Family in new home one year after fire
Just over a year after seeing their newly renovated L Street home engulfed in flames the Joseph Ochsner family is moving into their new house on the same site in what they now view as a redemption story.
Lithium batteries charging on a table in the garage is what fire officials determined as the cause of a fire on July 14, 2023, which caused extensive damage throughout the house. The Ochsners felt blessed at the time that nobody was hurt during the fire, and blessed again with support they received that same day from their church and community.
With the benefit of time and emotional healing, Joseph, Kylee and their five children sat down in their new home, which sat mostly empty as of last week, to share a new perspective on their ordeal.
“We really feel like this is kind of a redemption story,” Joseph said. “You know, if you go back to how Christ has redeemed us to make us better, we feel like with this home we had an opportunity with the fire and all that to see God’s work. We have a very nice house now, just like He works in our lives, so we just really appreciate that, seeing the correlation there between the two.”
The family was visibly excited to be moving into its new home, which features a more modern, open living space on the main floor. It’s been an emotionally challenging year in some ways, they confided, but one that left them feeling blessed.
“We’ve been so focused on moving forward, but I guess swim lesson week this summer brought back some moments,” Kylee said, pausing as she recalled that Friday morning when she was shuttling kids to and from swimming lessons as the fire broke out. “It was a tough day.”
It took time for insurance adjusters to make decisions on the condition of the house, but the Ochsners didn’t have to wait long to know their next step. Jeff and Stacy Juzyk, who attend Pleasant View Bible Church as well, immediately offered to let the Ochsners stay in their home while they moved into a second property they own by the river.
“When Jeff and Stacy opened up their house for us to move into it was just incredible,” Joseph recalled. “We did reach out to Jeff at that time and asked if he would be interested in rebuilding our home if it went up and he said he would, so we started working with Jeff at that point and have just kind of kept him involved in the process from there going forward. That’s been a huge blessing to work with them and that they let us live in their house.”
The question of whether the family could build or not build on the same site took some time to answer, as it turns out, which Joseph said was at times challenging.
“So we had to work through insurance and go through all their steps, just like anybody would,” he recalled. “They had to come in and determine whether it was a total loss or not, so they had a company come in and do an assessment of what it would take to repair the old house versus what our policy limits were.”
In the middle of that process a new adjuster was brought onto the case, but eventually the house was determined a total loss, which opened up a lot of options for the Ochsners.
“At that point, we could have redone what we had, built something new, or even kind of get out of this lot and house and look somewhere else,” he said. “Those were all options for us.”
By August, more than a month after the fire, the family started working with Joseph’s cousin in Lincoln who designs houses, taking steps toward rebuilding on the same site.
“We went on several tours of open houses in town and tried to look down every avenue just to make sure this was the direction we were supposed to go before we really committed,” Joseph shared. “We didn’t pull the trigger on building the house until January.”
One-year transition
With Jeff Juzyk already on board as the builder, the plans started to move forward quickly at that point, resulting in a one-year transition from the old house to the new.
“Yeah, it really came together fast at that point,” Joseph said. “In fact, we’ve had several subcontractors tell us that. To be in a custom-built house like this considering the time the fire happened is just incredible.”
While the transition was relative quick, the Ochsners say that the fire and transitional housing did have an impact on their lives.
“It definitely impacted us,” Joseph admitted. “I’m a person who likes to travel so with the house in limbo and stuff we have kind of tried to be here and available should things come up. It feels like the house was our priority to get it rebuilt, so you kind of pump the brakes on some of those things. From the kids’ side, we tried to make life as normal as possible. You know, we still did all the normal activities, like soccer and softball and all those things,” while also showing some critters at the Hamilton County Fair.
Joseph said he feels lucky to have the support and flexibility from his employer, Minneapolis-based Thermo King. He’s a customer service lead for the company, working two days a week from home and three days from an office in Hastings.
“That’s a huge blessing, too,” he said. “They’ve been very good to work with as far as making sure we have time off and even helping after the fire. They were very concerned. It’s a good place to work.”
Kylee shared that her role as the family’s full-time homeschool educator has been different as well.
“Sometimes, school looked a lot different at the Juzyk house than what I did here,” she said with a smile, with one of her children sharing that lessons were often conducted in rocking chairs and a big couch. “School was very comfy there. I’ve learned in homeschooling that the Lord fills the gaps, so we’re going to be faithful in what He’s called us to do and He will take care of that and honor that. Maybe it didn’t look like what I like things to look like, but we’ve just been trying to be loose and adaptable to where we’re at.”
As of last week, with the family’s full-scale move into the new house pending, homeschool had not yet started for the Ochsner kids, but the teacher was not concerned.
“I would have liked to have started at this point, but we just can’t start and then move and pick back up again, so we’re going to just use the time we’re given now and work with it,” Kylee said. “The winter might look like some longer days than we usually put in, but that’s alright.”
Homeschooling, like the housing transition, has been both a test of and lesson in their faith, the Ochsners agreed.
“We were just talking about that this morning, how we just haven’t ever walked alone,” Kylee said. “The Lord’s been here every step and he’s provided the community and family and everyone around us so physically we haven’t walked alone and spiritually we haven’t walked alone this whole process. That’s been huge and we’re so grateful to everyone who has walked beside us, either doing physical things in the house or outside the house, or prayer, or bringing meals or just saying, ‘Hey, how’s it going?’ You know, just at every level we’ve been cared for so thoroughly, and we’re so grateful.”
This old house
The house that was destroyed by fire last July had been the Ochsner’s home since 2008, when they purchased the property from Lonnie and Cheryl Wells. After the fire, Kylee contacted Tina Larson at the Plainsman Museum and learned that the home had stood for more than 120 years.
“She was able to trace the old house back to the 1890s,” she said. “That’s as far back as she could go in her records and she printed me up a picture from 1913, I think.”
As fate would have it, some of the windows original to the 1890s house were not on site at the time of the fire, so the Ochsner’s cherish those pieces and will look for the right opportunity to highlight that piece of history in the new home.
“The foundation of this house is the same as the old house,” Kylee added, noting that the floorpan on the main level was revised to move the staircase from the middle of the room to the north wall. “That created some opportunities because we didn’t want a big box. We wanted some quirky things, or some character things, so this is the original shape out here,” she said, motioning to the curved front wall, which now is filled with large windows facing L Street. “We tried to keep some nods to the old house, because we loved that old house.”
Now that the transition from the fire, to transitional housing, back to their own home is complete, the family is feeling a tremendous sense of gratitude.
“We still just can’t express our gratitude enough,” Kylee said. “I mean, from complete strangers to people we’ve known our whole lives have shown care and concern for us and support and just asking how it’s going, so little things to big things. We are still overwhelmed by the gratitude when I sit back and look at it.”
“The community, the church, family, everybody’s just been wonderful,” Joseph concluded. “We’re so grateful for all their support.”