Custom Home Builder in Altadena, CA for New Builds & Eaton Fire Rebuilds

New Homes and Rebuilds Designed for Altadena's Foothill Lots and Historic Streets

Westside Remodeling builds new construction for Altadena homeowners, along with rebuilds for Eaton Fire families. As a custom home builder, we handle design and construction as one connected effort, so you work with the same team throughout your project.

Building a home from the ground up gives you a level of control that few remodels can match. Every layout decision and finish choice starts with how your family actually plans to live in the home. Getting that right takes time, and it calls for a builder willing to slow down and do it well.

We can help whether you are years into planning or just starting to explore your options. If your dream home in Altadena is still ahead, Westside Remodeling is ready to help you get there.

Rebuilding After the Eaton Fire

The Eaton Fire tore through Altadena in January 2025, destroying more than 9,000 homes and structures. Because Altadena is unincorporated in Los Angeles County, rebuild permits go through the county's own process. The county has since opened the Altadena One-Stop Recovery Permitting Center, which houses a Unified Permitting Authority created to move rebuild applications through faster.

Fire-affected homeowners can also choose from more than 70 preapproved home designs through the Foothill Catalog Foundation. The nonprofit partners with LA County to speed up permitting for Eaton Fire rebuilds. As a licensed contractor, Westside Remodeling can build from one of these approved plans or design a fully custom home suited to your needs and your family.

It’s also important to realize that new construction in Altadena must meet the 2025 California Wildland-Urban Interface Code, mandatory since January 1, 2026. The code sets requirements for fire-resistant materials on homes near fire-prone wildland areas. The requirements include Class A roofing, ember-resistant vents, non-combustible exterior cladding, and tempered glazing. Westside Remodeling builds every applicable Altadena project to this standard from the first set of plans.

Our Credentials

Westside Remodeling has worked in home construction since 1985 and holds an active California contractor license, number 1113678. The company has received the Professional Remodeler Big 50 Award and the Guildmaster Service Excellence Award and is a member of the Remodelers Advantage Roundtables.

Modern kitchen with large black island, wooden cabinets, pendant lights, and bar stools

What Your Custom Altadena Home Includes

Building a new home in Altadena means making decisions on everything from room layout to light fixtures. Westside Remodeling designs and builds every home in-house, so nothing falls through the cracks between planning and construction.

Bright modern kitchen with white cabinets, gray island, stainless appliances, and hardwood floors

Our custom home building process shapes a personalized floor plan around your family's routines and your lot's conditions. From there, our design team works through room layout, natural light, and material choices together with you. Later decisions move quickly once the building starts because that groundwork is already in place.

Elegant dining room with dark chairs, glass table, chandelier, and kitchen opening to a bright garden

A new home lets you build a kitchen suited to how your family cooks and spends time together. Our kitchen remodeling team plans the layout, appliances, and storage together from the earliest design stage. Your routine shapes every choice from the start.

We select cabinetry alongside the kitchen and bath design, as part of the same planning process. Westside Remodeling features Dura Supreme cabinetry as a preferred partner brand for new Altadena homes. Homeowners who only need new cabinets can also visit our cabinet sales showroom.

Modern patio with wicker seating, white drapes, and a round fire pit under a wood pergola

If your family wants a double vanity or a walk-in shower, we plan that into your bathroom design early. We work out plumbing, storage, and layout together, choosing every fixture and finish to match your household's morning routine.

Many Altadena lots sit on sloped ground, which changes how stairs, storage, and living areas connect. Our interior design work accounts for that from the earliest floor plans. The result is a layout your family can move through naturally.

Some Altadena homes suffered only partial damage in the Eaton Fire, leaving part of the original structure standing. If your plan is to keep and expand that structure, our home addition process starts there. The existing structure and the new space share the same plans from the first sketch.

The San Gabriel Mountains create a backdrop many Altadena lots can take advantage of. We design outdoor kitchens and patio spaces around that setting, choosing materials built to hold up outdoors year-round. These become spaces your family uses often.

We Use a Proven System

Our designs are personalized for you. We listen to your wants and needs and ask questions about how you and your family will use your new space. We educate and guide you through each step of the planning and selection process. The end result: attractive and functional spaces perfectly tailored to your taste and lifestyle.

Our carpenters and trade contractors are highly professional and trustworthy. We take great care to protect your home while keeping our workspaces tidy, safe and secure. We are mindful of your family and pets and will go out of our way to make you as comfortable as possible during your remodel. 

