--- description: A $700,000 house perched atop a 75-foot cliff over Lake Whitney in central Texas has been reduced to ashes on purpose. title: This House Teetering Over A 75-foot Cliff Is Burning Down image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt911e48e4ddb429bc/6986978e1eebf76d5937170b/house-fire-texas.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [U.S.](/section/us/) ## U.S. Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [housing](/tag/housing/) ## housing Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # WATCH: House Teetering Over 75-foot Cliff Burned Down on Purpose by [Aleksandra Gjorgievska](/author/aleksandra-gjorgievska/) ## Aleksandra Gjorgievska Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Jun 13, 2014 6:14 PM CUT  by [Aleksandra Gjorgievska](/author/aleksandra-gjorgievska/) ## Aleksandra Gjorgievska Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Jun 13, 2014 6:14 PM CUT A $700,000 house perched atop a 75-foot cliff over Lake Whitney in central Texas has been reduced to ashes — intentionally. Portions of the 4,000 square-foot building began to crumble into the lake when parts of the cliff were destroyed in a landslide. Authorities ruled out options such as pulling the house back with a net and letting it fall into the lake by itself because of safety and cost issues. They deemed setting the house ablaze the cheapest and safest option. The house began to burn down at 10:00 AM local time. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/2871351/house-burns/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/2871351/house-burns/"},"headline":"WATCH: House Teetering Over 75-foot Cliff Burned Down on Purpose","datePublished":"2014-06-13T18:14:26.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T08:24:35.834Z","description":"The roof is on fire","url":"https://time.com/2871351/house-burns/","keywords":["housing","Texas","house","fire"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt911e48e4ddb429bc/6986978e1eebf76d5937170b/house-fire-texas.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Aleksandra Gjorgievska","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/aleksandra-gjorgievska/"}],"articleSection":"U.S.","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt911e48e4ddb429bc/6986978e1eebf76d5937170b/house-fire-texas.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"House Fire Texas","caption":"House Fire Texas","creditText":"","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/us/","name":"U.S."}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/housing/","name":"housing"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/2871351/house-burns/","name":"WATCH: House Teetering Over 75-foot Cliff Burned Down on Purpose"}}]}] ```