After losing everything in the Woolsey fire, a determined couple’s sleek and sturdy house serves as a playbook for recent victims
Words by KELSEY McKINNON
Photography by VISUALLY HERE STUDIOS
At the entrance of Gary Scott and Laurie Schireson’s home in the Santa Monica Mountains stands a sculpture that was created out of the iron carcass of Scott’s beloved Schimmel piano. The plate was found under a foot of debris in 2018 after the Woolsey fire incinerated their home of 20 years and everything inside it. The couple worked with an artist friend to create the sculpture, called Icarus Rising. Students of Greek mythology will remember the cautionary tale of Icarus, who ignored his father’s warnings and flew too close to the sun, causing his wings to melt. Burned (metaphorically) by greed and arrogance, he plunged into the sea and drowned.
For Scott and Schireson, the statue symbolizes many life lessons, chief among them the power of resilience — that they could rebuild a better home optimized for protection after everything was taken away. “It doesn’t feel sad,” says Scott, a television and film composer, who also lost 12 guitars and six BMI awards in the blaze for his work on projects including Beverly Hills, 90210 and Baz Luhrmann’s film Romeo and Juliet. “It feels like a point of arrival…like we cleared a hurdle by moving beyond tragedy into something wonderful. That’s how I look at it.”
The Woolsey fire burned a total of 1,600 structures, including more than 30 in their Malibou Lake neighborhood. In the aftermath, the couple moved nine times in four years, but they always intended to return to the home where they started their life together. Scott and Schireson met when they were 6 years old, reconnected years later, and blended their families (Scott has three children from a previous marriage, and Schireson has one). They were drawn to Malibou Lake’s remoteness — halfway between the beach and the valley — and its proximity to nature. Locals have been known to hide the turn-off signs so no one can find it.
Established in the early 1900s, the community originally consisted of a few charming cabins on the banks of a dammed lake that is filled with runoff from the mountains. The clubhouse doubled as a speakeasy before Ronald Reagan, who owned a neighboring ranch, was named honorary mayor of Malibou Lake in 1953 — his first political appointment. “It’s truly magical here,” Schireson says. “We would kayak with the kids to the middle of the island in the lake. It’s like Huck Finn.”
For Scott and Schireson, the road back to this enchanting enclave was long and arduous. With essentially a clean slate after the fire, Scott became the default project manager and started assembling a team that included architect Christopher Mercier of (fer) studio in L.A. and a lawyer to help them file suit against Southern California Edison; they eventually reached a settlement. “If you want to win the prize at the end, if you want to get up every day and go, ‘Wow, it doesn’t get better than this,’ then you have to pay attention. I was hands on,” Scott says. Their insurance company paid out, but their policy has since been dropped. Like so many others in fire-prone areas, they are now on the California FAIR Plan, which has a maximum payout of $3 million. It’s something they can live with because the plan for the rebuild was never to build back bigger. Instead, they wanted something modest and manageable in size but uncompromising in design and, above all, fireproof.
One benefit of living on the property for so long was that they knew exactly how to orient the new structure to take advantage of the light and views. Perched on the edge of the lot, the northeast-facing new build is essentially a one-bedroom home, although Schireson’s meditation room has a Murphy bed. It is also nearly 1,000 square feet smaller than their previous home, yet it feels larger because of its soaring 14-foot-tall ceilings and steel doors that give way to a generous cement patio, which doubles as their dining room.
It feels like we cleared a hurdle by moving beyond tragedy into something wonderful. That’s how I look at it.
gary scott
The first step was making sure their new home could survive if lightning struck twice. “The fire department could not defend our community because of weather conditions, so they basically just let it burn. If you move back, you certainly cannot count on the fire department showing up, because they may not,” says Scott, who installed an industrial-grade Rain Bird sprinkler system on the roof, the same kind used to water crops. “The system will use city water to protect the home and create a big vapor cloud around the entire property. Then, after the city water pressure falls, we can switch a couple of levers and take 10,000 gallons out of the pool.”
To get around the challenging process of permitting a traditional in-ground pool in accordance with Malibu’s strict building codes, Scott discovered Modpools, a Canadian company that refurbishes shipping containers into pools. He argued that this simple, self-contained body of water was no different from a hot tub, and the permitting department acquiesced.
Other efforts to fireproof the home in large part informed the design. Shiny silver panels of Corten steel that adorn the outside oxidized over six months, revealing a burnt hue that feels warm and aged. The rest of the exterior is concrete and tempered glass with solar panels on the roof so they never lose power.
Before completing the construction, which was delayed by the pandemic, they brought in L.A. designer Sophie Goineau — who has designed many homes and commercial projects, including the Petit Ermitage hotel — to help them over the finish line. “It could not be busy,” says Goineau, noting the home’s small, angular rooms. “And I wanted to use wood and rich fabrics, so you have a sensorial feeling of comfort and softness to contrast the hard materials that were used to build the house. I didn’t want to upstage the exterior.”
Schireson, a former buyer at SoCal retailer Planet Blue who lost a vast collection of clothing and accessories, says Goineau was shocked at the small size of her new closet. “The question I’m sure you’re hearing from recent fire victims is ‘Why did I have so much?’ I need so little now. Well, it’s truly become my motto. I can’t handle excess anymore,” Schireson says.
Today the house is filled with music again, and Schireson always has something cooking on the stove. The neighborhood has largely come back and is more close-knit. The couple feel safer knowing that they’ve taken every precaution, but unlike Icarus, they are still cautious. When the Kenneth fire threatened Malibu this past winter, they promptly evacuated. “I packed a bag with the essentials: the same jeans and sweats that I took seven years ago and some wine,” Schireson says. “It was the same PTSD all over again.” They returned home a few days later, grateful yet shaken. Despite it all, Schireson maintains, “There isn’t another place I’d want to live.”
Feature image: The bedroom, like the rest of the house, takes advantage of the light and the views.
This story originally appeared in the Men’s Spring 2025 edition of C Magazine.
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