A New House, a New Beginning

One end of Barbee Skinner’s new living room features a floor-to-ceiling river rock fireplace. Photo by Ruth Lepper

By Ruth Lepper

Barbee Skinner sits in her window seat every day, looking out over the mountainside at the green trees.

The house is new — so new that Skinner says, “I feel like I’m just visiting.”

She lost her old house two years ago in the Cedar fire. But she hasn’t lost her spirit. The house may be gone, she likes to tell people, but so are the cobwebs and the clutter.

The house that was destroyed by the devastating fire on Oct. 28, 2003, was built in 1924. It was one of 120 houses lost to the fire out of 160 in the Lake Cuyamaca area.

Skinner has lived here for 36 years. Her late husband, Bill, was the first ranger at Lake Cuyamaca. Together, they opened the lake and the concession store in 1968. Barbee Skinner also was a ranger at the lake for 11 years.

She moved into the new house on Feb. 14. It was built by her son, Rees Skinner, who owns Stonewall Framing. They chose the design from looking through magazines — she picked it out and he approved it — and then made a few changes to include Barbee’s desires and a few surprises thrown in by Rees.

The one-story house, with a “bonus room” over the garage that she uses for an attic, has 2,300 square feet.

There are three bedrooms, three bathrooms, a dining area, a kitchen with breakfast nook and a spacious living room with circular window seats and overhead skylights. A closed-in porch is her sunroom.

“It’s a wonderful place to come for your coffee in the morning,” she said of the bright and cheery sunroom.

At the opposite end of the long living room is a floor-to-ceiling fireplace made from Colorado River rocks.

The master bedroom is a showcase. A small gas fireplace built into a wall — one of her son’s surprises — can be operated by remote control, as can the large television set high in the wall opposite the king-size bed. Then there is the master bathroom.

“This is the other thing I wouldn’t give in on,” Skinner said. “I wanted a red bathtub.”

The guest bathroom, off the hall, features a green marble shower, another of the “little extras” she insisted on having in the new house.

Walls in the hallway serve as a memorial to her husband, with awards and photographs of his service in the Marine Corps, things she had taken with her when she evacuated.

The entire house is decorated with exotic animals — stuffed, wooden, ceramic, metal, paintings. There are elephants, monkeys, hippos, rhinos, giraffes, tigers, lions, leopards, bears and moose. And many others.

Her moose collection has its own room, one shared with her sewing machine — and a bear or two — along with supplies for the “Wearable Art” classes she has taught for 17 years.

Many of the moose were saved when Skinner took them with her during the evacuation. Others were housewarming gifts from friends when she moved into her new home.

She didn’t take a lot of things with her when she left during the fire because, at the time, she thought, “I was coming back to my house.” It was the fourth time she’d had to evacuate since living here.

When she left the last time, she went to her son’s house in Julian. After his house burned, she spent a few days in Borrego Springs with her three cats and a dog, before she bought a trailer and lived at Pinezanita Trailer Park while her new house was under construction.

Instead of dwelling on her losses, Skinner counts her blessings.

“I was just blessed to have a good insurance company, a son who’s a contractor and a friend like Betty,” she said. “I really have been blessed, and I know it.”

On the way back from Borrego Springs with her friend, Betty Birdsell, they stopped at Julian Town Hall and were immediately put to work at the fire relief center that had been set up there.

“We volunteered at the Town Hall for five weeks, day and night,” Birdsell said. “She was such an inspiration to those people who lost their homes.”

Skinner had another surprise after moving into her new house. A feral cat used to come to the old house, sneak in the doggie door at night, and make itself at home at the house cats’ feeding dishes, leaving when the food was gone. After the new house was built, the cat returned, found the new doggie door and moved in permanently.

“He decided this would be his home,” Barbee said. “He looked at me like he was saying, ‘What took you so long?’ ”