The Morning After: Family, Town Mourn Loss of Cook Barn

In a town that strives to preserve its past, the loss of Cook Historic Barn hits hard.

, leaving behind a charred shell ... and fond memories. 

“I think of it as truly one of the iconic structures of our town,” said Mayor Sam Allevato. “It harkened back to our agricultural roots. It’s a tragic loss.”

For Teresa Cook, it’s a personal loss. Cook’s great-great-great-grandfather Russell Cook built the barn in 1898. Although family members have divvied up ownership over the years, it has always been in Cook hands.

• Related: Share Your Memories, Photos of Good Times at the Barn

Teresa Cook had been living in the barn off and on for the past year with her two young children and their father, Gianvito Loparco, originally from Italy. Loparco had grown up in a rural area himself, and the family was taking full advantage of the barn’s original purpose, growing their own vegetables and raising silkie chickens and a rare heritage breed called Java chickens.

Fortunately, the family wasn't home when the fire started. But when Cook returned, she dropped to one knee with tears streaming down her face as she called out, “Oh, God!”

“It is very, very sad,” Allevato said. “It’s been part of this community for so many years.”

Jerry Nieblas, president of the Capistrano Historical Alliance Committee, offered his own memories of the barn. Now almost 60, he and his friends would go horseback riding through the area, occasionally stealing a watermelon or two from a patch near the 133-year-old Congdon House before tethering their horses in the Cook barn to eat the spoils.

“To lose this building, it’s a real impact,” Nieblas said. Long before Del Obispo was a busy street and cars were still rare, the Cook barn was a landmark that could be seen far and wide, he said.

"It’s always been a real welcoming sight to me. It takes me back to our history and to a time when life moved at a slower pace,” Nieblas said.

The barn isn’t on its original spot, having been moved about 100 yards by the city  to make way for Del Obispo Terrace, a senior-living home. The move gave it even greater visibility to passersby on Del Obispo Street.

With the loss of the Cook barn, only a handful of such buildings remain, said Don Tryon, a member of the city’s Cultural Heritage Commission. There’s the behind the Garcia and Yorba adobes on Camino Capistrano, and another barn by the Pablo Pryor Adobe near the .

As the oldest city in Orange County, San Juan Capistrano also has the most historical buildings, Tryon said. The goal of the commission is to preserve that history.

“It’s tragic that we lost this building,” he said. (Late Thursday, Orange County Fire Authority spokesman Marc Stone said investigators were still trying to determine the cause of the fire.)

Living in the barn this past year has been “pretty rustic,” Cook said. Hugging her 3-year-old daughter, Giselle, and staring at the carnage, Cook said she didn’t know how she would break the news to her 4-year-old son, Gianluca.

“This was his barn. Everybody at school knew he’s the kid who gets to live in the barn.”