What’s old is new again, and for homeowners who lost everything in January’s Eaton Fire, the Historic House Relocation Project means hope and rebuilding in Altadena.
A four-bedroom, 2,300-square-foot home built in 1926 on N. Orlando Avenue in West Hollywood is the latest home to be saved from demolition and is now slated to be carefully taken apart and restored onto a new foundation in Altadena. It will be placed on the lot where the Martinez family lost their home of eight years.
“It feels like a lifetime, but it also feels like yesterday,” David Martinez said, thinking about his home that burned in the fire.
He says his family, including wife Lauren and three young children, the youngest born only one month after the Eaton Fire, are eager to return to the community they love.
Martinez already envisions life inside the new space.
“Christmas tree there, stockings over the fireplace,” Martinez said, while touring NBC4 through the interior of his new home.
“I think we were all pretty thrilled. I mean, just the notion that it was going to be preserved in some form kind of blew us away,” Colum Lynch, who grew up in the home owned by his family since the 1940s, tells NBC4.
His family discovered the home was being salvaged through a new program to relocate historic homes to Altadena after the Eaton Fire in January.
It’s an effort to save homes destined for landfills and help families move back into fire-affected neighborhoods — faster, and at a lower cost than traditional rebuilding.
“So far, from what we’ve gathered, like the last two homes that have done this, it is on par or maybe like 25% less than what they had been quoted to build something new,” Martinez explained.
This is the third home in the relocation project from Los Angeles-based architecture and interiors firm, Omgivning.
“We’re connecting with the families, connecting them together, helping broker the deal with the property owner so that we can purchase the house for a dollar,” Morgan Sykes Jaybush, the architect who first envisioned the project, said.
“And then we’re organizing all the construction crews to get the house out there and permitting the new foundation plus any renovation that we want to do to the house,” he added.
The home in West Hollywood was sold last year after Lynch’s mother, Una, died at 98 years old. Lynch says she raised all eight children in that home, and later in life painted it pink, her favorite color, adding that there were many beautiful memories of growing up in the home.
“The house hasn’t been renovated in years, so it needed some tender loving care,” Lynch said.
Right now, the house in West Hollywood is being carefully cut into pieces and getting ready for the big move in the coming weeks. Developers plan to build several homes on the West Hollywood property, according to program organizers.
Jaybush says they follow local and state traffic laws and will have a police escort, and the actual trek happens at night.
The historic home will eventually be lowered onto a foundation on West Pine Street in Altadena, where utilities will be connected. The process is expected to take about nine to 12 months following rebuilding permits and inspections.
“I want it to be something that’s viable for everybody else. There are so many other people that need a home,” Martinez said.
Jaybush says there is a waiting list of 180 people who are interested in taking this next step.
Anyone interested in the Historic House Relocation Project (whether obtaining or donating a house) can reach out to Omgivning at HouseRelocation@Omgivning.com or 213-596-5602
Source: NBC Los Angeles