Connie Stamos was cooking dinner when the evacuation order came down.
Get out of Altadena.
She grabbed her laptop and the family cat, Socks, as a fire birthed Tuesday in nearby Eaton Canyon and spread on powerful winds, threatening the cozy town tucked between Pasadena and the San Gabriel Mountains.
Chris Stamos got a call the following morning from his mom, who came back to a forever-changed Altadena. The former Tennessee baseball pitcher heard his mom tell him they lost the house.
“I was like, ‘What do you mean we lost the house? Where did you put it?’ ” Stamos said. “She was like, ‘No, the fires unexpectedly blew the wrong way.’ ”
The Stamos family house was destroyed by the Eaton Fire, one of the fires that is ravaging Los Angeles County. They likely lost everything in it, including Stamos’ cherished baseball keepsakes from his career with a final stop at Tennessee.
Why the Altadena house meant so much to the Stamos family
Stamos received a video from Connie earlier Tuesday. It showed planters outside blown over and broken by the winds. She laughed and told him he wouldn’t have to worry about those when he helps with the gardening.
Hours later, the fire had started and the winds were no laughing matter. Connie fled the home.
“It was a beautiful home and a beautiful project,” Stamos said. “We had everything we wanted.”
The little house on Callecita Drive stood as a picture of a fresh chapter.
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Connie was an empty nester by 2019. Her sons, Alex and Chris, were playing baseball at Principia College, a Division III school in Illinois. She was widowed in 2016 when Nick, her husband and the boys’ father, died. She had retired after decades working Disney and started a real estate business.
The fixer-upper a few roads away from their longtime home was perfect.
Connie planned a total remodel to make the house special, but the COVID pandemic shuttered them. She could not get permits nor builders to work on the house. The boys were home in the two-bedroom house so she converted the garage into a space for Chris.
“It was miserable,” Stamos said. “But as miserable as it was, you look back on it now and it was such a unique time in our lives. You can only sit back and laugh about how terrible every circumstance was.”
The family hunkered down together. They wasted time watching television in the back room. They played video games with cousins that lived nearby.
The house became a home, then it became what Connie wanted: She redid the whole house, doubling the size and redesigning it to fit her vision. The project was completed in fall 2022.
Stamos remembers Connie’s joy when she pulled a turkey out of the new oven in the finished home on Thanksgiving that year.
“We got our money’s worth with it in terms of memories and in terms of laughs,” said Stamos, who is living in Austin and working in sales.
Replacing baseball memorabilia on Chris Stamos’ mind
Connie didn’t pack clothes or belongings when she fled. She headed an hour north to Acton to stay with her boyfriend, Steve, planning to come back to evacuate bigger items in the morning.
“That morning, the neighborhood was on fire,” Stamos said.
Stamos got the call from his mom that morning. He stepped out of a quarterly evaluation with one of his bosses, heeding horrible news over the phone like he did when he was 16 and his father died.
Cherished keepsakes from his dad and childhood are gone. He thinks family pictures can be replaced.
Many of the most irreplaceable possessions are from his baseball journey.
Stamos had the jersey he wore when Tennessee won the national title in his bedroom. He had his senior day gift from UT, a watercolor painting of him pitching. He displayed framed jerseys and every glove he used in college.
“It is hard to lose little stuff like that,” Stamos said. “A glove is a piece of leather but it has a story.”
Stamos kept countless baseball items because they spoke to hard work and a crazy path.
He had hats and clothing that reminded him of walking through snow at 4 a.m. to work out at Principia. He had the first glove he got at Cal when he landed in Berkeley for the 2023 season. He had College World Series pieces and Tennessee history, which he helped make as an essential member of the pitching staff.
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It was all a reminder of 20 years of work put into baseball.
“That stuff was earned,” said Stamos, who was 3-1 with a 4.50 ERA in 22 games for Tennessee.
What is next for the Stamos family after the Eaton fire
Connie returned to Callecita Drive on Thursday with her brother. They got by the yellow tape and beheld the devastation.
“They got to see what was left, which turned out to be not a house,” Stamos said.
The Eaton fire has destroyed or damaged approximately 7,000 structures and killed five as of Saturday afternoon, according to Cal Fire.
The Stamoses are navigating their next steps. Connie had to buy daily staples like clothing, shoes and toiletries. They have insurance that they expect will provide aid. Recreating a life and a community will take longer.
“I have told everyone that if there is someone that is built for obstacles, it is Connie Stamos,” Stamos said. “She is a freaking rockstar. It breaks my heart because she doesn’t deserve something like this.”
The family set up a GoFundMe on Friday with a goal of raising $15,000 to provide temporary housing and replace essentials. It eclipsed $50,000 on Saturday with a push from Knoxville, Vols fans and many Tennessee baseball players and their families.
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Stamos has talked with Vols coach Tony Vitello about getting replacements for some of the items lost. He tears up thinking about the support he feels from those he met in his one year at Tennessee, calling it a “blank-check relationship” that is “filling the hole of uncertainty.”
“They watched a kid throw a baseball and now they are doing whatever they can to help the kid’s mom,” Stamos said.
The experience of loss has been unexpected, leading to tear-filled phone calls.
Stamos knows California is no stranger to fires and such disasters happen. The leap from it could happen to it happened to you is large and it happened so quickly.
It’s surreal, Stamos said, but everyone is safe and the Stamoses are moving forward as best as they can after losing the drafty little house they made a home.
Mike Wilson covers University of Tennessee athletics. Email him at michael.wilson@knoxnews.com and follow him on X @ByMikeWilson or Bluesky @bymikewilson.bsky.social. If you enjoy Mike’s coverage, consider a digital subscription that will allow you access to all of it.
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