Save a Historic Home and House Altadenans!

Many years ago, it was a common practice to move entire houses in Los Angeles. If you had a house you loved and the government wanted your property for a freeway, it could be more economical to have the house moved to a new lot than to rebuild. Waste not, want not.

In fact, ONE Bunker Hill house survived because it was moved twice.

Many historic homes were destroyed in the Eaton fire, and many displaced Altadenans are looking for historic homes to restore.

1853 Taft Avenue, a fantastic Craftsman bungalow in Hollywood, was slated for demolition. Instead, a group of preservationists are arranging to move the house to Altadena.

The Hollywood Center Motel - a Victorian house in the center of a 1920s bungalow court - was originally built as rental housing. I suggested at the time that the buildings, which the current owners of the long-closed motel do not want and intend to demolish, could be moved to Altadena and restored to help re-house displaced residents.

While the logistics of moving a house can be challenging (and it’s not cheap), it keeps an existing resource out of the landfill and can be faster than dealing with permitting nightmares. There is also a shortage of builders in California, so rebuilding is going to take YEARS. And it can even be a win for developers who own these houses, since it would save them the cost of demolition.

Historian and author Kathleen “Before the 101” Perricone is compiling a list of historic homes that are slated for demolition. If you know of any, please reach out to her at Kathleen.perricone@gmail.com. When the data is ready to share, I’ll post it here.