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The sense of loss in Sulavera can be felt after a home in Palisades in the Pacific Ocean burned out by the wildfires of January.
To return as soon as possible, the 83-year-old widow has decided to go on a fundamentally different home from the 1939 Tudor, where she and her husband raised two daughters. Rather than compete with thousands of displaced people for a team of contractors, building materials and construction workers, Labella ordered a new home from the factory.
Employee Ryan Cruz will weld galvanized steel joists for floor and roof panels at the Gardena cover factory in March.
(Allen J. Scheven/Los Angeles Times)
“I want something streamlined, it’s easy, it’s safe,” Lavera said.
With her permit application already submitted to the city, Labella hopes to move by the end of summer to a 570-square-foot accessory housing unit built by Gardena-based modular company Cover by the end of summer. Soon after, she plans to add a larger, cover-house detached house so that her grandchildren can visit again.
To return a similar enthusiasm is to guide many survivors from the Eton and Palisade fires and consider modular or prefabricated construction of a new home. In addition to the potential benefits of speed, modular construction promises a more affordable and ready-made solution that is easier to manage than designing a custom home.
These guarantees are not new. For years, modular companies have vowed to revolutionize the home building industry only by failing grandly or losing its appearance amid technical issues and limited design and quality skepticism. Those who are convinced of modular construction fear that fire victims may turn to less risky products as they are overwhelmed by alternatives.
“You have 8,000 residents, some of which didn’t require a tire change. They were suddenly thrown into this,” said Freddie Seig, a resident of Altadena, who leads an advocacy group for survivors after their family lost their homes at Etonfire. “It’s not that they want modular homes. They want simple home buildings.”
View of the 570 square feet accessory residential unit model on the cover. (Allen J. Scheven/Los Angeles Times)
Sayegh said the process might work for some people, but too many modular homes erase Altadena’s rich architectural past. “If Altadena looks at this fast-shaped building, it would be a foul of such a historic and beautiful town,” Seig said.
The mass-produced home built and rebuilt California. The mid-20th century subdivision boom in Los Angeles was based on replicas of many lots of Model Ranch homes. In response to the widespread homelessness following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the federal government built 5,300 identical small cottages, some of which remain today. A renovated combination cottage around Bernal Heights, which sold for $1.2 million last year.
Everyone understands the benefits of mass production, especially after a disaster, cost and speed. Many community groups, architects, architects and others are looking to jointly purchase materials and develop a shared design of new homes.
However, unlike builders who prepare blocks of land homes on undeveloped land, individual property owners have certain circumstances and desires. Various insurance payments and design preferences make it difficult to act collectively.
The modular structure provides one path. Some companies build an entire house in factories, trucks, crane it into real estate, then bolt it to the foundation. Cover, the company that builds ADUs in Labella, creates pieces for the home in an 80,000-square-foot factory and snaps them together on site.
“Lego,” said co-founder and CEO Alexis Rivas.
Cover CEO and co-founder Alexis Rivas is showing off the company’s Gardena Factory’s 570-square-foot model accessories residential unit.
(Allen J. Scheven/Los Angeles Times)
The cover began 10 years ago and has been based in Gardena since 2017. Last year it took less than four months to build the same style as Lavera in Los Angeles. Rivas said he spoke to more than 300 firefighter owners considering the company.
“They really want to return to their property soon,” he said. “I don’t blame them. These are beautiful neighborhoods.”
Rivas argues that even without fires, the trend is heading towards modular construction. Industry productivity has been stagnating for decades, and existing labor shortages could be exacerbated by the Trump administration’s prospects for a ban.
“There’s no alternative to solving this problem other than innovating,” Rivas said. “We’re doing that.”
Modular businesses and advocates have long promised to adopt technology extensively without this happening. Silicon Valley startup Caterra raised nearly $3 billion from investors before declaring bankruptcy six years after it was founded in 2021. A 2022 report from the Terner Housing Innovation Center in Berkeley, California found that low-income housing developments in Southern California have attempted to build modularly. The first project experienced delays and increased costs due to lack of experience between manufacturers and general contractors and unclear division of labor.
