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The Carrs have made their life’s work honoring the dreams of their precocious son, who died suddenly at 16. They rescued some mementos and others survived when their Altadena home burned to the ground.
By Billy Witz
Billy Witz reported from Altadena, Calif.
- Jan. 17, 2025Updated 11:56 a.m. ET
It was easy to miss. Susan Toler Carr and her husband, Darrell, were picking through the charred remnants of what had been their home when she spotted a speck of turquoise in the blackened debris: a small metal butterfly, untouched, it seemed, by the fire that had torn through their quiet neighborhood at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains.
Almost nothing was left of their house. But the butterfly was among the signs that cemented their resolve to stay. This was still home.
The thousands who have lost so much in the Los Angeles wildfires will soon wrestle with how to rebuild the lives that perished with their homes. Leave the neighborhood? Leave the city? The decisions will be personal. For the Carrs, the calculus has particularly deep roots.
Their century-old Spanish Colonial Revival home in Altadena, where they have lived for nearly 25 years, was not just a roof over their heads. It was a place where they had raised their only son, Justin, who was an aspiring architect, an accomplished swimmer, a lyrical poet, a winsome tenor and a painting prodigy.
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And it was where they continued to feel his presence, years after he had died at the age of 16, from a sudden and rare heart condition.
