Hot Pads : Some Malibu Homeowners Are Choosing to Rebuild With Non-Combustible Materials

For 17 months after the Malibu wildfire that incinerated Jerome Lawrence’s chalet-style house, the playwright swore off rebuilding in wood, instead seeking out materials that would prove impervious to the cycle of flames, floods and mudslides.

Lawrence and three other wood-phobic Malibu residents who lost their homes to fire in November, 1993, have ended their search. They’re rebuilding with steel and concrete.

“I feel like the phoenix rising from the ashes,” said the 79-year-old writer, known for works such as the stage version of “Inherit the Wind” and the stage and screen musical “Mame.” “We hope that it is earthquake, fire, termite, rat, mudslide, landslide and water proof.”

Most of the homes being rebuilt in the wake of the Malibu fire, which destroyed 278 dwellings, feature wood construction, complying with standard building codes. But five of the new structures--Lawrence’s house, two other homes and two apartment houses--will consist of steel-wire panels sprayed with concrete. A sixth home will be rebuilt with steel panels sprayed with a mix of cement powder and dirt.

“I have designed three houses in Malibu with wood that burned down,” said architect Harry Gesner, a Malibu resident who designed all but one of the new concrete structures. “I had to find another material with extensive design variables, less expensive than wood and, most importantly, material that would withstand these terrible catastrophes.”

Gesner says he found that material at World Concrete Structures in Long Beach.

The company makes lightweight panels from galvanized wire and then sprays them with concrete, said James Kenny, its managing director. The process, which Kenny said is common in developing countries, has been used locally to build low-cost housing in Pomona and Brea, and in Dade County, Fla.

The frame is assembled and then sprayed inside and out with a 1 1/2-inch-thick layer of concrete that World Concrete bills as “non-flammable and non-combustible.” A finish is applied in either faux brick, clapboard, limestone or stucco.

Gesner said wood traditionally has cost less than concrete, but as timberlands have dwindled worldwide, concrete has grown competitive. Kenny says the steel and concrete material ranges from $50 to $65 a square foot, depending on the complexity of the design. By comparison, building a custom home from wood costs $100 to $150 a square foot.

Lawrence’s two-story, 4,100-square-foot house will have a mezzanine, 24-foot-high flying buttresses, cathedral-style windows, steel trim and a copper roof that will weather to verdigris.

Now in the early stages of construction, it resembles a futuristic erector set. Massive steel-wire panels are secured to the foundation with reinforced steel rods. To guard against earthquakes, the home will sit on a shock absorber. To resist landslides, the foundation is anchored to the underlying bedrock.

Such construction has been used in other disaster-prone areas. After Hurricane Hugo destroyed mobile homes that housed U.S. Department of Agriculture scientists working on St. Croix, World Concrete Structures won a bid to build concrete housing.

“We wanted something that was hurricane proof . . . (and) they managed to exceed our rigid specifications,” said Ernest L. Quinn, a Department of Agriculture area engineer who recently retired. “We were very pleased.”

Malibu resident Gretchen Hays, whose wood-and-stucco house burned to the ground in 1993, said she chose to rebuild with concrete because the proximity of wooden houses in her La Costa neighborhood makes wildfires doubly dangerous.

“Our lots are about 10 feet apart and I just don’t want to have wood. And that is what most houses are going up with again,” Hays said. “Some have steel frames,” she added, “but they are basically wood boxes. It makes me very nervous because houses catch fire from one another.”

Al Aliberti and his daughter Elaine have also decided to use concrete for the house and the six-unit apartment building they are planning to build in the steep hills of La Costa. The structures will replace wood-and-stucco buildings destroyed in the 1993 fire.

“It’s not supposed to burn,” Elaine Aliberti, a geologist and property manager, said of the house, which--like its predecessor--will be accessible only by cable car. “The roof will be made of copper and it might melt. The point is, it won’t catch fire.”

Like the Alibertis, Linda and Howdy Kabrins, who lost their Carbon Canyon home to the fire, believed rebuilding with non-combustible materials was a must. The Kabrins’ architect, David Hertz, suggested using “rammed earth building,” a process that takes its cues from adobe-type construction dating back as far as 8300 BC.

A steel-cage frame is erected and sprayed with a mix of 10% cement and 90% dirt. The walls, Hertz says, measure 18 to 24 inches thick and resemble adobe, the desired effect for the Kabrins’ Mission-style design. The window frames, eaves and door jambs will be made of lightweight concrete.

“There’s nothing in the material to burn,” Hertz said. “Out of anything left in a fire, it is the fireplace, concrete, stone and pieces of ceramic that survive.”

Concrete houses provided some of the best object lessons of the 1993 fire. Mary Ellen Strote’s concrete house in Calabasas, which was built partially underground, survived the blaze, needing nothing more than a steam-cleaning to remove scorching.

“Concrete structures are totally fire-resistant as long as the roof is concrete,” said Los Angeles County Fire Capt. Jim Jordan, who is in charge of Malibu’s fire prevention unit. “As far as being able to withstand firestorms, they are probably superior to the typical wood and stucco. But having a concrete wall with single-pane glass won’t do much good, so you can get triple-paned glass.”

Malibu’s advocates of the non-combustible materials say they do not fear their new milieu will necessarily mean less aesthetic appeal. They say the concrete will simply serve as an empty canvas. “The aesthetic beauty will be there with books, paintings and the people,” Lawrence said.

The house that Lawrence lost in the fire had a circular staircase modeled after one used in “Mame.” It melted into an “avant-garde piece of statuary” that will sit in a terraced garden beside his new home, overlooking the sea.

The new house, which is circular, will take the name of Lawrence’s first novel, “The Golden Circle.” Like its predecessor, it will serve as the backdrop for literary conferences, writing workshops and musical soirees.

“It is going to be a little cathedral in the sky,” Lawrence said.