Using checklists, policies, and procedures developed over the last 30+ years, we take a systematic approach to the entire remodeling process. From the initial phone call or showroom visit to the final inspection and walk through, you can rest assured that every aspect of the process will be taken care of professionally. 

We Customize Every Space 

We Keep You Safe and Comfortable 

How a Custom Altadena Build Comes Together

Westside Remodeling applies the same building process to every Altadena project. It works the same whether you are building on a vacant lot or rebuilding after the Eaton Fire.

Design

Design begins with a conversation about your lot, your household, and how you plan to use each room. We turn that into drawings built specifically for your property.

01

Permitting

02

We handle plan submission and manage the back-and-forth with LA County until permits are issued. You get updates along the way instead of having to check in yourself.

Construction

Our crews take the project from foundation through final finishes, with regular progress updates throughout.

03

Walkthrough 

Before handoff, we walk through the completed home together. You can flag anything that needs a second look before you move in.

04

Why Altadena Families Build with Westside Remodeling

Building a new home, especially after losing one to a fire, means trusting a lot of moving parts to a single company. Here is what that looks like when you work with Westside Remodeling.

What this means is that building new here means entering a market where demand is active, and quality inventory remains limited.

Modern kitchen with large black island, wooden cabinets, pendant lights, and bar stools
  • One team from sketch to final walkthrough - Design and construction run through the same team throughout your project, so you are not coordinating separate designers, subcontractors, and inspectors on your own.
  • Documentation handled for you - We gather the paperwork your lender or insurer requires while your permit moves through LA County, so that step doesn't fall on you.
  • Fire code without surprise costs - Building to code from day one avoids the price and schedule hits that come from adding it midway through construction.
  • Experience with foothill terrain and fire code - We evaluate sloped lots and fire-zone requirements at your first site visit, addressing property-specific conditions early, well before construction begins.

Building Custom Homes in Altadena's Neighborhoods

Altadena's neighborhoods each carry their own architectural identity. Altadena’s Historic Highlands is known for its Craftsman homes, while Janes Village is known for its 1920s storybook cottages in English and Spanish revival styles. Farmhouse and mid-century styles show up along the Fair Oaks corridor too. As a custom home builder in Altadena, California, Westside Remodeling designs each new home around these established styles.

Beyond their architecture, these neighborhoods also share a location families value. They sit minutes from Pasadena's restaurants, museums, and job centers, yet Altadena itself keeps a quieter, more residential feel. Many families are choosing to rebuild here after the fire because of that mix of convenience and quiet.

That decision to stay has shaped the local market as well. Altadena's median home sale price was about $1.35 million before the Eaton Fire, per Realtor.com data. Newly built homes in the area are now listing between about $1.6 million and $2.5 million. Demand for quality new construction remains strong. A custom-built home gives Altadena families a way to put down roots on their own terms.

FAQs

Altadena's rebuild environment comes with specific rules that most homeowners have not dealt with before. Here are the questions we hear most from families building or rebuilding here.

Many Altadena properties sit on hillside or sloped terrain, particularly in the foothill neighborhoods. We evaluate soil conditions, drainage, and grading requirements early in the design process. Your foundation and site plan account for the land itself, well before construction begins.
The Foothill Catalog offers preapproved layouts that speed up permitting, though the structural design itself cannot be changed. Finishes and materials remain flexible within each plan. A fully custom design gives you control over the floor plan and structural details, though it takes longer to permit. Westside Remodeling builds either path for Altadena homeowners.
California requires at least 100 feet of defensible space around homes in designated fire hazard areas, split into two zones. The first 30 feet calls for non-combustible ground cover close to the structure. The outer 70 feet focuses on reducing vegetation density. Westside Remodeling factors this into the site plan from the start of design.
Permit timelines have lengthened recently as application volume has grown. To keep your project moving, Westside Remodeling partners with a licensed architect and engineering team that self-certifies the plan set. Self-certification by a licensed professional lets the county skip much of the standard plan-check review, so we can typically get your permit issued much faster. Westside Remodeling handles the submission and every follow-up from start to finish.

Begin Your Custom Home in Altadena

Some Altadena homeowners are ready to break ground on a new build. Others are still working through insurance, permitting, or a design direction. Wherever you are in that process, the next step looks the same. Talk with Westside Remodeling about what your property needs before construction starts. We can also walk through what a custom home in Altadena could look like for your family.