Generosity raises a house from ashes

Contractor gives labor to reconstruct a house destroyed in a fire last year

GARNER -- Last year, Pam Strickland, her two children and her daughter's fiance were living in the two-story wood-frame house that once stood on this foundation. Her daughter, Lauren Massey, and fiance Robert Curtis McCarty, were expecting a baby boy.

Fire struck at dawn one Saturday in September 2006 and took almost everything -- including McCarty's life.

But Steve Raper, a Raleigh commercial contractor, vows the family will live in a better place by January.

Raper, who has employed Massey as a part-time nanny for the past three years, is donating all the labor to build the family a 2,400-square-foot home and plans to keep his crews working through the Thanksgiving holiday to get the job done. Insurance covered only the tear-down of the burned-out house and construction of a much smaller replacement home.

For the past year, the family has pieced life together in a crowded Garner apartment they also share with Strickland's fiance, his son and three dogs. Work from Raper and his subcontractors will stretch a thin insurance settlement and put them in a new house.

They still need furniture and basic supplies. Raper is happy to store any donations to the family until they have more room.

"I can't afford to give thousands of dollars, but I can give my time and talent," said Raper of the Raleigh firm Geo. Raper & Son Inc. "I'd like to believe that if my child was standing next to me and was cold, somebody would at least lend him a jacket."

Massey, 24, said she is thrilled that Raper is helping to get her family back into a new house. Life in the small apartment is cramped and stressful.

But the move back to Jordan Woods Drive will be bittersweet for Massey, mother of Curtis Jordan McCarty, who was born in January. It's the place where she lost her son's father, McCarty, the man she calls her soulmate.

"It's going to be very hard for me to live there," she said. "I know it's going to be a brand-new house and it's going to be beautiful and it's going to be the best thing I ever lived in. But it's still that same spot. There's not going to be a day that goes by I'm not going to remember him driving down that road and parking in that driveway."

Strickland, a 23-year state employee, had closed on the house only a year before it burned.

A single mother who had been living in a double-wide trailer, Strickland was excited about buying the 12-year-old home and providing a place for her family to live. She loved the house for its downstairs master bedroom, front porch and yard where she could start planting flowers.

"I thought we really hit the jackpot when we got this nice house," Strickland said.

The old house sat on a corner not far from the Wake-Johnston County line, a winding five-mile drive down country roads south of Garner.

McCarty, who had his own company doing custom wood work and construction, helped fix it up. "He did it all on his own time and made it like it was just brand new," Massey said.

"He was good with his hands," Strickland said.

Fire officials never determined what caused the fire, which destroyed so many of the family's dreams. Strickland suspects it might have been a citronella candle on the porch. They were always swatting mosquitoes outside.

Because Massey takes care of Raper's younger children -- ages 2, 4 and 10 -- the builder knew about the fire. But he hadn't heard about the family's trouble rebuilding until April. Massey told him her mother had basically given up trying to start over on Jordan Woods Drive.

"I said, 'Lauren, you know I'm a commercial contractor, right?' '' Raper said.

Work started two weeks ago, and the roof is already built. The new house will be about 600 square feet bigger than the original.

Most of Raper's subcontractors were happy to join the work, he said.

"He is a blessing," Strickland said of Raper. "I don't know where I'd be if it weren't for him, his family and what they've done for us."

Raper expects to finish the job in mid-January. By then, the family will need linens, pots, pans, towels -- regular things. Raper is seeking donations through his company's Web site.

"It's great people are solving problems in other parts of the world," Raper said. "But first and foremost, we need to look to each other."

One brick, one two-by-four at a time.