Star of the WSL's broadcast team loses house featured in NY Times…
Three years ago, the New York Times made a visit to the Point Dume home of WSL commentator Strider Wasilewski and his family, which includes one wife and three sons.
It’s a gorgeous story of a Venice surf rat and his real estate agent wife creating a rich reality, a lifetime home for their precious family.
As a 14-year-old surfing prodigy, Strider Wasilewski used to hunt the crowded Southern California coast for quiet surf spots. One of his favorites was Little Dume Beach, near Point Dume in Malibu, a crescent of sand half-hidden in a cove at the bottom of steep bluffs.
“It was an untouchable area,” gated off and accessible only to local residents, Mr. Wasilewski said. But he heard about a family that kept their gate open. “They lived right by the trail,” he said. “I used to run through their yard. They would yell at me.”
Lily Harfouche, a real estate agent and occasional surfer who spent part of her childhood in Malibu, ran through the same yard with her teenage friends to get to the beach. “You go down there, and it’s you and a handful of people,” Ms. Harfouche said. “It’s so incredibly beautiful.”
These days, Mr. Wasilewski, 42, and Ms. Harfouche, 36, are married (they met at a reggae concert on the Santa Monica Pier) and live with their three young sons on Point Dume, in a simple open-plan house they call “the barn.”
The couple bought a place on a one-acre lot on Point Dume, took it down to the studs and created a dream home on the hillside — which turned out to be too big. “I remember texting Strider from the bedroom upstairs and asking if he wanted to watch a movie,” Ms. Harfouche said. “I thought, ‘This is nuts.’ ”
They often picnicked on a flat part of the property, and they began to envision a new house there. It would be small — around 1,300 square feet, plus a loft — and would reflect how they really lived as a family. The big house, which they still own, is now rented out.
The total budget was around $1.8 million, though that figure is a bit deceiving, because Malibu is a difficult, costly place to build. In reality, the house looks rustic and funky. The exterior was built using old barn boards, and the exposure to the ocean air has further weathered the wood and corroded the metal surfaces. “We just love that rusted, beat-down beach kind of energy,” said Mr. Wasilewski.
Little Dume Beach is a short walk from the house, through a quiet neighborhood of homes set back from the street and down a trail lush with vegetation. But Mr. Wasilewski and Ms. Harfouche no longer have to sneak through someone’s yard to get there, as they did when they were teenagers. Now they have a key to the beach gate.
Yesterday, California wildfires, driven by hot Santa Winds gusting up to a hundred and twenty clicks an hour, tore hell through the celebrity enclave of Malibu.
Kim Kardashian and Kanye West. Lady Gaga. Caitlyn Jenner. Robin Thicke.
All of ’em hitting panic buttons.
And Strider’s house?
The chicest of ’em all. The only one that wasn’t a temple to the depravity and excess of celebrity?
Gone.
(But not forgotten. Click here for a photo gallery.)
All safe etc.
I need to dust off my carpentry tools smells like some new enterprise a smoldering.
In So-Cal……. not up north respect to the people who lost their lives and loved ones.
Isn’t Malibu an urban area.
https://climate.nasa.gov/sc… -NASA not good enough for you?
Hi mate. I am not one for Internet arguments either. To be honest I am tired, of all the arguing that seems to permeate existence at the moment.
I don’t think I am a lemming but I guess I won’t know til I hit the bottom. 🙂
Enjoy beachgrit
That same Society has a current published statement on their website that says the following:
Why is climate changing?
Climate is always changing. However, many of the observed changes noted above are beyond what can be explained by the natural variability of the climate. It is clear from extensive scientific evidence that the dominant cause of the rapid change in climate of the past half century is human-induced increases in the amount of atmospheric greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide (CO2), chlorofluorocarbons, methane, and nitrous oxide. The most important of these over the long term is CO2, whose concentration in the atmosphere is rising principally as a result of fossil-fuel combustion and deforestation.
Happen to be a first responder, most of the fire fighter are well aware of the situation with weather modification, and we are being spray with nano particulars. Be safe and vigilant. Bless
We think we are evolved and enlightened but really we are animals ruled by a self preservation instinct.
Nature made us this way
Nature being whatever made this thing happen.
These forums, I think, are just for a laugh at life and sometimes the horror of it.
