POINT MUGU : Cabin Fire at Club Destroys 1930s-Era Items

Fire gutted part of a small cabin at a private duck-hunting club near Point Mugu Friday morning, destroying several rooms full of wooden furniture and pottery from the 1930s.

The faded green cabin, built by character actor Eugene Pallette, is owned by Los Angeles resident Brad Freeman who last used it about a year ago, said Ed Freil, general manager of the Pt. Magu Game Preserve at 3912 Hueneme Road.

“What a shame. . . . It was full of Fiestaware in the kitchen. All the old, colored dishes,” said Freil’s wife, Janice, as she watched firefighters haul out a charred couch still burning at one end.

The 350-acre reserve is a private club with 34 members that was founded in 1929. Freeman’s cabin is one of eight on the property, in addition to several trailers and a main clubhouse where hundreds of decoys are stored. During duck-hunting season, the decoys are placed on several small ponds to lure waterfowl.

Freil reported the fire about 10:45 a.m. after spotting flames and smoke as he drove toward the club on Hueneme Road. When he reached the cabin at the end of a mile-long dirt road, flames had engulfed a bedroom on the left side. The fire quickly spread to the kitchen and an open-beamed living room.

Eight minutes later, when firefighters arrived, the cabin’s windows had blown out from the heat and shotgun shells in a box were popping one by one.

“It was black from the smoke. You couldn’t see much of anything,” said Robin Harville, a captain with the Point Mugu Fire Department.

It took firefighters from five engine companies about 30 minutes to extinguish the blaze, although embers continued to flare into spot fires for another hour. One-third of the structure was destroyed, with smoke blackening the rest of the interior.

A permanent caretaker, Todd Brohammer, and his wife, Sheila, live at the club but were not home when the fire started because they had spent the Thanksgiving holiday with relatives in Ventura.

The cause of the blaze had not been determined on Friday.

County Fire Investigator Dave Chovanec said burn patterns showed that the flames started near the floor of the bedroom, then leaped to the ceiling and spread to other rooms. The cabin’s electricity was on at the time.