Historic House Relocation Project on FOX 11 Good Day LA
Follows Altadena resident Daniel Gold and Omgivning’s Creative Director Morgan Sykes Jaybush as houses facing demolition become part of Altadena's recovery.
After losing his home in the Eaton Fire, Altadena resident Daniel Gold found that walking through an older house could bring back something familiar. An archway, a closet handle, or the character of a floor could recall the place he had lost and help him imagine living in a house with that same sense of history again.
“These are not houses. They’re homes,” Daniel says in the recent FOX 11 Good Day LA feature on Omgivning’s Historic House Relocation Project.
Omgivning found a house for Daniel to relocate to his property in Altadena. Transported across Los Angeles in the middle of the night, the house offered another route to rebuilding. The experience also moved him to reactivate his general contractor’s license in order to help other families do the same.
The feature follows Daniel and Morgan through the work behind those moves. Speaking with the reporter from inside an excavator, Daniel is already contributing to the rebuilding effort. Morgan explains how the project connects houses scheduled for demolition with families who need a place to live, bringing property owners, design professionals, engineers, and specialist movers into the process.
Each relocation requires more than a suitable house. The receiving property, transport route, approvals, foundation, and rehabilitation work all need to be coordinated. Houses may be divided into sections for transport, then reassembled on new foundations. Together, the architectural, engineering, relocation, and rehabilitation efforts allow the structure to become safe and livable again.
Relocation also allows an existing house to continue serving people when its original site is being redeveloped. Materials and craftsmanship that would otherwise enter the demolition waste stream remain in use, while new housing can proceed at the property the house leaves behind.
The FOX 11 feature shows both the scale of the physical work and its significance for the families involved. For Daniel, the project has become a way to rebuild on his own property and help others explore that possibility.