Starting Anew : Recovery: Pasadena Glen couple are first burned-out household in neighborhood to move back. New home uses pieces of old one.

While other homeowners burned out by the Altadena firestorm were still haggling with insurance companies, sweating out seismic safety tests or debating whether to move back to a fire and flood zone at all, Steve and Ellie Schindler put the finishing touches on their new home in Pasadena Glen.

Amid the din of bulldozers and construction crews working on flood control measures along the winding canyon road, the couple settled into the home that rose from the pieces of the old one.

They are the third homeowners burned out by last year’s Altadena fire to move back in--and the first in Pasadena Glen.

The Oct. 27 blaze incinerated 27 of 65 homes in the Glen, a tree-shaded nook above Pasadena in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains.

The Schindlers’ new, spacious Tudor-style home will never replace the 15 years of memories they had accumulated in the old residence, said Ellie Schindler, 51, but they saved what pieces they could.

“The nice thing about the new house is it’s got bits of the old house in it,” she said.

Those items include fireplace bricks, bathroom tiles and segments of the foundation that Steve Schindler salvaged from the rubble and had built into the new house.

So now, despite the empty cement bags strewn around the lawn and the pile of boxes in her living room, despite the jitters that keep her checking and rechecking burners to make sure no sparks catch flame, Ellie Schindler said, “It’s good to be home.”

Their early return was made possible by a combination of luck and perseverance. Early on, it was uncertain whether the county’s Department of Public Works would allow rebuilding in the Glen at all. But determined to come back, Steve Schindler hired an architect anyway, only two weeks after the fire.

Four months later the design plans were done, but there was still the county to contend with. Then, on April 12, the Board of Supervisors approved a rebuilding plan for the area. Homeowners agreed to install turnarounds for emergency vehicles and culverts that would prevent the kind of flood that inundated the fire-stripped area in February. A federal grant paid for part of that. A local assessment district is charging $500 per household this year to cover the rest.

The Schindlers got their building permit that same day. Two days later, their contractor went to work at the stream-side plot.

About the same time, they reached a settlement with their insurance company, an easy claim compared to those of other homeowners, who are still battling over payments. After the fire, many were shocked to learn they weren’t covered, that their policies lacked replacement cost coverage, had loopholes that excluded fire damage or didn’t include the cost of meeting stricter building codes.

As a result, said Fred Mensich of the Disaster Recovery and Preparedness Center in Pasadena, only 37 residents--out of 126 homes destroyed in the Altadena fire--have even applied for building permits. Twenty-one permits have been granted, and about a dozen homes are nearing completion.

So far, however, the Schindlers are the only ones in the Glen to even begin, must less finish, rebuilding. They hope their success will inspire some discouraged neighbors to join them.

A Caltech astrophysicist, Steve Schindler, 54, credits his scientific background with providing the philosophical impetus to rebuild.

“What we’re looking at here are engineering problems,” he said. “At Caltech we solve engineering problems all the time. We’re known for that. I never had any real doubt we’d move back.”

In October, even before the fire’s one-year anniversary, they’ll christen their home with a family reunion, bringing in relatives from Alaska to Florida. After their grandchildren have happily left their footprints and smudge marks, Ellie Schindler said, it will really feel like home.