Mandy Moore and Her Family Go Home Again to Altadena After a Months-Long Restoration
That’s what happened to Moore and Goldsmith in June of 2020 when they toured the 1931 Spanish Colonial Revival they now call home on a whim. “We walked in and were like, ‘Whoa, is this our next move?’ ” Moore says, curled up on the velvet sofa in the living room, with a five-year odyssey of renovating and re-building behind her. “I immediately called our architect Emily Farnham and was like, ‘Is this too crazy? Too pie-in-the-sky?’ She walked around and said, ‘Nope. This is a lot, but we can do it.’ ”
They bought the ramshackle property, which had a mismatched kitchen renovation, a coyote den in the yard, a transplanted early 1900s Victorian-style guesthouse out back, and an air of faded Grey Gardens glamour. Then they reunited Farnham, interior designer Sarah Sherman Samuel, and the landscape design firm Terremoto, the same team that transformed Moore’s bright and sleek midcentury in Pasadena, featured on AD’s cover in July 2018. Though they were a young (childless) couple at the time, their vision was clear. The back house would become a music studio for Goldsmith, cofounder of the band Dawes, and the romantic main house was where they would raise their future family.
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“Mandy wanted color and pattern and soft edges. Her taste is sophisticated but playful. They’re both so creative. I like to say it’s a very grown-up house but with a little sparkle,” says Samuel. “They let us run, creatively.”
By the time they moved in in November 2023 they were parents of two toddler boys, Gus and Ozzie, with a baby on the way. Farnham’s sensitive remodel, with velvety plaster walls, grand arches, an expanded kitchen, restored stenciled beams in the barrel-vaulted living room, and a new ADU with a garage that complemented the classic architecture, exceeded their expectations. Samuel worked her magic on the interiors with bold tile, deep color, and plenty of her own textiles and curvilinear furniture. The paint on the nursery’s charming mural of illustrations by Sammy Hauschild was dry. The family-friendly garden and pool were in place. The designer brought in a photographer to immortalize the picture-perfect rooms for her first book, Sarah Sherman Samuel: The Intersection of Art and Design (Abrams), coming out next month. Moore wrote the foreword.
For a little while, the five of them lived the dream life they imagined. They could walk to their favorite restaurant. Goldsmith’s parents and his brother (and bandmate) Griffin and his wife had houses nearby. Then one evening last January, Goldsmith was getting the boys ready for bed and Moore was nursing the new baby, a daughter named Lou, when Griffin called to say they were evacuating. The fire had reached their side of town. The wind howled. It was time to go.
They wrangled the kids, three cats, and the dog, piled in the car, made a harrowing drive through falling trees and embers, and decamped to a friend’s house. After a sleepless night, a couple of neighbors called to say they believed the family’s home was lost. Within hours, Moore and Goldsmith knew that the music studio and ADU were gone, but the house, miraculously, survived. While the structure and the hard finishes like tile and light fixtures were salvageable, the soft goods were destroyed by the smoke.
“We were…I don’t want to cry,” Moore says, pausing for composure. “But our sweet neighbor said that if anyone’s house made it, he was glad it was ours, because we had been working on it for so long. The grace that somebody who just lost their entire life would have for their neighbor is just beyond. I think that speaks to what this community is.”
Samuel and Farnham were also devastated but determined.
“Everyone was in shock for a while,” says Farnham. “We didn’t talk right away about what to do next. I kept a spot open on the schedule for them, thinking they’d call when and if they were ready.”
“I know basically everything in their house because I have it all cataloged,” says Samuel. “Aside from Taylor’s lost vintage instruments, I knew it was all replaceable.”
For four months, the house sat like an ash-covered time capsule. A book sat open on the counter. The breakfast plates Moore always set the night before were in place. Then slowly, in a surreal, extended déjà vu, they began to put the pieces back together. “Mandy told me ‘I am 100 percent happy for you to buy the same things and replace them, or for you to get creative and make different choices,’ ” says Samuel. “We found some new fabrics and rugs to change that up, and similar replacements for vintage pieces that we lost. But everything else remained the same.”
All of the clothing, textiles, and furniture were thrown away. A “surgical” remediation process involved making incisions into walls to replace duct work and the HVAC system. They ran extensive tests to ensure the house was safe to reenter. “With children our kids’ age, you can’t be too careful,” says Goldsmith.
By September, they were back, and more connected to their cherished foothills than ever. “It was gutting to be up here before the lots were cleared and you saw the degree of the loss,” Moore says. “I wondered how we were ever going to go back. But I think because there are pockets that are untouched, and so much rebuilding is happening in patches around town, it’s clear that people still want to be here. There’s an undefeatable spirit. People love to dog LA for every reason, and some of it is warranted. But when push comes to shove, people show up for their neighbors. I don’t think that was ever more evident than during the fires.”
The work is not over. Their ADU is wrapping up construction, and they’re breaking ground on the new studio. But the play structure is up, the roses are in bloom, and they’re quietly cheering on neighbors as they trickle back, with shared determination to rebuild.
“It’s so delightful working with them,” adds Farnham of her longtime clients, “But it would be nice if they had some calm years ahead. I want them to have no need for me. At least for a while.”
This story appears in the March issue. Never miss a story when you subscribe to AD.
Want to Help? AD is proud to partner with The Foothill Catalog Foundation and San Gabriel Valley Habitat for Humanity to help rebuild homes in Altadena. Click here to donate.
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