Rebuilding from the Ashes
Owners of Burned-Down Barn Seek New Home
When Tropical Storm Irene swept through the mid-Atlantic and northeastern U.S. in August 2011, it caused especially vicious damage in villages around the Catskill Mountains.
Prattsville, N.Y., bore some of the storm’s most devastating winds and rain. Close to the town’s overflowing Schoharie Creek stood Megan Fromer and Gabe Faure-Brac’s home.
The couple bought the barn at 821 Johnson Hollow Road in 2005 and poured virtually their entire savings into fixing it up before getting married there in 2007 (on 07/07/07, to be precise). The Barn hosted good times for Fromer, Faure-Brac, and their loved ones.
And it withstood the Irene tempest two summers ago…only to burn down earlier this year. By the time firefighters from several neighboring villages arrived at the scene on the morning of Jan. 24, The Barn was engulfed in flames, crumbling to the ground before the end of the day. No one ever learned what caused the fire.
A few months before the couple got married, a pipe burst and flooded The Barn; they had to gut the whole place to patch it up in time for the wedding. Fromer and Faure-Brac were in the middle of smoothing out those quick fixes, moving walls and putting in windows and a new deck, when the fire struck. They also were in the process of increasing their insurance coverage, but that paperwork was not finalized at the time of the blaze.
Their friend Nichol McGrane created a Rally to support them as they worked to rebuild the house they so lovingly restored. Turns out the crowdfunding campaign grew as large and fast as the the flames that had destroyed The Barn. McGrane had to keep raising the fundraising goal because of how generously supporters continued giving.
Within a few weeks dozens of encouraging emails and phone calls flooded in, along with $25,000 in contributions that came from beyond the couple’s inner circle.
“Word spread so quickly, to this day I don’t quite understand how, but it felt like magic,” says McGrane.
“People [the couple] hadn’t seen or spoken to for 10 years found the page and donated. Acquaintances of mine who have no idea who Megan and Gabe are, donated.
“The Rally page helped to comfort a lot of us that were hurting for Megan and Gabe.”
Eventually the Rally for The Barn collected more than $35,000. The funds raised covered the cost of demolishing what remained of Fromer and Faure-Brac’s home and clearing away 90 tons of debris, some of which kept blowing into the road nearby. Unfortunately the couple could not afford to rebuild their house, either on-site or elsewhere, as the construction costs would have run into the hundreds of thousands.
During the course of cleaning up, the couple recovered very few belongings, though coffee mugs and a Gromit figurine survived the fire.
Fromer says she was saddest about losing a beloved book from her childhood: Leo the Late Bloomer by Robert Kraus. It’s the story of a tiger cub who’s a little different from all the other tigers. Her mother’s boyfriend inscribed the book for Fromer shortly before his unexpected death.
The good news (with perhaps a little magic thrown in for good measure): Shortly after demolition on The Barn began, Faure-Brac was walking around the site and found one page from Leo the Late Bloomer ”almost completely intact in a sea of charred metal and wood rubble. Crazy to me that this survived the fire, weeks of snow, wind,” says Fromer.
“He hasn’t found the remnants of any other books or stuff. Very weird and kind of wonderful.”
More good news: Fromer and Faure-Brac recently closed on a partially converted barn about 20 minutes away from their old address. The house looks an awful lot like their old one, says McGrane. The couple hope to renovate the barn and move into it by the time of their 6th wedding anniversary, known to their friends as the “Barniversary.”
McGrane says she can’t get over how much help came to The Barn, especially from strangers. That outpouring of support sustained her through this Rally as much as it motivated Fromer and Faure-Brac to pursue their vision for a happy farmhouse life.
“You just have no idea who’s rooting for you until you put it out there—you will be so amazed by how many people have your back,” says McGrane.
“Helping Megan and Gabe, who have been such wonderful friends to so many, has been one of the greatest achievements of my life. I can’t tell you how thankful I am to Rally for allowing me to do that.”
She hopes to join Fromer, Faure-Brac, and their friends to give thanks this fall, when they’ll sit down to the first Thanksgiving dinner at the new Barn.
To check out earlier updates on The Barn and to contribute to this Rally, visit rally.org/barn2.
