Real estate consultants Steven and Jason Somers came up with a vintage solution for the mammoth task of rebuilding from Los Angeles’ devastating firestorms.

Why not create a catalog of standard floor plans that displaced families can use to rebuild their homes, saving tons of time and buckets of money?

The Somers brothers latched onto the 80-year-old Case Study design program as their muse.

From 1945 to 1966, a cadre of top architects designed several dozen adaptable, affordable models for urgently needed post-war housing.

See also: California rules will require more fire resistant homes in Palisades, Altadena

This time around, Case Study 2.0 is bringing together about 40 architects to design up to 50 elegant, yet affordable floor plans that can be submitted for pre-approval.

“We wanted to pick up the baton where they left it and adapt the program to the needs of today,” said Steven Somers, chief executive of Crest Real Estate and co-founder of Case Study 2.0.

“If we can get away from completely one-off construction projects, and we can start building these things at scale, then you can build an esthetically elevated house by a world-class architect for substantially reduced construction costs,” he said.

Case Study 2.0 is one of a number of grassroots groups that sprang up since the firestorms to create pre-approved, standard plans to help replace the 10,300 houses incinerated in the Palisades and Eaton fires.

As with Case Study 2.0, groups like the Foothill Catalog Foundation, the Sunset Mesa Collective and Habitat for Humanity are resorting to a time-honored blueprint for recovery by cutting red tape while restoring a modicum of L.A.’s rich and varied architectural heritage. In the process, more residents might be able to return to their neighborhoods rather than selling out to land speculators.

Los Angeles County planners and building officials are on board with the idea, forming a study group and pulling together a pre-approved program within the last several months.

Thirty such plans already are under review, said Edward Rojas, assistant director of L.A. County’s Advance Planning Division.

To qualify, local government planners and building officials must verify that the plans comply with zoning and building codes. Once a set of plans is pre-approved, a homeowner can go straight to getting their site plan approved, then apply for their building permits.

One architect estimated pre-approved homes could cut design costs by 95% and construction costs by 60%, while trimming the years-long rebuilding process to 10 months or less.

“We know there are a lot of people that want to help, especially design professionals, and we want to facilitate their ability to help,” Rojas said. “Having a pre-approved standard plan allows a design professional to offer their product at a lower cost vs. a custom-designed home.”

Pre-approved plans already helped homeowners rebuild after a massive wildfire nearly wiped out the Northern California town of Paradise in 2018, and were used in Maui following its fatal blaze in 2023.

Jen Goodlin, executive director of the Rebuild Paradise Foundation, said 198 families used her group’s “library of floor plans” to rebuild, and more homes are under construction based on those blueprints.

The Foothill Catalog Foundation also is harkening to the past for inspiration, basing their project on the Sears Roebuck catalog homes of the early 1900s.

See also: Borrowing page from old-school ‘catalog’ concept, nonprofit gaining ground on rebuilding Altadena

Working with more than 50 designers, the Foothill Catalog hopes to have plans for 10 homes pre-approved by the end of July, then build on that. The nonprofit displayed at least 30 conceptual designs during a May showcase in Sierra Madre that drew more than 400 visitors.

Designs under consideration range a 1,000-square-foot Spanish mission revival home to a 2,000-square-foot mid-century modern.

“It’s a renaissance of the catalog homes that was popularized by Sears Roebuck and many other companies,” Athenson said. “Essentially, this process is the same.”

‘Hell for you’

Denise Hamilton’s brother told her not to rebuild her Altadena home of 29 years.

It will take longer to rebuild than you think, said her brother, who works for a large developer. It will cost more than you think.

Before hiring a contractor, you first have to find an architect, get the permits, pick the building materials and get up to speed on new fire codes.

“It’s just going to be hell for you,” he said.

“I don’t know anything about vetting architects,” said Hamilton, 70, a technical writer. “I was at the point of, I probably can’t rebuild. And it was horrible because I lived there so long.”

