In the aftermath of the 2025 Altadena fires, three of our clients are rebuilding more than homes, they are rebuilding a community.
Before January 2025, Altadena was the kind of neighborhood that drew people in and refused to let them go. Tucked against the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, it offered something increasingly rare in Los Angeles: space to breathe, mature trees lining quiet streets, neighbors who actually knew each other’s names. For many who lived here, it was not a stepping stone, it was the destination.
The Eaton Fire changed everything, and nothing. It took homes, trees, decades of accumulated memory. But the thing it could not take, the thing that becomes more apparent with every site visit, every design meeting, every conversation, is the stubborn, clear-eyed love these residents have for where they live.
Among the many families rebuilding with Home Front Build are three women whose stories, though different in detail, speak to something larger: what it means to choose a place, lose it, and choose it again.
Goli: The Home She Knew by Heart
For Goli, HFB’s Director of Design, the house on Altadena was not simply a home, it was a thirty-year project of love. She and her wife Deb had spent three decades refining it, layer by layer, until every room reflected exactly who they were. The kitchen had just been remodeled. The spaces worked. The house, as Goli puts it plainly, was perfect.
Now she finds herself on the other side of the design table, navigating the rebuild as a client. The brief she gave her own team is as clear as it is moving: “We want our house back the way it was.” Not an approximation. Not an evolution. The same house, reclaimed.
“We loved our house and took 30 years to remodel it the way we liked. We want our house back the way it was, as it was perfect.”
There are two exceptions. The original 1960s bathrooms, the only rooms left untouched over the decades, will be reimagined. The approach is characteristically thoughtful: inspired by the design aesthetics of the era but built with today’s materials and conveniences. The masonry fireplace is also being replaced with a modern electric hanging style, similar to the Malm fireplaces popular in the 60’s, a quiet concession to the future without sacrificing the spirit of the original.
The path to breaking ground has been harder than expected. After the initial excitement of securing permits and beginning construction, the site revealed a significant challenge: soft soil on the downslope side of the lot. Weeks of back-and-forth between geotechnical and structural engineers followed before the team landed on a solution, replacing the compromised soil with slurry fill, in some areas reaching depths of ten feet or more. Foundation pouring has yet to begin. “It has been quite discouraging,” Goli admits, a rare moment of candor from someone who, in her professional life, is usually the one steadying others.
Even the window selection became its own odyssey. The brand used in the original home had been redesigned to meet current Title 24 energy requirements and in doing so, lost the aesthetic quality that made it right for this house. The team ultimately visited a manufacturer’s facility in Corona before committing to an alternative. Every decision, even the ones that seem peripheral, carries the weight of thirty years of getting it right. There is something deeply telling about a designer who, given a blank slate, chooses to bring back exactly what she had. For Goli, the house was already right. The goal now is simply to have it back.
Emily: The Housewarming That Never Happened
Emily, an elementary school teacher, bought her Altadena home in October 2024. She moved in that November. Two months later, the fire came.
She had chosen Altadena deliberately, for the mountains visible from her front porch, for the older homes and mature trees, for the particular feeling of being inside Los Angeles and somehow also outside it. “It feels like living inside nature,” she says. She wanted a big yard, natural light, and a porch to sit on in the evenings. She found all of it.
“I didn’t have very many major memories there, but I definitely had a lot of dreams about what my life was going to look like.”
The Sunday after the fire broke out, Emily had been planning to host a housewarming brunch for her family. It never happened. That unmade memory the gathering that almost was, sits at the center of her fire rebuild story with a particular kind of weight. She is rebuilding something similar in feel but slightly larger, with an added bedroom, French doors opening onto a backyard deck. The house she is building is the one she had started dreaming about the moment she moved in. “I’m excited to be able to do that in a beautiful, comfortable space,” she says.
When asked why she chose to rebuild rather than start somewhere new, her answer is immediate. She loves Altadena. The access to open space, the small-town feeling, the neighbors who introduced themselves in those first few weeks, is not something easily replicated. She is also building back fire-resistant, with an eye toward the future. She intends to stay.
Corey: A Dog, a Garden, and a Reason to Return
Corey will tell you plainly why she bought her house: she wanted a dog. A dog and a yard, somewhere close to the mountains, somewhere she could hike in the mornings and grow things in the afternoons. She searched all over Los Angeles, and Altadena checked every box.
She got the dog two weeks after closing. She had the mountain views every morning, snow on the peaks in winter, a neighborhood where people talked to each other about what they were growing and left food out for one another. Five minutes from work. Two miles from a national forest.
“There’s really no other place like it. I’ve lived in a lot of places in LA— and this is really special.”
The house Corey is building reflects who she has always been. The environment has never been an afterthought for her, she started the recycling program at her high school. That same instinct is shaping every material decision in her rebuild. Reclaimed wood will be a central design element throughout the home: chosen deliberately, full of history, the opposite of anything disposable.
“I really want this house to be, as much as I can make it, a dream house. I don’t want something quickly thrown together. The emphasis on quality is really important to me — I plan to be here for a very long time.”
She had spoken with four contractors before making her decision. What set HFB apart, she says, was the combination of quality craftsmanship and a genuine commitment to reducing environmental impact. “Your attention to quality was a real driver,” she says, “and your interest in reducing environmental impact.” For Corey, those two things are not separate considerations; they are the same value, expressed in how a home is built. After the fire, she found herself part of something she hadn’t expected: a tighter, more intentional community than the one she had moved into. Neighbors she had only waved to on dog walks are now texting each other weekly, meeting to compare notes, holding each other to the shared goal of coming back.
“There’s a core of us that are rebuilding,” she says, “and we’re going to come back to our spots here.” The clarity in that sentence is striking. Not hoping to return. Coming back.
Altadena Rebuilding: Built with Purpose
There is one detail that connects all three of these rebuilds and that speaks directly to how HFB approaches construction: every home will be built incorporating salvaged lumber that Steve, HFB’s Founder, has collected from other construction sites over time. Old-growth wood, responsibly sourced, given a second life inside homes built to last generations.
It is a quiet expression of the same values these clients are bringing to their rebuilds: nothing wasted, nothing disposable, everything chosen with intention. The houses being built in Altadena will carry that material history inside them which feels exactly right.
At Home Front Build, we have spent years helping clients create homes that are meant to last. The fire rebuild work in Altadena has added a dimension to that mission we did not anticipate. These clients do not simply need a new house. They know exactly where they want to be, why they want to be there, and what kind of home will hold the life they are building toward. Our job is to honor that knowledge and to build it well.
Goli, Emily, and Corey are three people. But they represent something much larger: a neighborhood choosing itself, again, on purpose. We are honored to be part of that.
If you lost your home in the Altadena fires and are considering rebuilding, Home Front Build offers a dedicated fire rebuild program. Find out more here.
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