Fixing up the Finnerty home to help family, community heal

For the past five months, the Finnerty house has stood boarded up near downtown Arlington Heights, reminding everyone who passes by about the tragedy that occurred there.

On June 2, Patricia and Kevin Finnerty, and their 11-year-old son, Garrett, died after a suicidal Kevin Finnerty intentionally set the house on fire. Two of their children escaped the middle-of-the-night blaze by climbing out a bedroom window and onto a ledge over the front door.

Now, plans are in the works to remodel the house's interior and exterior to look totally different, and then put it up for sale with the proceeds benefiting the two surviving Finnerty children.

No one, including the neighbors, wants the house to look like it used to because it would stir up sad memories about the popular family that once lived there. It would also make it more challenging to sell.

"Everyone just wants it to look different," said Jennifer Murphy-Cazares of Arlington Heights, Patricia Finnerty's sister and the legal guardian of Pierce and Bridgit Finnerty. "It bothers people just to see their van in the driveway. They think it looks like they're home."

The insurance company will only pay to restore the house to its previous condition. While that's the cheapest and easiest option, Murphy-Cazares didn't think that was the right thing for the Finnerty children or the neighborhood. So she hired an architect to draw up some plans and is now seeking donations of materials and services to help offset the cost of the work.

A price tag for the project has not yet been determined, because they haven't hired a contractor yet. But they'll need everything from new windows to siding.

Already, several friends have made donations and Flood Brothers will provide Dumpsters for the house cleaning.

"What they're trying to do is transform the house so it's not a reminder of something tragic," said the project's architect Jean Reibel, of Reibel & Associates in Mount Prospect, who helped the Finnertys remodel their kitchen before the fire. "It's a little pie-in-the-sky right now ... but if we get some donations, we might be able to do it."

The house is in a highly visible location on Park Street, a main thoroughfare to South Middle School, Our Lady of the Wayside Church and Pioneer Park and pool. It also can be seen by northbound traffic on Arlington Heights Road.

Six-year-old Pierce likes to go past his old house, despite its charred and boarded-up condition.

"He says, can we go by and say 'Hi' to my house?" Murphy-Cazares said. "Bridgit doesn't vocalize it as much. But she goes by there all the time."

Murphy-Cazares is very open with the children about everything that's going on and showed them the architectural plans for their former home.

"I said, 'This is going to look totally different. What do you think?' And they both said, 'Absolutely.' They didn't even flinch," Murphy-Cazares said. "And if they want it, I'm going to make it happen."

The plans call for sandblasting the white brick, two-story house, so the exterior can be a different color. They'd also add windows, change the roof line, switch to a two-door entry garage, convert the side porch into a two-story addition, and put on a wraparound front porch.

The interior also would be changed, to help erase memories of the past. Bedroom walls would be removed to change the layout of the upstairs, where Patricia died, Reibel said.

Restoring the house to its previous look would be a mistake, Reibel believes, because no one would want to buy it. Then the house would fall into foreclosure, adding to the family's tragedy.

Even remodeled, Murphy-Cazares realizes it might be a challenge to sell.

"If not, then whatever happens happens," she said. "Nobody wants to see the house like it was."

The children have been coping "better than the adults" during these past five months, Murphy-Cazares said. Pierce still sports his long, blond, curly locks and is a busy first-grader involved in soccer, Indian Guides and - following in his brother Garrett's footsteps - Boy Scouts. Bridgit is now in seventh grade and runs cross country.

"Bridgit is probably more outgoing now than she was prior," Murphy-Cazares said. "She is always smiling and having fun with her friends."

The adults are having a harder time. Murphy-Cazares has taken a leave of absence from her engineering job to deal with all of the insurance and legal paperwork. Her husband Jerry, a UPS driver, has been a source of strength to her.

"He's so calm, and we need some of that," she said, laughing.

Providing the insurance company with a detailed account of the Finnertys' possessions has been a huge task, and Murphy-Cazares has had to report tiny details like how many inches of spice was left in each of the kitchen's spice jars.

The insurance company prohibits them from cleaning out the house just yet, although Murphy-Cazares has gone in a few times to retrieve items the kids requested. Almost everything has been destroyed by fire, smoke or water, she said.

In the past few months, a few neighbors have written to Arlington Heights Mayor Arlene Mulder suggesting the house be remodeled or torn down and made into a park.

Since the lot is only 6,600 square feet and there are two large parks nearby, Mulder doubts the Arlington Heights Park District would be interested in the property.

"The house is secured, and someone is maintaining the yard, so that wasn't the issue," Mulder said. "They just look at it every day and they're sad. They wanted to turn it into something more positive."

<img src="/graphics/finnertyhouse.jpg"> <p class="factboxheadblack">How to help</p> <p class="News">Donated materials and services are being sought to help renovate the Finnerty house. Contact Jerry Cazares at (847) 833-4458 or e-mail <a href="mailto:cazares707@sbcglobal.net">cazares707@sbcglobal.net</a> for more information.</p> <p class="breakhead">Needs include</p> <p class="News">Windows</p> <p class="News">A mason to sandblast brick</p> <p class="News">Furnace</p> <p class="News">Air-conditioner</p> <p class="News">Duct work </p> <p class="News">Lumber</p> <p class="News">Light fixtures</p> <p class="News">Flooring</p> <p class="News">Gift cards to building supply stores</p> <p class="News">A refrigerator</p> <p class="News">Siding for the second story</p> <p class="News">Paint and painters</p> <div class="infoBox"> <h1>More Coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Video</h2> <ul class="video"> <li><a href="/multimedia/?category=9&type=video&item=359">Officials at press conference; neighbors discuss tragedy</a></li> </ul> <h2>Photo Galleries</h2> <ul class="gallery"> <li><a href="/story/?id=298811">Finnerty family photos </a></li> </ul> <h2>Stories</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/story/?id=298899">Will Finnerty's art now become more popular? <span class="date"> [6/7/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=298651">Investigation reveals earlier suicide attempt, note <span class="date"> [6/5/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=298649">Fundraiser today for Finnerty children <span class="date"> [6/5/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=298609">'Trish would kiss every one of you' <span class="date"> [6/5/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=298563">Friends say Garrett Finnerty was a stand-up kid<span class="date"> [6/5/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=298216">Father wrote of family love, but clues suggest he left them to die<span class="date"> [6/4/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=298494">Funerals scheduled<span class="date"> [6/4/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=298311">Why would a man kill his family? Anger, say psychologists<span class="date"> [6/3/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=298348">Scouts recall boy who worked hard, stayed positive<span class="date"> [6/3/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=298315">Friend: 'We know what they were like when they were alive'<span class="date"> [6/3/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=298314">Fund established to help Finnerty children<span class="date"> [6/3/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=298313">Finnerty's last show: Sales slow but he seemed hopeful<span class="date"> [6/3/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=298281">Libertyville High School staff mourns loss of friend and co-worker<span class="date"> [6/3/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=297826">Officials look to cause of fire that killed members of 'perfect family'<span class="date"> [6/2/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=297944">As watercolorist, Kevin Finnerty making a name for himself <span class="date"> [06/02/09]</span></a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>