Selling the City star and luxury real estate agent Taylor Middleton announced she lost her home and many personal belongings in a “catastrophic” fire that struck her apartment building in TriBeCa.
Middleton opened up about the experience in a new interview with Fox Business.
“We were fast asleep and our golden retriever, Mac, all of a sudden started barking ferociously. He’s not a barker, and so he woke us up. Clearly there was a problem,” she said, adding that was the point they finally noticed the “cloud of smoke” in their apartment.
“And at that point, the smoke alarms had not gone off yet. We knew that there was a pretty big problem,” she said.
The Netflix star said she and her husband, Peter Scavo, grabbed as many of their personal belongings as they could, including their marriage certificate and passports. She revealed firefighters later told residents it was safe to enter the building just a few hours later, but they opted not to.
“I didn’t think it was safe to go back into the building. Even like the air quality. So a lot of people went back into the building, and I’m told it was maybe 45 minutes to an hour and then the fire had reignited,” she recounted. “What we’re told is that it was in the support beams of the second floor apartment. And so, you know, these things happen.”
Local reports of the fire note two firefighters suffered minor injuries while putting out the blaze, which took about four hours to contain.
After the fire, Middleton shared a statement on Jan. 25. asking for help for herself and her neighbors.
“Our Tribeca apt building is uninhabitable after a catastrophic fire late Wednesday pm,” she wrote. “There are 20 families/individuals including Peter, Mac and me who lost their home and most of our belongings due to smoke and fire damage.” The Netflix star then asked for help finding short-term rentals downtown for her neighbors.
“We are in total shock. We don’t have the words yet or the space to process what happened but we are safe and grateful our neighbors, their kids and pets are also safe,” she added in the caption. “We are overwhelmed beyond belief but we are eternally grateful to our Tribeca community.”
Middleton has been active on social media since, offering some optimistic updates on her Instagram Stories about life in her “new temporary neighborhood.”
The Nashville native made her debut on Selling the City, which premiered on Netflix Jan. 3. From the creators of Selling Sunset and Selling the OC, the series follows the stylish agents of Douglas Elliman as they “navigate the cutthroat world of luxury real estate in New York City,” per Netflix.
Selling the City is now streaming on Netflix.