Hamilton, her son and ex-husband narrowly escaped the night of Jan. 7.

They realized it was time to leave when her ex-husband awoke and saw bright orange flames billowing outside his windows.

“We have to go now!” he said, as embers flew about like a rain of fire.

They took a suitcase and fled, leaving behind her cat, Della, which was nowhere to be found and hasn’t been seen since.

Living in a Pasadena apartment, Hamilton was set to sell her land and move on, as her brother advised.

Then, she learned about the pre-approved plans the Foothill Catalog Foundation is preparing and decided that maybe she can replace her small, three-bedroom house.

The foundation “is taking homeowners like me so far down the process that it’s actually possible” to rebuild, she said.

Hamilton believes her insurance would cover 100% of her rebuilding costs if she uses a pre-approved plan.

She’s considering three conceptual designs that match the 1,200-square-foot house she lost: the Pueblo Revival “Mariposa;” the “Future Proof Tudor” and the “Marlowe.”

“I think it’s going to work for me. I really do,” Hamilton said. “I have a feeling a lot of people are going to jump on these concepts.”

Prefab designs

Several groups are designing homes that use a prefab technique known as “panelization,” where walls are built in a factory, then assembled at the home site.

The San Gabriel Valley Habitat for Humanity is among those incorporating panelization into the three housing designs it’s creating for the Foothill Catalog.

The designs include a Craftsman-style house, a bungalow with board-and-batten siding and a flat-roofed Spanish stucco house, said Brian Stanley, construction director of the group’s San Gabriel Valley chapter.

“The Foothill Catalog was extremely interested in not deviating from the feel of the community,” he said.

Two of the plans already have been submitted to the county for pre-approval.

Stanley estimated the cost of using a pre-approved plan to be less than $5,000 versus about $35,000 in architecture fees for a custom-home plan.

Habitat also can provide financing to low-income households to help cover their rebuilding costs.

“We are open to creating for any fire victim,” Stanley said. “But as an organization, we’re one of the few that would be in a position to help those who are under-insured or have no insurance at all.”

See also: LA wildfire recovery’s powerful allies: Brains and money

The Sunset Mesa Collective also is working on modular plans for the unincorporated Sunset Mesa neighborhood just west of Pacific Palisades, where close to 300 structures burned down.

The group has drafted five plans so far and is lining up manufacturers to provide modular building materials.

“What homeowners need most is faster rebuilding, predictable budgets, fire resistance, resilience and sustainable options,” said James Hughes, Sunset Mesa Collective co-founder an architect with the firm doing design work for the group.

The group plans to provide limited customization by changing home placement and some facade variation “so these homes don’t look exactly the same,” Hughes said.

Two other floor plans already under consideration came from Los Angeles pre-fab developer, SuperLA.

To use SuperLA’s plans, however, homeowners have to use the firm as a contractor as well, said Aaron van Schaik, a principal with the firm.

The cost would be from $825,000 to $950,000 for one-story houses ranging from 1,275- to 1,750-square feet. 

“This is specifically for fire victims,” he said.

Collective action

Others are taking a collective approach to rebuilding, but stop short of getting them pre-approved.

Some neighborhoods, for example, are working together to come up with common plans in hopes of sharing the costs of rebuilding.

In Janes Village, neighbors wanted to preserve the distinctive charm of the 300 or so “storybook” Tudor cottages built by Elisha P. Janes a century ago.

The Altadena Collective — a nonprofit created by local architects and designers — worked with residents to find floor plans from the original homes, characterized by their steep-sloping roofs, multiple gables and arched front windows and doors. They also took measurements of the few homes still standing.

The collective then developed six slightly modernized Janes Village concepts, featuring a variety of facades, with sizes ranging from 1,200 to just under 1,500 square feet. The plans have been donated to the Foothill Catalog so residents can use them as a starting point for designing their own homes.

Janes Village resident Louise Hamlin said she’s planning to adapt the Farnsworth concept for her new home, changing the back, updating the interior and enlarging the home slightly.

