2009-12-31

Fire destroys historic Lakehills home

By Carol Smith

A historic home owned by Preston Word Jr. and his wife, Elsie, in Lakehills, was completely destroyed by fire Friday evening, Dec. 25.

The fire at 236 Faurie Road was reported at 8:26 pm and the first official on the scene was Deputy Kasey Young with Bandera County Sheriff’s Office. The 3,200 square foot home was valued at $200,000. The cause of the fire is currently undetermined and the investigation is ongoing.

Firefighters with the Medina Lake Volunteer Fire Department arrived on the scene first with the Pipe Creek Volunteer Fire Department following shortly after. Bandera and Mico VFDs also assisted and approximately 35 firefighters battled the blaze until 6 am the next morning.

The four fire departments shuttled tanker trucks back and forth attempting to keep the fire contained to the original structure. Ten trucks attended from the various fire departments, and Medina Lake VFD Chief Greg Grothues was designated incident commander.

“I’m really glad nobody was hurt – either firefighters or civilians,” said Grothues.

Despite the fact that the home is very near Medina Lake, insufficient water was available to keep the inferno from totally consuming the historic home.

“Water became an issue,” said Bandera County Fire Marshal John Stith, “even though we had a drop tank.” As a temporary water storage reservoir, a drop tank can be brought to the scene of a fire, filled by the tanker trucks, and then utilized by the pumper trucks to put the water on the blaze. Although the fire was brought under control, there wasn’t enough available water to extinguish the blaze completely and the home was a complete loss.

According to Stith, the homeowners had just escorted some guests out, when they noticed the smoke detectors going off. The Words grabbed a few items and exited the house. At that point, they saw flames coming out of the eaves of the home.

According to Grothues, the more than 100-year-old home had been moved to the lake from its original location just outside San Antonio, at the intersection of Loop 1604 and Culebra.

Many people remember the property as the location of Dan’s, a roadside bar, where the movie “Father Hood,” starring the late Patrick Swayze, was filmed in 1993. Swayze portrayed a con man, who, after kidnapping his son and daughter from a corrupt orphanage, took them on a cross-country trip in his vintage convertible. Several scenes in the movie were filmed inside Dan’s and Highway 211 was completely closed down to film boat chase scenes.