‘A house can be rebuilt, but; lives cannot be replaced’; Community rallies around Annapolis family after historic home burns down

Sylvia McKinney was watching "The Lone Ranger" when she heard the explosion.

Thinking the pop was a gunshot from the show, she ignored it - until she looked up and saw smoke in her family room.

"Come on, Riley, we're getting out of here," she said to the family dog. The 93-year-old grabbed her pocketbook and her cellphone and ran out into her driveway.

The next time she looked at her home, it had become a black smoke plume.

It took 45 firefighters from the Anne Arundel County, Annapolis and Naval Academy departments to put out the fire on the 800 block of Bestgate Road on Dec. 3. Investigators are still trying to figure out the fire's cause.

No one was injured, but the McKinneys lost a lifetime of memories.

The McKinneys were the first family to move into the newly built Annapolis community of Best Gate Terrace in 1965. Back when McKinney says it was "just us in the snakes."

The Bestgate community grew around it, as her lawn turned into one of the lanes of the main road and the farm up the street turned into Westfield Annapolis mall.

She was still using antique furniture handed down from her parents. Her granddaughter, Lacy, 33, spent her whole life apart from college living there. She was raising her 1-year-old son in the home.

As the McKinney family grew, so did their house into a five-level, four-bedroom, 2½-bath home with two rear decks. Inside, the impressive stock of antiques and collectibles had been growing for at least a decade.

Each room had a theme. Sylvia McKinney's parents' furniture was in the antique room. Shelves full of vintage car models were kept in the kitchen and the "man cave."

A bright pink play area was dubbed "Hello Kitty Land." Snowmen, Santa figures, angels, snowglobes, small houses and toy trains she had been collecting in a bedroom for at least a decade are now all gone.

"It is not an understatement to say every available inch of space on the floor and furniture was occupied by a Santa or a snowperson. The walls were stacked with shelves, and those were filled with villages filled with tiny, intricately detailed houses," the late Wendi Winters wrote in her 2015 Home of the Week feature.

Their copy of that day's newspaper is gone now, too.

McKinney's son, Kirby, his wife Beverly, their daughter Lacy and her son are staying in a hotel for now while McKinney stays with her other daughter. They say their insurance estimates nine months to a year until the McKinneys can walk through the remains of their home before it's knocked down and rebuilt. That's after the investigation is over.

They'll wait.

"We trusted in God and he's going to bring us through. People have been so, so kind with their love and prayers and gifts," said Beverly McKinney, 62.

"We're just grateful everybody's safe. A house can be rebuilt, but lives cannot be replaced."

For 54 years, the McKinneys would host around 30 family members for Thanksgiving dinner, Easter dinner and Christmas breakfast each year. This Christmas, they'll still be together at another family member's home.

"We're grateful that we're together," Sylvia McKinney said. "It doesn't matter where we are, as long as we're together."

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How to help

*You can donate to a GoFundMe set up for the McKinneys at www.gofundme.com/mckinney-house

-fire-in-annapolis.

*Lasting Tribute funeral services, across the street from the house, has set up an Amazon wishlist to help replace the McKinneys' clothes, toys and household items. The list can be found at a.co/680ga2s.

*A benefit comedy show and concert for the McKinney family will be held Dec. 30 at the First Christian Community Church of Annapolis. Tickets are $15. Children ages 5 and younger may attend for free. Doors open at 5 p.m. and the show starts at 6 p.m. The church is at 1800 Hall-Brown Road.

Credit: By Selene San Felice - [email protected] - twitter.com/selenecapgaz

Caption: The McKinneys lost their family home on Bestgate Road in Annapolis to a fire on Dec. 3. From left, Sylvia McKinney, 93; granddaughter, Lacy McKinney, 33; and daughter, Beverly McKinney, 62.

Funds are being raised for the McKinney family after their home on Bestgate Road was lost in a fire earlier this month.

A car sits destroyed in a parking spot at the home of the McKinney family on Bestgate Road in Annapolis.

Paul W. Gillespie/Capital Gazette

photos by Joshua McKerrow/Capital Gazette