DjinnfromtheBronxChapterThree: Una's Cottage: Repurposed for the Good

As some of you know, in an earlier entry, I recounted the last time that I had a cup of tea at the little cottage of the late Una Lynch, long time friend to many, as well as my deep sadness that it would likely be demolished to make room for a monstrous modern box.

Some months ago there was a sign announcing demolition.

Then, it was gone. Not the house. The sign.

Nothing seemed to be happening. The lawn was dead. The rose bushes died. Only the Japanese Maple, I understand once gifted to Una by the late former pastor of St. Victor's, George Parnassus, hung on.

It didn't make sense. Then one day, Joey Lynch, Una's daughter, sent me a picture. Draped across the outside of what had once been the living room was a flexible sign that said "Historic House Relocation Project: This historic home is being relocated to Altadena to support the community's recovery and rebuilding efforts following the Eaton fire." There was a name of a company on the sign was "Omgivining"--an architecture firm. This company took on the astoundingly creative and useful project of finding historic homes (Una's place was nearly 100 years old; she had lived there over 70 years herself, raising a family and entertaining friends who loved her) slated for demolition, moving them, and then using the basic structure as a template for a replacement home for those who had lost theirs in the fire.

You can imagine, actually you cannot imagine, the intense joy that family and friends felt at knowing that some part of the structure, historical not merely for its age, but for the life and lives that had been joined to it. I have been on the website. I love these people I have never met. I told them how I felt, sending them the prior blog entry. They haven't responded. I needed them to know how their practical act has so greatly tempered the sadness of loss. There is even a picture of Una's home, with that Japanese maple in front of it, with one of the Omgivning crew (I think Morgan Sykes Jaybush) in front of them both.

There are lots of pictures, including mine, that have been taken by those who spent so much time there, as the house has been prepared for its move to a lot somewhere in Altadena to become the home of ordinary life and memories for David Martinez, his wife and three children. How do I know which family? It was on the NBC News. There a reporter interviewed Mr. Martinez in Una's living room, before the beginning of the dismantling to prepare the house for the move. Two families connected cosmically for all time. That's how I see it anyway.

https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/altadena-historic-homes-relocation-eaton-fire/3794915/

The process of, how shall I say it, condensing the house to make it fit for the move has been both fascinating and hard to watch. Naturally, they can't just pick it up and transport it. It has to be taken off the foundation. Appurtenances have to be removed. Each time I returned something else was gone. The first was never going anywhere, a garage apartment building in the back. That was the first to go, and forever. Then the roof, the tile and beams removed. The inset to the once wood, now gas fireplace, removed. You could now look in through the gaping hole to the living room where people mingled and laughed on many a St. Patrick's Day. You didn't have to wait for an invitation to come. It was a standing invitation. More than tea was served on those occasions--Una made her Irish coffees.

Several friends who have stopped by to watch the work have noted the interest of members of the neighborhood. One man told a friend that he had always wanted that house, this cozy pink house (it was not always pink; it happened when Una had the whole place freshened up a bit some years back) on the corner of Orlando and Willoughby. When Una was slowing down and pretty much confined to the house, she would sit outside with members of her family and have her tea on a table set up on the lawn. Joey decorated the front yard for various occasions, Halloween, and Christmas and Easter. Always there had been lights on the house for Christmas. The well decorated tree would be seen by anyone passing by the three front windows (that as of last view are still intact) walking their dogs. This is a dog neighborhood, and so people often stopped to chat while Una was out there sipping her tea, I am certain. Una always talked about "getting better" fighting the ravages of old age, and being able to walk around the block again, arm in arm with her son Anthony who visited every day.

People who loved Una and whom Una loved, feel what is being lost, but with the survival of at least the largest parts of the structure, they feel also what is going to be gained, and what will be preserved of the past while upon that past the future is built for another group of people.

I have had a busy few days, and I thought that the house probably had been moved as it was so close to being fully condensed and prepared. But yesterday, on the way home I again went by Orlando. I was preparing myself for the reality of an empty lot. I knew that would evoke emotion.

But the house was still there, the now open roof covered with blue tarp because of the rain that had already begun. The Japanese maple was pulled up and gone, the last vestige, to me, of the house's former life.

I sat in my car and I burst into extended, wailing tears. The last time I did something just like that was almost 22 year ago outside a funeral home after the wake of a friend--loss builds up and has to be released in extremis. The reality of the impermanence of our lives, reflected in the deaths of family and friends, becomes an unbearable weight. And some people just become so important to you.

I was one of many that she treated like one of her children. How hard that must have been for them to share her. But I thank God they did.

I anticipate that after the intense, rare rain Los Angeles is experiencing, the house will finally be moved to Altadena.

That will be just about a year since Una died on December 3, 2024. I like to think that she did a little intervention from the heaven I am sure she is in to see to it that the Martinez family gets the blessings she did in the little cottage late of Orlando Avenue.