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Their homes were their legacies. Now they face the unthinkable: What if they can’t rebuild?

A woman rests with a shovel in the space where her house once stood.
Hendrena Martin’s house burned down in the Eaton fire. Her home, which her father built, was a place she imagined passing on to the next generation.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
The Eaton fire destroyed thousands of homes. As the cleanup phase of recovery begins, residents face questions about the cost and timeline to rebuild.

Shovel in hand, Hendrena Martin dug through the ruins of the home her father had built more than 60 years ago, searching for any surviving link to the past.

She took stock of what was left: the bricks that her dad laid at the base of the house, the chimney, screen doors that had been blown off their hinges. The home was her family’s legacy where her father’s memory resided, where she cared for her mother, who now sat silently before the wreckage.

Martin couldn’t abandon it. But how, she wondered, could she afford to rebuild?

“How can a whole city just go up in flames in one night, and you lose everything that you struggled to hold on to?” said Martin, 64.

Martin’s annual insurance premium under the California FAIR Plan more than doubled last year to nearly $1,700. But even with that payment, she learned after the fire that her property was underinsured: what she qualifies for as reimbursement is far less than what it will take to rebuild.

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A woman sits before the ruins of a home destroyed in a fire.
Margaret Martin, 96, sits outside a home built by her husband, Henry Martin.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
Lashonda Ellis comforts her grandmother, Margaret Martin as she sits outside a home built by her husband in 1966.
Lashonda Ellis, right, comforts her grandmother, Margaret Martin, 96, as she sits outside a home built by her husband, Henry Martin in 1966.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

“I’ve got my mom — I’m caring for her. I’ve got my daughter, who’s trying to start her life. This is a new thing on my plate — just to survive,” she said.

Martin escaped the Eaton fire with her daughter, LaShondra Ellis, 34, and her 96-year-old mother, Margaret Martin. Their home on North Fair Oaks Avenue is one of the thousands of structures that burned in Altadena. In the last week as the rain turned the ash into a gray muck, the cleanup phase of recovery began. But with it, the countless unanswered questions about the cost and timeline for rebuilding only bring new uncertainty.

The Eaton fire cut a brutal swath through Altadena and a cherished way of life in this eclectic foothill community it upended.

Seeking answers has become a full-time job for Martin and other displaced residents, who are meeting daily in churches and at community spaces to get information about what needs to be done to move forward. Altadena Chamber of Commerce board member Larry Hammond said there were more questions than there were answers at a recent community meeting over Zoom: How do we rebuild? How do we pay for this? Are there enough contractors to meet the demand? How does the permitting process work?

A strained supply chain and the price of lumber, which accounts for about 15% of construction costs, has heightened concerns for residents who want to rebuild their community. Average lumber prices have ranged from $475 to $625 per thousand board feet over the last six months, and experts have said that could spike under a surge in demand, as it did during the pandemic.

“People are asking questions about where they go from here,” Hammond said. “You just have to put one foot in front of the other. Take one step at a time.”

In the unincorporated town above Pasadena, which includes historically Black neighborhoods, it isn’t uncommon for families to have roots in a home for several generations.

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“This is a resilient community. It is a community built on connectivity,” Hammond said.

But what a rebuilt community looks like is something yet to be defined. Many Altadena residents are older and are determining if they will be able to return to the area, Hammond said, or if they want to spend the time and money. More than 21% of residents are 65 or older, according to U.S. Census data, which is more than the U.S. at large.

“Altadena Is Not For Sale” signs have popped up throughout neighborhoods as fears grow over who might try to buy the land if residents can’t afford to stay. Some have found business cards from real estate developers on their property.

Tiffany Hockenhull and longtime neighbor, Torbjorn Crawford, embrace while surveying their destroyed homes in Altadena.
(Nick Agro/For The Times)
A woman stands where her house once stood.
Tiffany Hockenhull looks through the wreckage of her home.
(Nick Agro/For The Times)

A few blocks from Martin, Tiffany Hockenhull sifted through the remnants of her home on Callecita Drive, which first belonged to her grandparents.

