Feature Home: After the Big One
03 Jan 2016
A couple who lost everything in the 2013 flood gained it back through the charity of friends and strangers, and their own resilient spirits.
By Lisa Marshall At 4:50 a.m. on Sept. 12, 2013, a ringing phone jolted Ben Rickard awake: School was canceled for his 17-year-old daughter, due to rain. Annoyed, he rolled over to go back to sleep. “I thought, ‘I guess they’re just canceling school for anything these days,’” he recalls. But once his wife, Shannon Rood, tried to step outside, reality struck.




(Don’t) Ask and You Shall Receive
The couple met at the Humane Society of Boulder Valley in 2001, drawn together by a mutual love of animals and a similar dream of owning a big property where they could have lots of them someday. They got married and started a Boulder business, the Dog Spot Dog Daycare and Boarding, in 2004.





Framing the Issue
The couple hired David Barrett, of Boulder’s Barrett Studio Architects, after getting a recommendation from an acquaintance who had lost her house in a fire and hired him to design the new one. Barrett is known for clean, modern layouts that take advantage of a property’s surroundings, and he knew how to work within their tight budget.


Happy Ending for All
Today, life is starting to feel normal again, they say, as they tour a visitor around a modestly sized home that feels bigger than it is. High ceilings with a clerestory and glass walls on the southwest lend a spacious, cheery feel. The concrete floors are easy to keep clean, despite the many muddy paws that tread on them.
