After a fire destroyed her Kenwick house, Tomi Ross has moved into her new home, and forged an even stronger bond with neighbors
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Tomi Ross has to search diligently to try to find a photo of her old home, a striking teal Victorian house that stood on Bassett Avenue in the Kenwick neighborhood.
Last summer, lightning struck one of the home’s three chimneys, which was used as a vent for the hot water heater, and traveled through the pipes, igniting the second story of the house. When the fire reached an upstairs bathroom, a clawfoot tub fell through the ceiling into the downstairs kitchen as the floor gave way, bringing the flames with it.
Fortunately, Ross was in Louisville at the time and wasn’t injured in the fire.
“I got a call at 1:07 in the morning from a friend who said, ‘Tomi, your house is on fire,’” Ross remembers. “So I rushed back here, I got back in like 45 minutes - that’s a speed record from Louisville.”
Ross, who had lived in the old house for 27 years with her partner, Catherine, has to search diligently for a photo of the home, because the fire destroyed most of her photographs, along with the majority of her other belongings.
What wasn’t destroyed, friends and neighbors helped pull from the wreckage.
“The day after the fire, I was standing in the backyard, in a daze,” Ross said. “People all around me were carrying out my possessions.”
But the outpouring of help from neighbors didn’t stop there.
Some children in the neighborhood drew Ross pictures of her old home to help cheer her up, and she said whenever she got a new refrigerator, their illustrations would go up on it. Ross says she remembers seeing the horror on the children’s faces when they realized that she no longer had a refrigerator, let alone a kitchen, after the fire. Wanting to assist their neighbor, the kids hosted a lemonade stand to help raise money for Ross.
Another neighbor suggested Ross rent a home he owned just down the street; other neighbors lent her furniture to use.
The location of the rented house was very convenient for Ross, a senior facilities manager at UK Healthcare. She could watch the construction of her new home, which had to be built from the ground up since the former structure had to be demolished.
After talking to a number of contractors for the design and build of her new home, Ross chose Angela Forsee and Greystone Restoration.
“I knew it was the perfect fit for the project,” Ross said. Although Greystone doesn’t specialize in new builds, Forsee understood the period housing that Ross wanted to recreate.
Even though Ross knew that they couldn’t rebuild the old house, she knew that she wanted her new home to look and feel like a Victorian. Also, she wanted the new home to have the same presence on the lot.
Because she was aware of how fond the neighbors were of the old Victorian surrounded by bungalows, she wanted to do right by the neighborhood, partly as a show of appreciation for how gracious others were in coming to her assistance.
“When I pulled up that night (the house was on fire), the street was just lined with people, and some were crying. As compassionate as my neighbors are, they weren’t crying because I was losing my house; they were crying because they were losing their Victorian,” Ross remembers.
“One woman said she ran out of her house when she heard the sirens and said to another neighbor who was coming out, ‘Tell me it’s not the blue house. It’s not the blue house is it?’ They were devastated.”
Ross was able to move into her new home in early March. Though it has a Victorian-style appearance on the outside, inside Ross wanted an open floor plan with lots of windows for natural light – building features not associated with older homes.
“Victorians were very dark usually, and the rooms were all cut up. You had tons of doors into every room,” she said. “I wanted to do the Victorian look outside, but I wanted more light. So when I built this house, I put in so many windows, I almost don’t have room to put in any furniture.”
Incidentally, the new home is about 700 square feet smaller than the old house, but still has a master bedroom downstairs and three upstairs bedrooms.
Currently, Ross is working on finding some last pieces of furniture to round out the home and finding ways to incorporate some pieces salvaged from the burned house.
Even though Ross had spent nearly 30 years making her old house a home – replacing the roof, windows and air conditioning, and painting the house numerous times through the years – she’s optimistic about the opportunities and possibilities her “new” Victorian offers.
“It’s a wonderful house, but I still mourn the old house. I loved that old house,” she said. “I’m more of an old-house kind of person, but (this house) has great bones and it really works, so I love it. The flow is wonderful.”
Visitors to Ross’ new home are greeted at the front door with a plaque paying tribute to the neighborhood and friends and neighbors who have shown Ross so much support through the last year. At the bottom, a quote from Confucius reads, “Of neighborhoods, benevolence is the most beautiful.”
And Ross may not have many photos of her old house, but the pictures the neighborhood kids drew of the old blue Victorian did finally find a home on Ross’ new refrigerator.
Kenwick Bungalow Tour 2013
Tomi Ross’ new home will be on the 2013 Kenwick Bungalow Tour, presented by the Kenwick Neighborhood Association from 1 - 5 p.m. June 2.
Seven to 10 homes or gardens will be open on the day of tour and will be within walking or short driving distance from each other. The tour is an illustration of this near-downtown neighborhood that blends traditional and modernized homes and gardens, and the diverse blend of Lexingtonians who call it home.
While every house may not be a bungalow, each one will show a different aspect of Kenwick’s unique personality.
Free homemade refreshments will be served on the lawn of the oldest home in Kenwick, located at 116 Lincoln Ave. The new Kenwick Victory Community Garden will also be open on the day of the tour, and there will be a raffle to raise funds to keep the community garden going. Victory Christian Church will also be open and they will be holding a silent auction to raise funds to make needed repairs to the church.
Funds raised from ticket sales for the tour will be used to support Kenwick Neighborhood Association projects and programming at the Kenwick Community Center. Tickets for the tour are $5 and will be available on the day of the tour in the Victory Christian Church parking lot at the corner of Owsley and Cramer avenues. To volunteer on the day of the tour, please e-mail kenwickneighbors@gmail.com.