Days before, she said, she walked up to the residence and found a woman taking photos. She said the stranger asked for her information and told her that developers were going to want to buy properties in the area, while offering Hockenhull assistance. The situation unnerved her.

“It didn’t feel comfortable, it didn’t feel safe, it didn’t feel like it was anywhere near ‘I’m here to help you,’” Hockenhull, 38, said. “It felt like a scam.”

Her neighborhood, a quaint cul-de-sac where 12 homes once stood, was a tightly bound community that often gathered for margaritas and shared updates on a text chain. Neighbors who had returned to clean and search for items, including wedding rings, embraced Hockenhull in a group hug. Together, they grieved.

The Altadena fire wiped out much of a historic Black enclave in this picturesque town in the San Gabriel Valley.

Hockenhull lost her dad in 2022 and her mom weeks before the fire. The home was a place of comfort and solace that she believed would continue to stay within her family. She wants to rebuild, but insurance will only cover a portion of the cost. She is continuing to search for solutions.

“Selling this would be me giving up on my entire legacy of being a Hockenull, of being born and raised in the family that I was born and raised in, watching my grandparents work hard to purchase it and keep it,” she said.

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“The last thing anybody wants to do is to start to build and then run out of money to finish.”

A mother and son look at their home.
Elsa Mandoe and son Torbjorn Crawford look over the remains of their home.
(Nick Agro/For The Times)

Across the street, Torbjorn Crawford, 37, stared at the remains of his childhood home, still in disbelief over what had happened. It was the summer pool party house for the neighborhood, where friends found safe spaces during hard times, where he found sobriety, where he would have looked for solace in a disaster like this.

“All the stuff you take for granted day by day, that you walk past on your way to whatever you’re going out in the world to do. Then when you think about it — the memories of it is all we have,” he said.

Crawford recently released a song about Altadena that he wrote before the fire. He and his partner, Jennifer Hercules, 37, can’t imagine not going back. But his mom, who bought the house in 1979, is still wrestling with unknowns, including how long it will take to clear the area of toxins before rebuilding could begin.

“There are a lot of steps along the way,” Elsa Mandoe said.

In this section of western Altadena, residents weren’t ordered to evacuate until after 5 a.m., according to records reviewed by The Times. That was well after smoke and flames were threatening the area.

Abraham Pratella, a Realtor whose family lost several homes in Altadena, said he’s fielded at least 20 calls from developers and investors asking for him to connect them with residents. He has pushed back, concerned that people who feel vulnerable or confused could make a rash decision.

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“There’s tons of fear tactics being used,” he said, adding that the community includes many who are elderly and may struggle to understand their options.

“We want to get information out now that they don’t have to sell. There’s tons of help,” he said.

A mother and daughter dig through rubble.
Hendrena Martin, left, and daughter LaShonda Ellis sift through the rubble of there home that was destroyed by the Eaton fire.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

Pratella’s uncle, “Mr. Z” Sayegh, was one of many residents who lost a home and business in Altadena.

“I’ve been there for over 50 years,” Sayegh, 78, said about his home on Gaywood Drive. “I’m definitely going to rebuild.”

But given the scope of the disaster, he knows the process will take years.

“I hope I will be able to finish it in my lifetime.”

For some in Altadena, the fire took away their place of work and their home.

At the Martin residence, rain had begun to fall Sunday afternoon. Ellis had gathered what little she could find beneath the broken glass, nails and soot.

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Before the fire, her mom had started an expansion project on the house with a mission of one day opening a living space for veterans — her grandfather’s vision. That was gone too.

“Everything is so unrecognizable,” Ellis said.

From the rubble she had pulled a white ceramic bear. It had been a gift from her grandfather years before.

Painted on the bear, a red heart carried the message: “I love you.”

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