Jack and Sally Graham’s Second French Empire-inspired home, the result of a year’s worth of planning and another 19 months of construction, was still cluttered with boxes eight days after they’d moved into it.
Sally had spent the day – April 17, 2003 – unpacking before heading out about 5pm to visit her sister, who had just given birth the night before. A little more than an hour later, Jack was driving up to the house, which was the very first built in The Hills of Rosemont neighborhood near Southpoint.
He saw smoke.
As he drew closer, he came upon a slew of emergency vehicles and had to park a good distance from his house. Once it came into view, his worst fears were realized: the house was fully involved. A wicked windstorm made firefighting efforts futile. “They’d put it out on one side, and then the wind would whip up, and it would start again on the other side,” Jack recalls. “They finally gave up at 4am.”
Only a handful of objects were spared, despite firefighters trying hard to salvage books, paintings and trophies belonging to the Grahams’ two daughters, Sarah and Elizabeth, who at the time were away at college.
Also lost in the fire were two beloved Siamese cats. The Grahams had owned a pair of cats ever since their first day of marriage.
The fire, caused by a faulty gas line regulator valve, was devastating. But not dream-ending.
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After the
Smoke Clears
There never was any question that the Grahams would rebuild, in part because of their own doggedness and in part because, as Jack noted drily, “Who’s going to buy a smoke-damaged lot?” As distressing as the fire was, the Grahams did get one lucky break and one hopeful omen.
The break came because the fire happened when the house was new, meaning their insurance policy covered 100 percent of the costs. So Sally went through, item by item, replacing furniture, paintings, woodwork and more, then sending an invoice to the insurance company. “I’m detail-oriented,” Sally says, in a way that lets you know it might be a bit of an understatement. “Most people hate all this: ‘Oh, gosh, I’ve got to pick out a roof.’ But I love it. I even loved doing it the second time.”
The omen was, the Grahams say, a “gift from God.” They went hunting for a rental house in Hope Valley Farms to live in during reconstruction. They pulled into the first driveway only to see a Siamese cat. “Talk about divine intervention,” Sally says. “We told the realtor right away: ‘We’ll take the house.’”
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