CRYSTAL BEACH, Texas—Saturday morning, Dawn Shelton hitched a ride with her builder to Bolivar Peninsula to see how badly her home was damaged on Crystal Beach.

A week earlier, Ike roared into Galveston Bay, ravaging her subdivision.

Two days later, from her mother’s home in Katy, she saw aerial footage of her neighborhood and spotted her weekend getaway, still standing.

It was nothing short of miraculous.

But even though the structure was still there, Shelton had no idea what she would find when she arrived.

She discovered Crystal Beach four years ago.  Now she wondered if she could ever live there again.

“Oh my God. Oh my God. You just don’t recognize anything. Church is gone, Sweeds is gone,” Shelton said as she got her first glimpse of the area from the back of a pickup truck.

Most of it was demolished – but not Shelton’s home.

Her nearly 1,300 square-foot house withstood Ike’s fury better than most structures, for which Shelton thanked her builder.

But the damage was extensive.

Water came through the windows and doors, because Shelton didn’t have time to board up.

Her kitchen was in tact, but the living room was trashed.

The stairwell and part of the deck was gone completely.

Shelton’s home was built nearly four rows back from the beach.

Before it, the roadway was completely washed out and houses closer to the water were picked clean.

Nothing was left but pilings, foundation and septic tanks.

Now Shelton has a home with an unobstructed view of the Gulf – and of Ike’s wrath.

“I’m glad I have a house to repair, because even though she is wounded and scarred, I would rather fix her than build a new one,” Shelton said.

Her builder said he can have it looking like new in two months.

“We have rebuilt houses that were basically ready to fall apart, if you can take an old one and make it new, you can take a new one and repair it, no problem,” builder Mike Moretti said.

Dawn named her house “Luna Bella,” meaning “beautiful moon.”

She said it was a place where she could see the stars and hear the waves.

After Ike, the waves and stars were still there – and miraculously, so is Dawn Shelton’s little piece of heaven.