More than a month has passed since a fire burned a hole into the Dallas skyline, erasing in hours that which endured for 115 years. Yet all these weeks later, the scene looks today much as it did in the hours following the inferno. Behind chain link and wrought iron lies a hill of battered brick and broken building sprawled across an entire city block.

All that remains of the Ambassador Hotel.

Jim Lake Jr., the owner of this rubble, has not visited the site in the Cedars since May 28, when an early morning conflagration devoured his vacant landmark awaiting restoration and resurrection. When last I saw the developer that day, he was standing in the middle of Belleview Street, his arm around wife Amanda Moreno as she wiped away tears.

Dallas Fire-Rescue officials had just told the couple the Ambassador couldn't be saved, and that all of it must come down. That afternoon Lake hired a contractor to demolish the hotel.

For the last couple of weeks I had called and texted Lake, pestering for an update, to see if he had yet decided what to do with the Ambassador site, which now serves as a glum, dispiriting gateway to the Cedars bracketed by Ervay and St. Paul streets. I drive by it at least once a week, and have stopped a few times just to stare at the ruins of a building that bewitched me for as long as I can remember — as a faded luxury hotel first, then, in the 1970s, as a shabby apartment building and, years later, as a religious finishing school populated by young women in pioneer dress.

Lake — who has steered the remakings of the Bishop Arts District and Jefferson Tower and downtown Waxahachie and Mayor George Sergeant's 109-year-old home on North Zang Boulevard — waved me off a few times. But by Wednesday, he finally felt he could talk about life after the Ambassador's death.

"I'm probably ready to go back," he said. "But that week, you're in battlefield mode, crisis managing. The following week was more difficult. Had to take the weekend off, and when you come back you realize the loss. That next week was the grieving process, not only for the time we had invested but for the loss of history. Then we had to look for the positive."

An empty lot filled with bricks sits where the Ambassador Hotel use to be. At right is Old City Park (or Dallas Heritage Village), and at left is the Cedars neighborhood. (Shaban Athuman / Staff Photographer)

We still do not know what caused the fire or who is to blame. In the hours following the blaze, a homeless man camped out in the old Gulf Cone Building was taken into custody. After pictures circulated of the handcuffed man, rumors quickly spread that the fire was an arson. Something similar happened in 2017, when, just as demo work was beginning, a squatter intentionally set fire to the hotel, pausing renovations.

But Jason Evans, the Dallas Fire-Rescue spokesman, says "investigators continue to conduct interviews and generate whatever leads they can in the case." He said he couldn't say much else other than that "no arrests have been made."

Lake said city officials brief him every so often about the investigation, but he does not know much more than we do. I asked if he is frustrated. After a long pause, Lake said he has "learned to be patient and take it one day at a time."

The developer said that while he doesn't have answers about what happened or what comes next, he has begun conversations with city officials about the future. Before the fire, Lake knew the path forward: He was going to help fund the makeover with historic tax credits from the city and feds; the City Council had just passed the thoroughfare amendment needed to close surrounding streets; a vote was coming in August to finalize that deal.

He bought the landmark in 2015, and only weeks ago still imagined the place would be full of $1,250-a-month "micro-apartments" and a pool and a restaurant and a basement speakeasy and other amenities connected to Old City Park.

On Monday, Lake went to City Hall with only a faint outline of what must happen in coming months to jump-start development. Now all Lake is certain of is that what comes next will most likely be called "the Ambassador ... something," he said. "But I don't know quite what yet."

In coming months he will have to hire a architect to reimagine what Merriman Anderson/Architects planned for the Ambassador. And he will have to scrape the site, sift through the remains and store what can be salvaged. A few weeks ago, Lake said, he could do no such thing; he was ready to let it go, ready to move on.

It is not at all surprising that Lake considered abandoning the Ambassador project. "With the pain and the sense of loss," he said. "But then came the healing process, getting past the emotional part of the loss of the building and understanding the potential we've got there. The site hasn't changed. It's still a super location right there looking at downtown."

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Lake now says he will rebuild, using as many of the leftover bricks as possible — remnants not just of the Ambassador but of the Park Hotel built in 1904, whose bones were obscured by the Ambassador's off-white facade. Lake said he cannot imagine the new thing looking just like the old; he frets about planting a "fake" atop the remnants of the original, like some sad replica.

"But I do think we'll take elements of what was there, particularly the brand and architectural style," he said — referring, in part, to that faded red "AMBASSADOR" sign that welcomed visitors to the Cedars. "Right now we're working with contractors and going through the process on who we will select and what we're going to do."

Not a day passes where someone doesn't mention the Ambassador to Lake. Some will offer the condolences; others will recount the time they were married there. He has heard, too, from the residents who lived there in the late 1970s, when the hotel's then-owners, who were broke, opened the Ambassador to less transient tenants. For those mourners and all others, Lake is preparing an Aug. 21 memorial service, of sorts, at Four Corners Brewing across the street.

And after the grieving, Lake hopes he can find a way to breathe new life into a slate he never wanted to be clean.

"The Ambassador was just iconic to the city, and not a day goes by where somebody doesn't tell me that exact same thing," Lake said. "That emboldens us to do something to honor it going forward. We're going to grab what we can from history and preserve it and go forward. I gotta move forward. I can't live in the past. And I can't undo what has been done."