Trail By Fire: a Tale of Two Houses

Doug Rucker, a Malibu architect, partnered with a WW II veteran to build a mid-cenury modern house for sale, intending to start a side business for fun and profit. It would be on a promontory beneath three-thousand foot mountains with views of ocean, Surfrider Beach, Movie Colony, laggon, Monastery, Catalina and the sparkling "Queens Necklace" of Santa Monica Bay. But, an unexpected death precipitated an emotional family crisis with loss of business and working capital, a partial finacial recovery, and the modern dream house buning to the ground. Generous community members teamed with persistent family efforts to bring forth a new and entirely different dream house.