof and attic.
Photo courtesy SIPD

I checked and we did not make The New York Times or Newsday. As far as fires go, it was among a rash of recent fires on the island, but nowhere close to the biggest.

Labels: Aftermath