Trail by Fire: A Tale of Two Houses

Born in Elmhurst, a suburb of Chicago, Doug was educated at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. In January of 1950 he obtained his Bachelor of Science degree in the school of Architecture and in Denver became a draftsman in a small architectural firm. Moving through Tucson to San Diego he worked a year for a larger firm doing schools while weekends he swam in the ocean and dove for abalone. In Altadena he married and obtained his California architectural license and pursued his architectural goals as a draftsman in Pasadena and Glendale. Moving to Santa Monica he continued drafting in a small architectural firm in Brentwood Village where he was eventually upgraded to "designer". In 1955 he built his first house in Santa Monica Canyon and immediately sold it, then built a second house and sold that while moving into the first one that had quickly come up for sale. In the following Santa Monica Canyon years his wife gave birth to three marvelous daughters and by January of 1958 he opened his first permanent office as an architect operating solely in Malibu. In 1966 he moved his family into a new Malibu architect's dream house overlooking Surfrider Beach. Five years later it burned to the ground and it took him two more years to build a more fire-resistant house over the same foundations. The new house remains and has been noted in Gebhardt and Winter's, Los Angeles Guide to Architecture. Doug's spent most of his career doing new houses and additions in Malibu and local areas, but also single jobs in Kauai, Greece, Denver, Fallbrook, Barstow, Long Beach, and eight projects in Santa Barbara. In 1980 he was divorced from his first wife and married Marge Lewi-Rucker who had four kids of her own. All are grown and deeply into their own lives. Marge has since deceased and Doug now lives content in Malibu on a landscaped acre of property in a house of his own design. Retired from architecture he brings a special passion to writing and photographic digital art.