“It will have a more modern feel inside,” said Hamlin, 51.

Hamlin will hire architects from the Altadena Collective to complete the plans, but “it’s a really modest amount of money compared to hiring someone independently. And my house plan, I assume, will be available for other people who might want to use it. It saves me money, and it saves other neighbors, hopefully, time and money.”

Altadena Collective co-founder Timothy Vordtriede said the plans weren’t so much created as discovered from history.

“We use the six floor plans … as a starting point to kind of get the design juices flowing for us and for the homeowners,” said Vordtriede, himself a Janes Village fire victim.

The Altadena Collective also is acting as a matchmaker to help other homeowners work together on rebuilding similar designs and buying building materials in bulk.

If a homeowner wants to build a Craftsman home, for instance, the collective will introduce him or her to others wanting to do the same thing so they can use the same architect, Vordtriede said.

Some homeowners attending a recent collective open house say they’re not interested in an off-the-shelf, pre-approved plan, but like the idea of working with other homeowners.

Elizabeth Berger and her husband, Leo Cheng, are seeking a customized design so they can recreate the one-story house they lost in the fire.

But they signed a contract with the collective for architectural work and project management, believing the collective will help them collaborate with other homeowners.

For example, Cheng, an engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, wants to incorporate passive energy designs to reduce heating and cooling costs.

“It only makes sense to have one contractor do all the passive houses. You get economies of scale,” Cheng said. “The collective approach is better instead of onesie-twosies.”

Case Study spinoffs

A separate group of architects, calling itself Case Study: Adapt, is also drawing inspiration from the original Case Study program, although they don’t intend to submit their plans for pre-approval.

The group has 10 architects trying to recreate the experimentation of the original program while making fire-hardening attractive as well as practical.

“It’s really about experimentation and enabling each architect to … push the limits with respect to building a house that is both climate resilient but also beautiful and iconic,” said Dustin Bramell, a program co-founder who lost his home in the Palisades fire.

An “Arts and Architecture” magazine editor launched the original Case Study program in 1945, commissioning architects like Richard Neutra, Charles and Ray Eames and Pierre Koenig to come up with simple yet elegant homes.

“They gathered several of the leading architects of the day to come up with home designs that really foster new lifestyles, new ways of kind of indoor-outdoor living, lots of fresh air, greenery and really just striking, iconic homes,” said Somers, the Case Study 2.0 co-founder. “They also wanted these houses to ultimately be widely adoptable and affordable.”

The 25 Case Study houses that got built are among the nation’s most iconic examples of mid-century modern architecture. Around 20 still stand, including four in Pacific Palisades that survived the fire and an Altadena house that also weathered the Eaton conflagration.

Cutting red tape

At 78, Ronald Dunlap doesn’t have much time “to mess around with bureaucracy.”

So, the visual artist with a bushy beard and handlebar mustache hopes to use a pre-approved plan to replace his one-story, 1912 saltbox house in north Altadena.

“I want to get back there as soon as I can. I don’t have much time to wait,” Dunlap said. “I don’t want to wait five years or something like that. I’m going to be really old, and so I need to move ahead.”

Dunlap likes that the Foothill Catalog Foundation went through neighborhoods and is reproducing Altadena’s patchwork of styles, ranging from Victorian to Craftsman, ranch and mid-century modern.

“That appeals to me that Altadena keeps its unique look,” he said.

Dunlap is looking for a house that would fit on his 45-by-135-foot lot and is considering The Lewis plan, a one-story Craftsman-style home.

“I think it will work best on my lot,” he said.

Dunlap added that he didn’t get a lot of money from his insurance company and hopes the pre-approved approach will help stabilize the price of building and financing.

“A lot of the people in Altadena were elderly. It think it would be a shame if they didn’t get back to Altadena,” Dunlap said. “The diversity of age and outlooks was wonderful. I’m just trying my best to bring some of that back.”