Family celebrates moving into new home after rebuilding what the Palisades Fire destroyed

PACIFIC PALISADES, LOS ANGELES () — A Pacific Palisades family celebrated their long-awaited homecoming on Monday, well over a year after the Palisades Fire destroyed their home.

It’s been 482 days since Alisa Ruby Bash and her family evacuated, fleeing as the Palisades Fire approached. Those flames consumed their home and everything in it, but now, nearly 16 months later, Bash and her family are finally back.

Before the ribbon cutting, Bash had a Buddhist monk come and bless the house. She said one thing that helped her through the process was the imagery of the Tibetan sand mandalas and how the beautiful works of art are created and then destroyed and then repeated. She said the philosophy helped keep her going during a challenging period.

“It feels very surreal, and I’m beyond excited,” Bash said. “And it’s just so crazy that we’re actually back here now.”

Bash said she knew almost immediately that she wanted to rebuild. Now being back, she said there’s a mix of emotions as the surrounding construction brings hope for a new community, but also grief for the one they lost.

“Even though people are still alive, everybody was scattered everywhere,” Bash said. “Just complete destruction to everything that we knew.”

While the family’s address is the same, their house is different. Founder and CEO of Design Equity, Abe Roy, says their new home is designed with fire resistance in mind, starting with eliminating attics and crawlspaces.

“There are no odd nooks and crannies where embers can be trapped, and eddy currents can form,” Roy said. “The exterior of the house is multi-layered cement and stucco with layers of fire coating on it that provides many hours of resistance at high temperatures.”

There were a few other fire-conscious upgrades made to the home, such as no exposed lumber on the outside of the house.

The family says there is still a bit more building and landscaping that needs to be done. They say they’ll have non-flammable vegetation, and they’re also building an enclosure for their trash cans to prevent dumpster fires.