Homecoming for Palisades family

The Forrests are believed to be the first to return after January disaster

- STEVE LOPEZ COLUMNIST

LIV PLAYS POOL with Gustav and Axel, who no longer share a bedroom in their two-story home.

The same day Craig Forrest watched flames destroy his Pacific Palisades house in January, he was on the phone with his insurance company.

Within about three weeks, he'd received almost all of the money he was owed by Progressive.

On April 29, crews from Lush Construction broke ground on his new house in the El Medio neighborhood.

And on Oct. 5, when Forrest read my column about an Altadena man who was about to become the first person to complete a new house after losing everything in the Eaton fire, he sent me an email to say he might be the first one to make it home to the Palisades.

"I moved as fast as I could," Forrest said, telling me he was entering the final phase of construction. "We have three teenagers and I had to give them hope and a positive outlook and show them how to deal with adversity."

Mission accomplished.

The job was completed on Wednesday, and Forrest told me the family planned to begin moving their belongings in on Friday and possibly be home for Christmas, capping a year of catastrophic loss with a celebration of rebirth.

And how do Axel, 19; Gustav, 16, and Liv, 14, like their new two-story house, erected on the lot where their one-story house was incinerated?

Unanimous approval.

“I didn’t have my own shower and I didn’t have ... a walk-in closet” in the old house, Liv said, but now she'll have both.

“The entrance is like, wow factor,” said Axel. “You walk into this huge room and you see the kitchen. It’s just amazing. And the... natural light that comes in just makes the whole room.”

CRAIG FORREST enters his newly rebuilt home in Pacific Palisades, a yearlong project that included design input from his three kids.