There are some times that we may see something and it surprises us so much because it just doesn’t seem to be possible. That is how many people feel when they see this home that remained standing in the middle of a fire.
The wildfires in the LA area have been consuming everything that is in their path. Neighborhoods have been completely devastated and burned to the ground but as you can see, a Malibu mansion belonging to David Steiner has remained standing.
Steiner is a retired waste management mogul from Texas. He is married with three children and he has a home that is now being called a miracle house. The building is standing in stark contrast to the destruction around it, but he doesn’t feel it’s a miracle, he thinks it is all in the planning.
When the house was built, it was built with the protection to withstand earthquakes. Pilings had been driven 50 feet into the bedrock as well to withstand the pounding surf below it. The stucco and stone walls and the fireproof roof helped to round out the construction.
Steiner said: “To be totally honest with you, I never in a million years thought a wildfire would jump to the Pacific Coast Highway and start a fire. I thought, ‘If we ever have an earthquake, this would be the last thing to go.’ I honestly didn’t think that if we had a fire, this would be the last thing to go. The architecture is pretty nice. But the stucco and fireproof roof are real nice.”
He was also shocked that the pictures came back showing that his house was able to survive the inferno. He said: “It’s a miracle – miracles never cease.”
Like many others, he was concerned that his house would be destroyed by the fire. When he saw a video from a local contractor that showed his house still standing, despite the fact that flames were licking at the edge of the home, he was surprised.
He said: “[The contractor] was watching the news reports and saw my neighbor’s house going down and told me, ‘It looks like your house is going, too. It looked like nothing could have possibly survived that, and I thought we had lost the house.”
Not long after, he said the call started to come in. “People started contacting me, saying, ‘Your house is all over the news.’ I started getting pictures and realized we had made it through.”
He also said that he wasn’t happy with the thought that his house would burn down but realistically, he could replace it because it wasn’t a person. That being said, he had a realistic view of it because it was not his main family home.
He said: “I said, “Don’t pray for me – what I lost is material goods.” … I lost a property, but others lost their homes. I didn’t have my family’s mementos there,’ he noted, adding, ‘My heart truly goes out to those who lost everything.
‘My wife sent me something this morning that said, “Last house standing,” he shared, ‘and it brought a pretty big smile to my face at a pretty bad time.”
