Robitailles Lend Summer Home

Luc and Stacia Robitaille’s summer home overlooks a tranquil Rocky Mountain valley where the autumn leaves are just starting to change from green to red.

Although the name of the home, “Serenity,” seems appropriate enough, calling it “Sanctuary” would be every bit as fitting.

The Robitailles have opened their spacious mountain retreat to two families whose homes were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, and they have plans to bring in more.

“I just don’t like to see people suffer,” said Stacia Robitaille, who turned to her husband after watching the Katrina aftermath on TV and suggested they help out personally.

She is hosting the victims in Utah, arranging flights, airport pickups and lodging in the 10,000-square-foot log home, as Luc trains with the Kings for his 19th season in the NHL.

The Robitailles were on their annual vacation in Jackson, Wyo., which they take before hockey season starts, when the storm hit the Gulf Coast.

Stacia Robitaille watched the destruction on TV and kept seeing a clip of a man telling how he had lost his wife and everything else in his life.

“I told Luc, ‘You’ve got to watch this guy.’ They kept showing him over and over again, and every time I saw him I started to cry,” she recalled.

From Peyton and Eli Manning, brothers delivering supplies to their hometown of New Orleans, to Terrell Owens spending his day off among refugees in the Houston Astrodome and putting his NFC title ring up for auction, athletes have contributed more than just money to the relief effort.

The Robitailles used it as a catalyst to start Shelter for Serenity, a charitable foundation they had been planning for some time.

“I think it was the right thing to do,” Luc Robitaille said in a telephone call from Kings training camp. “We needed to get those people out of there and get them another chance in life.”

Robitaille, the 1987 Calder Trophy winner as the NHL’s top rookie, is a well-known name in hockey but not to the families he and his wife are helping. The Robitailles’ guests knew little about hockey and had never heard of him. And when Stacia Robitaille approached them about coming to Utah, nearly 1,500 miles away, they were even more perplexed.

“We didn’t believe it. I’m going to be honest with you. I mean, they don’t even know us,” said Calvin LeBlanc, a New Orleans construction worker who arrived at the home Tuesday afternoon after nearly a month in shelters. “To get to where I’m at, I’m still confused. I’m trying to see if this is real or what.”

Stacia Robitaille said she got the victims to fill out forms for quick background checks as a precaution, but overall she just trusts that people -- especially after a tragedy such as Katrina -- won’t take advantage.

LeBlanc and his wife, Karen, said they had just married at a Louisiana shelter where everything but the ring was donated for the ceremony. Stacia Robitaille is putting them in one of the home’s guest suites -- already decorated in white and now dubbed the Honeymoon Suite.

“We’ve been tremendously blessed,” Calvin LeBlanc said.

The Robitailles also own a home in Southern California. They spend summers and holidays at the giant log home just east of Heber City, about 15 miles southeast of Park City.

The Robitailles quickly raised $40,000 to get their foundation started. And then Stacia Robitaille went searching for the first families the foundation would help.

Along with her cousin and an old friend of her husband, Stacia Robitaille spent nearly a week driving along the devastated Gulf Coast, camping out in an SUV and dropping off emergency supplies to victims along the way. She said it was hot and dirty, and the smell was sickening at times.

“You have to experience it with all five senses to really know,” she said.

She found her first family at a shelter in Baton Rouge, La. The Englands -- Alvin, Renee, Elyse, Alvin Jr., “Grandma Rose” Bruce and family friend Ashley Roberts -- had been praying to find a home.

The family lived southwest of New Orleans and said the storm left them with nothing.

“Usually we can go back home at least four or five days [later], a week at the most,” said Bruce, who also brought her tiny Pekingese dog, Zoe, to safety in Utah.

“This time it took everything. All I had left was the key to my house and my family. I didn’t even have shoes.”

Bruce’s grandson, 12-year-old Alvin Jr., quickly acclimated to his new surroundings. He spent his first two days splitting time between the playroom -- complete with indoor basketball court and ceilings high enough for any jump shot -- and riding an ATV around the Robitailles’ 13 acres.

Stacia Robitaille said a third family has been lined up, and a fourth will be invited once one of the first two get on their feet. There will be no rush.

“Basically, it’s a chance to get them in the home, let them relax and enjoy themselves,” she said. “To be able to have the chance to help somebody to have a better life, I just feel so happy and blessed that I can do that. And that’s what we’re doing.”