Prefab home builders want to show off their stuff at the LA fire restoration

Inside a factory near Interstate 5 in the San Joaquin Valley, a forklift delivered a stack of lumber to two waiting carpenters.

Viewing the design on a computer screen, workers arranged the numbered pieces—ranging from 14 inches to 12 feet long—into a grid on a large work table and attached them with nail guns. In less than an hour they had completed part of the floor of the house that will soon be delivered on East Palm Street in Altadena.

In other stations below the factory, modules were installed in two houses that will replace the houses lost in the Palisades fire.

Those three firefighting projects will be followed by several others lined up by Plant Prefab, a public benefit company seeking to marry profits with the goal of using the factory's efficiency for the region's housing needs.

Plant Prefab Founder and Chief Executive Steve Glenn sees the massive fire retrofit project as a window from the crisis of opportunity for an industry that has long fallen short of expectations that will revolutionize home construction through greater efficiency, lower costs and faster delivery.

“We will be busy for years dealing with last year's fires,” said Glenn.

The 97 Plant Prefab homes currently under contract may be just a fraction of the more than 12,000 destroyed in the Eaton and Palisades fires. But Glenn and other factory-built housing devotees hope to use the spotlight on the recovery to show a skeptical public that prefab doesn't mean second-class.

Friends of Prefab, a Pasadena-based volunteer organization formed as a forum for victims of the Altadena fire, has put together a photo gallery of prefab offerings from 33 firms.

“Since last July, we have been participating in various efforts to destroy houses rented by people in Altadena and Palisades,” said founder Caroline Paules. “There was a lot of confusion about custom-built homes. People had an image of that in their mind. People didn't know how quality was put together.”

The possibility that a prefab captures a large part of fire detection and accelerates its progress is still only a myth. Quantitative statistics are scarce. The Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety does not identify prefab projects in its building permits, a spokesperson said. Los Angeles County did not respond to a Times request for prefab figures.

Paules is trying to track prefab projects in both Altadena and the Palisades and is feeling a lot of momentum. In a study conducted by the Altadena fraction he identified 24 prefab projects, or about one in 9 rebuilds.

“The tricky part is that pre-fab homes end up looking like traditional homes,” she said.

“We will be busy for years dealing with last year's fires,” said Steve Glenn, the company's founder.

A crop of newly established companies in Southern California and beyond seek sustainability in LA to rekindle the fire with a range of pre-designed homes that often reflect Spanish, Craftsman or modern styles common to the two communities.

Boston-based Reframe Systems delivered its first Altadena home in April, a three-bedroom, two-bathroom condo with a backyard ADU. In front of a crowd of neighbors, workers and media, three long trucks rolled between power lines and a row of deodar trees on a narrow stretch of Glenrose Avenue where a crane lifted six green weatherproof modules into precast foundations.

Jonathan Talbot, who owns the new home, said he was excited about prefab as a “natural evolution of the housing industry” but needed to be sure it was the right move after his house burned down. He hired a builder to buy a custom-built home.

“The cost of building the poles will be more than what we had planned,” he said.

Reframe Systems won him over with its flexibility. Its designs suited its urban New England market – three stories high with a small footprint. But founder and CEO Vikas Enti had a national expansion strategy to overcome a conundrum that has brought others down in the industry: investing too much to mass produce a large untapped market.

His answer is the micro factory.

Factory building removes the challenges of weather and other external elements.

“The way we think about it is like there are about 2,000 Home Depots across America,” Enti said. “Our little factory is about the size of a Home Depot garden center. We want to build about 500 or 600 in the next 10, 15 years to build a million homes across the country.”

The company, which was founded in 2022, had no plans to jump nationwide.

“The fire created a lot of demand,” said Enti.

“When they found out we were interested, they started coming up with ideas for what a Southern California bungalow would look like,” Talbot said.

Without beating their price – about $ 350 per square foot – Talbot and his wife, Marisol, were taken by the modern design with 14-foot ceilings. At their request, Reframe quickly converted their studio ADU to a one-bedroom, Talbot said. The reframe kept a local contractor in charge of the project from permitting to landscaping.

“It was like a match made in heaven,” Talbot said. “Listening to other people in the area talking about their issues, allowing them, going up and down to the permit office. My wife and I didn't have to deal with any of that.”

