The house where the Hilinskis have chosen to start over sits on the banks of Lake Murray in Irmo, S.C., past where their street dead ends, nearby a thicket of towering white oaks. The building’s insides have been gutted, same as the family that bought the place in January. They ripped up the floors and tore up the kitchen and stripped away everything but the foundation. Time for a complete rebuild, in both a practical sense and a symbolic one.
For now, the house is uninhabitable, except for one room that’s tucked upstairs and left untouched by the construction.