Feeling safe in the Holmes Point neighborhood for 15 years, Stacey Castleberry didn’t think twice about opening her front door when she heard a noise.

But when she saw a man wearing a black ski mask standing in her front yard, she slammed and dead bolted her front door and called 911.

“This community is very close knit and we’ve lived in the illusion that it’s pretty safe because there is one road in and one road out,” said Castleberry’s husband, Craig McAllister, as he sat with his family on their living room couch Monday evening and recalled the attempted home invasion his family endured March 26.

Moments before his wife opened the front door the day of the incident, McAllister had picked his son up from the airport. His 20-year-old son was visiting from college and McAllister just returned from a business trip to Idaho.

As McAllister pulled the car up to the family’s Holmes Point home at around 10:30 p.m., he noticed a pile of bark mulch in the driveway that was delivered that day. So he parked the car in front of the driveway. As he walked around the mulch, a man dressed in black, wearing a black ski mask and brandishing a stun gun confronted him.

“Very calmy, he says, ‘Just relax. You just do what I need you to do and nobody gets hurt,'” said McAllister, who is an orthopedic surgeon at Evergreen Orthopedic group in Kirkland.

The suspect ordered McAllister and his son to lay on the ground. But knowing his wife and 13-year-old daughter were inside the house, McAllister attacked the suspect. As the physical altercation ensued, his son ran to call the police.

A second suspect also wearing black, pistol whipped McAllister with a 45 caliber pistol over his head a couple times and left him in a daze, he recalled. After a failed attempt to kick in the front door, the suspects fled on foot.

“Craig is a practical joker,” Castleberry said, adding that when she saw her husband bleeding, she knew it was no joke.

The King County Sheriff’s Office is currently investigating the incident, which is classified as an attempted robbery.

According to spokesperson Sgt. John Urquhart, a boat was stolen a few days earlier from a neighbor’s dock, but detectives are unsure if the incidents are related.

McAllister and his family have changed their attitudes towards safety in their own home. They have installed a new security system and never leave one person home alone at one time.

“I’m scared to be home alone,” said their daughter, Lauren.

McAllister’s 18-year-old son, Kyle, who was at a friend’s house during the attempted break in, said he had to change his schedule to be around the house more.

But the incident has affected the Holmes Point community as well.

When neighbor’s heard about the attack, they organized a meeting and sent out fliers to the community. More than 120 people attended the meeting Wednesday, which included a presentation by a King County Sheriff’s Office representative and an opportunity for community members to ask questions concerning safety.

“Our entire community has responded with a clear desire to do what we can to work with King County Sheriff to make our homes safer than what my family and I recently experienced,” said McAlllister.