Homeowners Find That Rebuilding Isn’t Easy : Nightmare of Baldwin Hills Inferno Rages On

More than nine months after a wind-swept arson fire ripped through Baldwin Hills last July, the hillside community is still a long way from being rebuilt.

A majority of the 48 homeowners whose houses were destroyed are still waiting. Some are waiting for insurance settlements, architectural plans or city permits to reconstruct their homes. Others are still waiting for the emotional trauma and memories to subside before they decide what to do. A few say they cannot return.

“I’m sick of the whole thing,” said Rose Epherson, a retired teacher who lived in one of two dozen homes that burned on Don Carlos Drive. “But you just hang in there.” She and her husband plan to rebuild their house.

‘Ongoing Nightmare’

One of her former neighbors, Mildred Wissler, has given up and put a “For Sale by Owner” sign on her lot. “It’s like a horrible ongoing nightmare,” she said. “And it doesn’t end.” Said another neighbor, David Peterson: “You have to start from scratch. You have no directions, and there are all these decisions you have to make.”

But Peterson and his wife, Betty, are among the luckier fire victims, for as of last week theirs was one of only 13 homes under construction.

Of the remaining 35, six homeowners are selling or have sold their lots, for physical, emotional or financial reasons, and three have not decided what they will do. Another 19 intend to rebuild. Information was not available on seven homeowners.

Ironically, one thing that has sprung back vibrantly is the hillside along La Brea Avenue where the arson fire started. Today, green and yellow grass and weeds have nearly reclaimed the black carpet left by the blaze.

Pepperdine University, owner of the property and defendant in at least 17 lawsuits filed by insurance companies and more than 90 individual victims of the fire, declined to comment last week on whether the university has plans to replant the hill to reduce the potential for future brush fires.

(On Friday, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Jerry Fields dismissed the City of Los Angeles as a defendant in one of the lawsuits, representing more than 61 fire victims. That case, Schertle vs. Pepperdine, had named the city as a defendant along with the university.)

Arsonist Still at Large

The arsonist or arsonists are still at large. “We haven’t had a clue” in about eight months, said Los Angeles Police Detective Addison Arce.

On Don Carlos Drive, where 24 homes were destroyed, five houses are under construction. But most of the lots are bare, except for chimneys sticking into the air.

Litter dots the once-manicured street--cans, bottles, paper wrappers, even an old mattress.

“People are using it as a dumping ground or like a Mulholland Drive lovers’ lane,” Burneda Van Dyke, a Don Carlos Drive fire victim, said angrily.

Treva Russell said plants that survived the fire at her 4279 Don Carlos Drive home were dug up and stolen and that a few months ago, when her husband had their car--which had largely “melted” from the blaze--towed away, “We found black undergarments in it.”

The Russells will not move back, she said. Now hospitalized for the third time since the fire, she added, “It’s not healthy for me to return to the hill.”

She had originally planned to rebuild, she said, but held on to a check that she had made out to an architect for more than a month before deciding not to send it. “I finally said, ‘I can’t do it. Nothing is going to give me back what I lost up there.’ ”

Robert Gladden, the Los Angeles city firefighter whose mother, Marie, was killed in the fire while he was trying to fight it, said he is not sure what the family will do with their property. “We’re in a holding pattern,” he said.

‘Soft Spot in My Heart’

“I thought about keeping the property and building a house,” he added. “Baldwin Hills has a soft spot in my heart. I was brought up there. But my sister said she would never go back on the street, and if I lived there, she would never come to see me.”

Milton Schertle, 78, who along with his wife, Vivian, had been hospitalized due to burns suffered in the fire, has sold the couple’s lot. His wife still undergoes therapy for third-degree burns, he said. “She has a long way to go and has considerable pain. I couldn’t fool around building a house.”

The couple moved last November into a house they bought in Ladera Heights, but they haven’t had time to buy much furniture yet. “We’re sort of camping,” Schertle said.

“Well, we’re alive,” he added. “She sometimes wonders if that’s a blessing because of how she feels.”

Delays in rebuilding have been due to a number of problems. Insurance settlements have been a problem for some.

Many thought that they were properly covered but found they were woefully under-insured. Others have had trouble collecting for the contents of their homes and living expenses and are considering litigation.

In addition, outright cancellations have been so common since the fire that state Assemblywoman Gwen Moore (D-Los Angeles) persuaded the state Department of Insurance to include Baldwin Hills in the California Fair Plan Assn., a pooled insurance program that guarantees coverage to those in designated urban or high-risk brush areas.

The Baldwin Hills Homeowners Assn. has even presented problems by vigilantly attempting to enforce area height restrictions that date to the beginning of the community’s development after World War II. Since most of those rebuilding are putting up larger homes and adding second stories, the association is requiring fire victims to submit architectural designs to the group for approval.

Association Rebuffed

David Peterson said he had to pay $10,000 to have plans changed on his new two-story house. But another fire victim, James A. Bell, who is rebuilding on Don Milagro Drive, said he is refusing to modify his building plans to suit the association. “It’s rather irritating,” he said. “They weren’t visible at all during the crisis, and all of a sudden they pop up.”

The association has even sued one victim, Ima Jeane Lawrence, on the grounds that her home under construction on Don Jose Drive was a foot too high. The group lost in court, but Ken Dudley, an association board member, said: “We have appealed the case.”

Some fire victims blamed themselves for the delay in rebuilding. “At first, I was in shock and for a couple of months sort of lackadaisical,” Rose Epherson said. “I really can’t tell you where the time went. I only broke about a month ago with my first tear.”

“It’s one thing to build and another thing to be out there all alone,” Louise Jordan, a resident of Don Carlos Drive said, explaining that she does not want to put up a house until there are neighbors around her.

“I could never move on the street with just chimneys,” she said. “I’m not going to play that brave act.”