Plant Prefab founder Steve Glenn at the company's new factory in Arvin, Calif.

Another small company, Villa Homes, is building a model home in Altadena as a proof-of-concept for its catalog of home designs aimed at fire reconstruction in Southern California, CEO Sean Roberts said.

Unlike Reframe Systems and Plant Prefab, Villa Homes, founded in 2019, is not a manufacturer. It handles design, permits, transportation and installation but also farms out construction to major manufacturers such as Champion Homes, a multi-dealer manufacturer. Its catalog offers two- to four-bedroom floor plans in a choice of either basic or contemporary craftsman styles.

Roberts said his product will cost less on a per-square-foot basis than traditional construction, but declined to divulge figures because individual site conditions affect the overall cost. Customers can choose the paint color and cabinets but must stick to the pre-designed plans.

“At the end of the day we're going to be the best answer for the most people,” he said. “We're not the best answer for everyone, especially someone who wants to build more bespoke and custom.”

The house on Palm Street has such flourishes.

“It's not a conventionally built thing; everything about it is unconventional,” said Anthony Ruffin, a social worker who has celebrated his work in the mental health of the homeless.

Anthony Ruffin, second from left, celebrates the news last year that his neighbor Julio Partida, who left, plans to rebuild. Ruffin's wife, Jonni Miller, right, and their neighbor Robert S. Hilton look on.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

After Ruffin and his wife, Jonni Miller, lost their 1942 bungalow, his first thought was to rebuild it as it was. He assured her that he was fooling around.

Their architect, Michael Lehrer, created a magnificent design with a butterfly roof that slopes in two directions from the center, curved walls and picture windows in the front and back.

“We were blown away by the painting,” Ruffin said. “It was something I had never seen before.”

The design called for an adaptable factory. They live in Plant Prefab.

After building a design-build firm, Glenn saw the need for a new type of factory for complex projects. His search led to a new industrial park in Arvin, Kern County. The 270,000-square-foot building opened in 2023 with computerized saws and equipment imported from Germany.

Companies like Plant Prefab are looking to do most of the construction work inside, away from the elements.

Build panels that are shipped as individual walls and assembled on site as well as modules that include complete rooms with drywall, fixtures, cabinets and utilities.

Before the entire project hits the factory floor, computer analysis calculates all cuts and resolves unexpected collisions that can stop traditional projects such as collisions between pipe lines and load-bearing walls, Glenn said.

One operator with a computer-guided saw cuts 40-foot logs to all required lengths and angles.

Part of the wooden house is standing now. The modules are expected to arrive in early August.

For Paules, founder of Friends of Prefab, technology is the only solution to the public vision of affordable housing.

A Caltech graduate specializing in high-tech sustainability, Paules and architect Karin Najarian sought out the Altadena area to build a self-contained, off-grid village with up to 11 cottages powered by solar power and a circulating water system.

Their startup, Nova Cottage Co., co-founded by Pasadena-based technology incubator Idealab, has built a prototype studio house with the interior elements of a traditional home without the structural requirements. It does not rest on a foundation but on helical pillars embedded in the ground. Its walls, made in a factory in Tijuana, have plywood panels covered with foam. They can be hand raised and installed in days.

Solar power and advanced water recycling systems will eliminate the need for utility hookups, requiring only the occasional delivery of potable water and propane to operate the systems.

Idealab founder Bill Gross said he embraced the concept as an alternative to a low-cost building that has no utilities but requires tens of thousands of dollars in installation and utility costs.

While many residents are looking at prefab options, Altadenans have gathered by the hundreds to oppose permits to build multiple homes on individual parcels.

“I think if you can move a lot of the work from the field to the factory and do a little bit of the work in complicated rain conditions outside, don't need cranes, don't need other expensive equipment, you can make everything more accessible,” Gross said.

Paules said Nova Cottage has one ADU project underway in Altadena and has identified potential sites for its first village. The idea will likely face opposition from Altadenans who have gathered in the hundreds to oppose permits to build more houses on individual parcels.

Paules said he hopes his project will receive support, especially if it is built in a church or commercial area.

“The conversations we have with people, many people are very open to new forms,” ​​he said.