Terner Center Managing Director Ben Metcalf realized he was wrong about the rise in Modular. However, the factors he and other advocates highlight when predicting industry growth are current labor shortages, increased materials costs, advances in automation technologies and increased environmental sustainability.
Ryan Cruz, left, Carlos Neri moves the structural floor panels after spot welding.
(Allen J. Scheven/Los Angeles Times)
“Maybe none of us would have said it five or ten years ago,” Metcalfe said. “It all comes down to these same qi benefits. We believe the factory has the ability to deliver faster and cheaper.”
Early in the reconstruction process, modular structures appear to be guaranteed to have a substantial presence. Last month, Stewfast La, a Wildfire Recovery nonprofit founded by developer and former mayoral candidate Rick Caruso, announced it will offer as many as 100 free modular homes to victims. The two-bedroom home built by Redwood City-based Samara is sent to low-to-moderate income residents who are uninsured, insured or elderly, who lack the money to rebuild other land.
The company’s CEO, Mike McNamara, has a home of 950 square feet and costs around $500,000 including site preparation and permit. McNamara promoted Samara’s fire safe designs, including metal roofs and double-pane windows.
“It’s brand new, all modern material,” McNamara said. “Everything about it is probably much better than something that burns out.”
McNamara admitted that modular stigma as low quality prevents the model from embracing. Some of the social media site Nextdoor greeted the stupid LA announcement.
“Why do everyone want a prefabricated home?” wrote one user. “They want to get their home back, not cookie cutters that disregard their neighborhood.”
McNamara said it is telling future customers that Samara’s products will be built to current residential building standards and are regulated by state authorities.
Still, he realizes that there are limits to his advocacy in the minds of the general public.
On the left, Mycal Wilson watches Carlos Korea operates a CNC (computer numerical control) machine that cuts wall panels made at the Gardena cover factory in March as the house was destroyed in a Palisade fire.
(Allen J. Scheven/Los Angeles Times)
“These conversations include things like, ‘Can I change the image of the modular housing to be more successful in Samara?”,” McNamara said. “The answer is probably not.”
McNamara and other modular builders said the best way to convince people about the quality of their products is to see them.
Last week, Rivas welcomed eight modular Palisades property owners on a factory tour. Over the workers’ welding zaps and forklift beeps, the cover representative answered questions about the house. Almost all of them were about fire safety.
The tour ended within the cover model. I have purchased the ADULabella version. Cover’s home is styled with an updated mid-century modern architecture. This model had fire-resistant accent pine and a large sliding glass door on the outside. Ribas explained that over time the wood weathered from brown to gray, making it resistant to termites.
“After everything we saw and experienced, I had completely forgotten terms,” replied Mychal Wilson, who had toured for his neighbors.
Wilson then said he was impressed by the design of the cover and the possibility that his teenage son could return more quickly so that he could finish his high school days with Pallisard. He considers modular construction to be “a future way of reconstructing disasters, particularly in the case of disaster reconstruction.”
Still, Wilson and his wife are taking their time.
The Samara XL Modular House will be lowered into place on the Culver City project site in March. Steadfast LA will donate the same model to low- and middle-income wildfire victims.
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
“Part of the process is making informed decisions, so there’s no regrets in 10 years,” said lawyer Wilson. “The buyer cannot regret it.”
The price and size of the cover house vary. The company’s panelized construction allows for multiple combinations that can be adjusted to individual properties and preferences, and is part of the way the cover fights the perception that all modularities look the same, Rivas said. The 570-square-foot ADU costs range from $350,000 to $430,000 plus permit fees. The company’s largest model, the three-bedroom, two-storey, 2,680-square-foot garage, costs between $1.5 million and $1.9 million.
Labella is most looking forward to returning to the routine she worshiped. Living in the village of Pallisard, she walked to the grocery store and the YMCA, and was able to gather along the bluff with friends to watch the sunset.
“It’ll take a while for that to happen again,” she said. “But I like to think maybe I’m ahead of the game.”
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