You had me at the start but then you quickly came down to our cunty level.
at least kim and yezzi are safe safe
Thank alahl for your Midwest voters
They really hate themselves those cunts
Smokey the Bear goes back to the 1970s. Our understanding of forest dynamics and the need for prescribed burns in appropriate weather is pretty clear. The political will to fund such management and explain its benefits to the public is lacking. Oregon and Washington and Idaho are sitting on huge timber boxes. Forest management needs to catch up to reality.
‘Tinderboxes’
/marcus
It’s all OK because Kim Kardashian has reportedly “marked herself as safe”, according to international news reports.
I know a lot fo surfer’s whom who’s lives main focus was surfing well into their 30’s. Very few of those surfer’s, less than my favorite quad, and/or thruster fin set up if one; could afford a home designed by architect, with with custom windows, beautiful interior and exterior. The artwork on the fence screamed a one off! Got to ask. Did Stryder really work his ass off from his mid 20’s thru his 30’s and surf less to build that beautiful home.?
It’s a love story, sniff sniff
It pays to marry up.
how do you own a timber house and not have a fire plan, every year california burns and people always die, is no one teaching your kids about fire plans, if your not confident to fight it leave early, if you stay be prepared , dont leave it to the last minute to drive out of there, cause a big fire will suck all the oxygen out of the air and your car will stop with out it, see it all the time in australia and believe me our fires make yours look like a campfire, be fire wise, the way i see it if your affraid of the ocean you learn to get over your fear by being in it, same with fires if you dont feel confident in a fire the best way to get over it and be able to save your family is to learn about how it behaves, ie join your local brigade, get fire wise america
thats scary , i did not know why the cars would stop in the middle of the roads, it makes sense the oxygen runs out 😲
When you are in “panic mode” fleeing advancing flames accelerated by the fire generated winds and the “Santa Ana’s” already present, the smoke and flames can easily obscure the roadway immediately ahead.
Physical obstructions such as “downed” trees, utility poles and even other stopped vehicles coupled with a near complete loss of visibility could easily place you in a precarious and deadly situation.
How fast can you run?
Can you out-run the smoke and flames or do you hope to sit out the situation inside your vehicle with the windows rolled up when you can not see the roadway ahead or encounter stopped traffic or obstructions blocking the road and the firer is rapidly advancing toward your location?
Do you think these unfortunate folks who choose to reside in the more rural and secluded places surrounded by all that “natural” and sometimes government “protected” land with all that overgrown foliage… considered the possibility of fire during dry low humidity times coupled with the overgrowth they so lovingly cherish?
Our “tee hugging” elected DemocRAT officials have for many decades ignored the fire hazard of not adequately addressing the overgrowth supported by the whacko environmentalists to protect everything “natural!
Did you notice the numbers of destroyed huge expensive (multi-million dollar” mansions built right up adjacent to the protected government lands surrounded by the “natural beauty” of all that overgrowth with there expensive seclusive scenic views down range toward the lower lying suburban areas.
Money talks junior but day be suffering consequences of their lifestyle choices to reside amongst the natures “beauty. How sad!
You’re right-all that ugly forest, and those pesky animals, concrete over the lot!!! That’ll stop those fires dead, in their tracks.
Warning!… Warning!… Retard Alert!… Retard Alert
Walk carefully and quickly to the nearest appropriate failed college propagandized Safe Zone!
How about restricting homes being constructed/built within one half to one mile of forested areas?
Have you considered the process of actively managing and harvesting specific numbers of trees per acre including removing those that are dead and dying, removing the amount of massive uncontrolled underbrush and/or regular controlled burns which have essentially been NEVER or rarely used and essentially left untended for almost a hundred years?
How about mandating and maintaining a minimal 100 foot clear buffer zone between flammable foliage and structures? … No?
I know it must be tough having a small ambient amount of common sense to offset/counter the whacko enviro tree hugger mentality will most likely result in a collective massive brain fart and complete immobility coupled with sudden desire to head off to the nearest snowflake safe zone to contemplate your naval.
Ad hominem attacks say far more about the person making them, than the person they’re directed at😉
Well, they will let him rebuild with new criteria and a Isreal clause in that funding…it’s going to the new perfect beach sustainable community. G5 and cameras on every corner, we will all be safe.
Styder is pretty fucking short
Talk about ad hominem attacks.
Malibu seems to get smoked every year
They ever heard of backburning?
Damn sorry to hear it.