Ever since cars first made it possible to burrow deep into the canyons, Angelenos have built homes on hilly sites alongside untamed nature. But there is a price for such loveliness: a seasonal threat of fires. Many a hillside homeowner evacuates every few years; some lose everything once, even twice, and still return to rebuild. What is the allure?
The Bryants’ house in Altadena, before being destroyed by wildfire, sits on a terraced site in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. The horizontal silhouette blends into the landscape. Photo courtesy of Charles and Lynnelle Bryant.
One couple with answers to that question is Charles and Lynnelle Bryant, co-principals of an architecture and interiors firm called Masbuild. They’ve lived in Altadena for around 40 years, and since they lost their house to the Eaton Fire last month, they have already designed the replacement structure.
They are recreating not only a family home — they are also laying down the building blocks of renewal for an entire community that values its close connection to the land.
On their two-acre site off a secluded private road in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, you can see where the house had been torched, leaving behind the foundation and terraced floors strewn with bricks, cement blocks and scorched wood siding; contorted bikes that had been Christmas gifts for their grandchildren; the remains of a high fidelity system.
Charles Bryant planted around 80 trees on their two-acre site. Many were fruit trees, which he hopes to cultivate again. Photo courtesy of Charles and Lynnelle Bryant.
Here they had a ranch-style house built out of natural materials – brick, stone, and wood siding, with a “beautiful look” that “worked very well in this environment,” recalls Lynnelle Bryant. It featured 360-degree views of the mountains to the north, Downtown Los Angeles to the south, and an abundant garden where Charles Bryant planted 80 trees, including pineapple, guava, pear, lemon, peach, apple, fig, avocado, plum, and pomegranate.
They raised four children in this house, which was a magnet for friends and family, as well as young people without a place to stay over the years — foreign exchange students, buddies of their kids. That earned them the nickname “the village parents.” Their close neighbors were architects, artists and JPL scientists.
Now they are getting ready to file plans for the replacement home.
A rendering of the Bryants’ new house, which is designed to retain the linearity of the earlier structure. It will be an allowable 10% larger than the previous home, and built with more fire-resistant materials. Image courtesy of Charles and Lynnelle Bryant/Masbuild.
The new structure they have designed will be larger than the original but retain much of the same character, with more fire-safe materials such as a metal, stone, concrete shingle or flat slate roof. Instead of wood horizontal siding, they plan on using fiber cement board. The windows will have thicker panes and dual glazing. The Bryants also intend to add solar power.
A 2023 gathering at the Bryants’ house was a magnet for family and friends. Photo courtesy Charles and Lynnelle Bryant.
The couple understands that no structure is guaranteed to withstand a fire powered by 100 mile-an-hour winds. But they do not believe the solution is to abandon this spot by the wilderness, deemed a very high-risk fire zone. After all, this is where millions of Californians live. Just this month, state fire marshals designated more than 2.3 million acres of land as facing “high” or “very high” fire risk.
“This is Southern California. You can't avoid it. It could happen to a lot of different places. I'm not going to say ‘restrict construction’ just because we are in a high fire zone,” says Charles Bryant.
While working on their own house, they are also helping others rebuild. Many homeowners close by have reached out for help — neighbors, members of their church in Pasadena, and people they’ve met through the Altadena Rebuild Coalition, newly formed by the Southern California chapter of the National Organization of Minority Architects, of which they are members.
The coalition’s goal is to preserve Altadena’s historic Black community and cultural legacy, and "ensure an equitable, resilient recovery for every resident impacted by this disaster." They hope homeowners will sit tight and not sell off their land in haste.
Charles Bryant says that he and other community members fear that “private equity people or a developer might come in and buy up a block of homes and sit on them for a couple years, change the zone; the next thing you know, you have a gated community with some stupid-looking condos there, with no trees.”
At the Bryants’ property, some of their trees are too charred to survive, but others are already sending out new green shoots. Lynnelle Bryant points out that animals are already returning — busy squirrels, lizards, coyotes, and very likely, bears and deer.
“What I really liked about this property,” she says, “is the great relationship between us as homeowners, and then the animals and so forth that are here. There was a way of us coexisting together that I really appreciated and we want to bring that back.”
Charles and Lynnelle Bryant stand on the stairway of their property this month. Photo by Frances Anderton.
Of course, getting from designing a new home to moving in is going to be a long and arduous path. Next up comes an assessment by LA County for hazardous materials and then debris removal. The couple is piecing together the financing — insurance from their FAIR Plan and support from other sources, perhaps FEMA or a low-interest SBA loan. They don’t want to delay, however, because they know there is tight competition for materials and labor.
None of these challenges will deter them, says Charles Bryant.
“I never had a moment where I felt defeated or that I felt that I couldn't do this. … I've always felt like, well, okay, here we go.”
A rendering of the new house, as seen at nightfall from the southwest. Image courtesy of Charles and Lynnelle Bryant.