Altadena Prefab Showcase Opening Day
By Heather Miksch, COO, Villa
Burbank airport must be the easiest airport to go in and out of in all of Los Angeles. I’ve been flying from my home in San Jose to Burbank for years. First, in a former company, when I supported a large client in Thousand Oaks, and now with Villa as we are building homes in Altadena. I love Burbank for its quirkiness– you can board and deplane from both back and front, and I don’t think I’ve ever waited more than two minutes in security.
Today I’m traveling through Burbank to get to Altadena. Villa has delivered a home for the Altadena Prefab Showcase, a true labor of love led by Citylab of UCLA, LA4LA, and RNLA to inform and educate the Altadena community on prefab options for rebuilding. Today is the opening day for the public, and we are expecting a great turnout.
Driving south on I-5 to the 210, the craggy San Gabriel mountains are on our left. You can practically see the deep canyons from the highway, and I can’t help but wonder what they were like on January 7, 2025, when the Eaton Fire erupted– racing towards Altadena and northern Pasadena and consuming the community.
Heading off the Lincoln Avenue exit in my Uber, I’m still remembering the fire and wrapping my head around the 6,000 homes lost, when I see a large billboard rising above the neighborhood– “Hope has an Address”. Below the billboard I immediately spot a corner lot with a collection of prefabricated homes– I’ve arrived at the showcase.
The showcase won’t open to the public for another hour, but the lot is already humming. Volunteers from a number of the community organizations are setting up tables and canopies for the vendors. Teams from the six other homes are getting ready for the public. I spot Ryan and John– two of the people behind this entire showcase. I still recall my first conversation with Ryan back in June. He described the idea behind the showcase– bring offsite construction examples to Altadena by creating a space to co-locate homes from a number of different manufacturers. The residents could see the possibilities for rebuilding, and the manufacturers would have a venue to show their homes. Immediately recognizing the brilliance of this idea, I eagerly replied, “I have an unsold ReadyBuilt home on a storage lot in Woodland. It can be there in two days.”
Of course, it took longer than two days to open the showcase. Construction is hard, and even temporary showcases require planning and permits. The access to the homes needed to be ADA compliant, as the showcase was a public event. This meant building a ramp and connected walkway to reach the homes. All homes, therefore, needed foundations that delivered the entry to the home at the same level. Villa iterated several times between our internal structural engineering team and the showcase’s engineer to create a design for a temporary foundation that was suitable for our home and for the walkway.
Once the permits were approved, Villa sprang into action. We worked with John and Ryan on a logistics plan to deliver our homes to the lot. Our transporter brought the home down from Woodland. The 1200 square foot model came in two pieces– “mods” or “floors”. They were delivered early in the morning on October 16th– Patrick, our LA-based construction manager, posted on our internal Slack channel that by 7:30 am the mods were delivered and in place. All before many people had breakfast.
Once the home was delivered, the clock started– we had exactly two weeks to get the homes properly set on the foundation, stitched together, connected to showcase electricity, interior and exterior finishing complete, and professionally staged. The deadline was a press event on November 1st, and everything had to look top notch. Villa is no stranger to quick cycle times, but 14 days was aggressive even for us. Our record for completing a single-mod home from delivery to close out (all inspections passed, keys in the customers hands) is 23 days. 29 days for a double mod. While the showcase didn’t require some of the items we do on a permanent home (no sewer or water connections!), we still had to make it look great in less than half the time of our record.
As often happens in high pressure situations, the team pulled through. The home’s finishing touches were in place on October 30th, with stagers arriving on October 31st. Villa’s VP of Growth, Alex Toth, was present during the press event– the local news interviewed LA Supervisor from District 5, Kathyn Barger in our home discussing the project and the rebuild efforts in Altadena.
When I arrive for the Community Opening Day, I start setting up the home and preparing for the visitors. Deenen, the Sales Manager at Villa’s SoCal factory partner, arrives. Her company built the model home, and she has graciously offered to give up her Saturday to support us. It’s wonderful to see Deneen– she is so knowledgeable and professional and truly cares about her company’s mission to bring attainable housing to California. Then Kate, one of my Villa colleagues who lives in nearby north Pasadena stops by. She can spend an hour before her son’s soccer match.
Soon after 10 am, the public arrives. The other homes on the showcase are much smaller– Villa’s 1200 sq foot, 3 bed/2 bath is the largest by far. However, each home provides a different option for rebuilding– everything from smaller temporary homes to ADUs to our single family model. We greet the people coming in, quickly explain the home, and invite them to look around and let them know we are available for questions. And so many questions they have!
Is this my only choice? Do you make this bigger? Can I move the walls? We offer a variety of floorplans– from 450 sq feet to 2300, take a look at our website! How is this home different from stick built? We use the same type of wood framing– 2x6 exterior framing, 2x4 interior, same materials as you’ll find in stick built, but built in a controlled environment and usually on a much faster timeline! What’s our target time from start to finish on a project? Expect one year, but that could be much shorter depending on permitting timelines! How does financing work? Does Villa finance? No, but we can provide information about financing from third parties! Where are the homes built? San Bernardino County and trucked over to Altadena! Do we have to submit permits ourselves? No! Villa is turnkey– we handle absolutely everything from site design to permitting to construction to keys in your hand. What is the tie-down system you use? Take a look at this installation guide! We follow these instructions for every home we install. Do you do this in South Dakota? No, we aren’t licensed there, but we can refer you to local factories!
And with the questions come the stories– the homes they had lost– the pictures of fairytale houses– the neighbors they were separated from– the neighbors they got to know through community events and rebuild meetings. We spoke to the lady accompanying her Spanish-speaking father, the woman asking questions for her landlord who is too frail to attend, and many people who were there on behalf of friends and family members. For all of them we explained Villa’s turn-key process and encouraged them to contact us for a gratis feasibility study– cost was the number one question on everyone’s mind and while we could provide directional pricing based on the home size, we really need to see their specific property and do a complete feasibility study to ensure the most accurate estimate.
While the stories were heartbreaking, the visitors were strong. Their questions were rational and sensible, and they demonstrated the resilience needed to rebuild their community. They were there for themselves and in support of others. And they kept coming. Kate returned after her son’s soccer match to help as the crowd was too big for me and Deneen. We ran out of brochures describing our feasibility study, and we tore pages from Deneen’s notebook to act as a make-shift intake form. By noon I was starving– I clearly underestimated the amount of energy I would expend and how little time I would have to “run out and get something”. Thankfully, CityLab had arranged for hamburgers and ice cream for the event. I grabbed a hamburger (with the bun!!!) and ate it over the next hour in between visitors. It was delicious.
By 3 pm, the crowds had slowed and I needed to return to Burbank to catch the last flight back to San Jose. I stopped to say bye and give my thanks to John and Ryan– what a feat that they managed to pull this off. I was so impressed and appreciative of their efforts and the good this showcase will have in Altadena.
Kate volunteered to stay on– people were still coming in. She made an inventory of items we needed to restock and ideas on what we needed to do to staff the showcase for the rest of its run. By 5:20 pm she texted me that she was leaving and closing up the house– 20 minutes after the published closing time. Latecomers had trickled in before 5, and she had stayed to answer all their questions.
Opening Day ended, but the Showcase is still open. Visitor hours are Wednesday to Friday (12 to 6) and Saturday & Sundays (10 to 5). We expect to have our home in place through early December. We hope all Altadena residents will have a chance to experience the showcase and discover how rebuilding with prefab can impact budget and timeline. Hope has an Address at 2231 Lincoln Avenue, Altadena.
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