June 3, 2005

June 3, 2005----MY day started with a phone call from my mom at 6:30 am--”you won’t believe this, but the beach house has burned down!” We were all in shock, we knew the house was old and we had been planning to do a remodel--but we were stunned that the summer home we had lived at for years on end- was gone. We flew up to Seattle, rented a car and drove to Canada, took a 2 hour ferry ride to Vancouver Island and then finally drove North to Parksville. We’re pretty sure the basement was ransacked before the fire. We didn’t find a lot of our containers-- and there was not a lot of ash in the locked room--so we felt that our belongings had been taken out before the fire. We spent the morning meeting with Kelly Eisler the Coast claims rep and also met with the RMCP. It was so sad to see the remains of the beach house. It was a complete ruin. We were stunned to view the charred remains of the house. The only thing we found amid the ruins of the fire, was an old pottery bean pot--that had been my grandmothers. Somehow, this pot had survived the fire that had wiped out an entire home. We wrapped it in our jacket and brought it back home with us--it would become a symbol for us--Harbour Lights would be rebuilt! We were tough, kind of like that old bean pot!

The pictures at the top of the blog show how the house looked for the last 47 years we have owned the house. Of course, over the years past tenant's (who rented it from Sept thru May), had put their own mark on the house in the form of odd paint colors (i.e. bright orange). the house was very old and in need of an overhaul. It was too small for 3 families and 6 grandkids along with assorted friends who tagged along on vacation. We had been mulling over ideas to make the house a little larger, but we never knew that it would be a fire that would push us full steam ahead into building a new beach house.