A villa worth 9 million dollars remained completely untouched in a massive fire.
The owner of the villa in Malibu, estimated to be worth nearly 9 million dollars, was astonished to learn that his home survived a fire that engulfed all the surrounding villas.
“It’s a miracle; miracles never cease,” said David Steiner, a retired waste management center director. He wasn’t in the villa during the fire. He thought he would definitely lose the villa when he saw the flames and smoke surrounding it.
“The contractor was watching the news and saw the neighbor’s house in flames. He told me mine would burn too. While I watched footage of the fire, I thought nothing could survive it. That’s when I thought I had lost the villa,” Steiner recalls.
Then messages started pouring in.
“Your house is all over the news,” the messages read.
Incredibly, his three-story villa was the only one left standing amid a sea of burned-down beautiful beachside villas.
“My wife told me our house was the only one still standing, and that brought a big smile to my face during these tough times,” says the owner.
Steiner, a lawyer and former director of Waste Management Inc. in Houston, believes that the exceptional design of his property, built to withstand earthquakes, is what saved it. He thinks the villa’s construction, designed for maximum safety, allowed it to survive the fires that destroyed all the nearby homes.
“It’s built from gypsum and stone, with a fire-resistant roof. The building’s foundations go 15 meters underground to withstand the strong waves that hit directly below it,” he concluded.
