Under the light of day, all Dr. Thomas Mendolia could do was shake his head and look at the smoldering ruins of what remained of the house in which he and his family had once lived.

"I raised my family here," he said. "I raised my family here."

According to a neighbor who asked not to be identified, the house on 114 Eldridge Lane, State Road, is believed to have caught fire around 2 a.m.

"It was around 2:15 a.m.," the neighbor said. "I know, because I have to be up at 4:15 a.m. and I checked my alarm clock to see what time it was."

He had awakened earlier than usual because he was roused awake by his wife, he said.

"My wife said she could hear the fire," said the neighbor," he said. "We thought our garage was on fire. We could see the flames dancing."

When they looked out the window, they quickly discovered it was the former Mendolia residence that was on fire.

They immediately called 911, but the fire was fast moving.

"This went up in about an hour, from the floor up," the neighbor's wife said. "It started caving in on itself within 10 minutes."

It was 3 a.m. when Mendolia, who now lives in Lewisburg, said he received a phone call telling him his former home was on fire. He rushed over to his former residence.

"By the time firefighters got here, the house was engulfed," Mendolia said.

He wondered about the timing of the entire incident.

"Everyone was talking about the lightning of 11:30 p.m.," he said.

The neighbor who called in the fire confirmed the talk about the lightning.

"We heard the lightning strike at about 11:45 p.m. I had never heard it so loud or so close before," he said. "It shook the house. That woke us up."

Mendolia wondered aloud whether lightning might be to blame, and he was not the only person questioning the fire's origin. Throughout Tuesday in the daytime, Surry County Fire Marshal Doug Jones and Assistant Fire Marshal Earl Mounce were on the scene. So too were Det. James Turner with the Surry County Sheriff's Department and Det. Angie Meadows with the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) Arson Investigation unit, gathering clues.

"We don't know what time the fire started," said Jones. "So we don't know how fast it progressed."

Jones said the fire was still under investigation and that there were still people to interview.

Mendolia wondered whether a grafitti-scrawled message on a wall of the swimming pool -- "Rich Dr. Where's the pool boy?" -- had any tie-in to the fire.

"It's just awful. I've been in this area 17 years," he said. "It just makes you think."

Deborah Swift of Swift Real Estate Specialists in Elkin, who is the listing agent for the Mendolias, said she was devastated by the fire.

"This was their dream home. It was custom-built," Swift said. "It was just unbelievably gorgeous."

She likened the loss to that of a death in the family. It was more than just a house, she said. It was where the Mendolias had raised their now-college aged children.

Adding to the emotional loss was the financial impact. Swift did not know what direction the Mendolias would take.

"We're just waiting on the doctor," she said. "We're just waiting to be as of much comfort as we can."

Mendolia said he had just put in over $100,000 in improvements.

"We just put in cladding and stone," he said.

The neighbor who called in the fire was grateful that neither Mendolia or his family had been harmed. The neighbor added that the house was vacant at the time and expressed the hope that no irreplaceable family artifacts were lost or destroyed.

Mendolia looked at the ruins one last time and then got into his car and drove away.