The only things to survive 2019’s New Year’s Eve bushfires at the home of Cobargo’s Santa and retired volunteer firefighter Dave Rugendyke and his wife Barbara were the wooden reindeer that now limp - not prance - along the front fence.
“There was just nothing, nothing,” Mrs Rugendyke said of what was left when they returned to the home far down NSW’s South Coast where they had fostered 100 children in the past decade. “Everything was black.”
Dave and Barbara Rugendyke and family members in their new home in Cobargo.Credit:Angi High
Mr Rugendyke’s shed with his Santa sleds was razed. After a lifetime of helping others, Mr Rugendyke found it hard to accept help. “I lost my marbles,” he said.
A year later, the family’s home is a finalist for the Australian Institute of Architects’ NSW Award for best new house.
Called the Cobargo Santa Project, the home was designed pro bono by Melbourne’s Breathe Architecture. Madeline Sewall, Breathe’s head of houses, said the firm offered to help after watching television footage of a devastated Cobargo volunteer firefighter too upset to even shake the hand of Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
A GoFundMe set up by some of the Rugendyke’s grandchildren funded the rebuilding of Dave’s shed and resulted in donations of a golf buggy for a new sleigh.
But the Rugendykes needed a home. To make the family’s insurance payout go further, Breathe’s staff tapped building suppliers for help. They responded by donating $100,000 worth of materials, ranging from bricks, taps, solar panels, kitchen appliances, carpet, and insulation.
The home is designed to withstand devastating bushfires. It is clad in donated zincalume steel with an angled roof that sheds embers. It has a 60,000-kilogram concrete water tank to replace the plastic one that melted. The house is 100 per cent free of fossil fuels and uses recycled hardwood.
It has two wings. One has enough bedrooms for the family’s seven-year-old daughter Sarah, four foster children, and space for others needing emergency accommodation. The Rugendykes, who also have five adult children and 28 grandchildren, have fostered more than 400 children in total.
Ms Sewall said the new home “is simple, but not without joy”.
Mrs Rugendyke though was more bullish: “I think this house deserves to win. This is not a house, it is a home.”
“Everywhere you look there’s beautiful views, except that way,” she said pointing to still blackened trees.
Cobargo’s Santa and retired volunteer firefighter Dave Rugendyke on his new sleigh.
Moving into the new house in time for Christmas helped the family recover from the trauma of the fires that killed seven people on the NSW South Coast.
“We are definitely starting to feel better ... because it takes a really long time to recover,” Mrs Rugendyke said. “There are no words to describe the feeling of loss, it’s a feeling of emptiness, it is a feeling of not wanting to go forward. You are living day-to-day but you can’t see past that, you can’t see the future clearly.”
In pride of place on the dining room table is a crystal candleholder. It was an heirloom that belonged to Ms Sewall’s family. She gave it to the Rugendykes because they had none of their own.
Back behind the wheel of his new sleigh, Mr Rugendyke said he is recovering from depression after sessions with a therapist that convinced him to accept help when offered. “I have my marbles back,” he said.
The author is a lay juror on the panel deciding the Australian Institute of Architects’ NSW Award for new housing. Winners will be announced in July.
Julie Power is a senior reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald.
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