Historic Los Feliz home moved to Altadena as fire victims find alternatives to rebuilding

ALTADENA, Calif. (KABC) -- One Altadena neighborhood is showing signs that the community is coming back after some homeowners lost it all during the Eaton Fire.

Jacques Laramee and Gwen Sukeena's new home isn't being built from the ground up. Instead, it was saved from being torn down in Los Feliz and is now being moved to Altadena in sections.

"It's a little overwhelming right now. We're very excited, but it's been a long road to get here," Sukeena said.

"We moved here two months before the fire, lost our home pretty quickly, but this is going to be exciting. It's going to be a long journey, but we're up for it," Laramee said.

The first two sections made the journey from Los Feliz to Altadena early Tuesday morning.

Architecture firm Omgivning is spearheading the Historic House Relocation project, which looks to preserve good homes from the landfill by moving them.

"We systematically deconstructed the upper floor, second floor, and took all the pieces, saved every single base board, window, door, every single piece of molding, and parked it all inside the ground floor. Then, we cut the ground floor into four slices," said Morgan Sykes Jaybush, Omgivning's creative director.

The goal is to get fire victims into homes faster and save them money.

"It needs a lot of work, but it was pretty incredible," Laramee said.

Neighbors are ready to welcome residents back.

"I'm so happy for them too that they can show other people in Altadena what's possible," said Aaron Lewis, who lives next door.

"We're just so excited to start seeing people build and to know that we're going to have more neighbors come back and just rebuild our community," Lisa Lewis said.

The firm has about 80 homes set to be torn down that would be eligible for the program.

Laramee and Sukeena are relieved they're one step closer to moving back in. They said they should be able to move in about nine months.

"We're more excited for Altadena and rebuilding our community," Sukeena said.

"It's not a race. We need our neighbors to be neighbors to be back, to make it a neighborhood," Laramee said.

Omgivning said there are about 50 people on a waitlist looking to get one of the relocated homes.