Turning Entertainment into Education Through Reuse

Like a scene from a Hollywood movie or a child's storybook, the Kenter Canyon Charter School's dream of building a state-of-the-art library for its students is coming true. The happy ending is the result of the unexpected discovery of a beautiful house that was about to be demolished, and the vision of parents who believed it could be reused for the benefit of their children and classes yet to come.

A number of businesses and government agencies also contributed financial support. One of these was the California Integrated Waste Management Board, which provided a $50,000 Reuse Assistance Grant for the project.

The graceful Craftsman-style building that starred in the movie Life as a House was destined to become demolition debris until parents of children attending the Kenter Canyon School rescued the house and marked it for the school's new library.

The current cramped and outdated library of Kenter Canyon School was built in 1955 for a much smaller student body, and it barely accommodates one full classroom of children. The current enrollment of the Los Angeles public elementary school is 420.

Several years ago, the financially strapped Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) discontinued funding libraries throughout the district. The Kenter Canyon School was among those closed. The parents of the Kenter Canyon Parent Support Group worked to reopen the library in 1993 on a part-time basis by raising money for a part-time librarian and a small stipend for books and supplies.

During the summer of 2000, parents, teachers, and administrators received a grant from LAUSD to create a functional and comfortable teaching and reading library. The concept of the "new library" was born, a library committee was formed, and the expansion plan began.

In 2001, a Kenter Canyon School parent discovered that a fully engineered and architecturally distinctive house was scheduled to be demolished at the end of filming. The house, built of Douglas fir for the New Line Cinema film Life as a House, was originally constructed from parts in a kit. The post-and-beam building was then dismantled and reassembled on the movie set.

The film's costume designer, Molly Maginnis—a Kenter Canyon School parent—showed the house to architect Scott MacGillivray the day before it was slated to be demolished. MacGillivrary, also a Kenter Canyon parent, was amazed at the value of the building. He suggested keeping the house intact and reusing it as a new library for Kenter Canyon School. The story appeared in a November 7, 2001, Los Angeles Times article entitled "And the House Lived Happily Ever After."

Once the donation of the building by the film company was legally completed, a team of 20 professional carpenters spent four days taking the building apart, numbering all the pieces, and putting them in storage. Warner Technology, Inc., a community partner in the new library project, donated the workers' wages.

The school is currently in the process of reconstructing the building on the school's front lawn. It will serve as a constant reminder to students, teachers, parents, and neighbors of the necessity of incorporating the concepts of reuse in their lives.

The library project is the largest instance of reuse ever conducted at the Kenter Canyon School. The administration and the parent committee have repeatedly exercised this type of creative thinking about reuse. When the school rebuilt its playground four years ago, LAUSD saved the replaced equipment and installed it at another school in the district. Several years ago, parent volunteers built a reading garden at the school using bricks that were salvaged from a construction site.

This library project is a creative and productive way to promote reuse and encourage the recovery and reuse of construction materials that would have otherwise been disposed. It also shows that thinking "outside the box" can result in ways to reuse materials in many venues, particularly for educational purposes. This successful connection between the film industry, which sometimes wastes resources, and public education, which needs resources, enables both parties to become beneficiaries.

The school's initial concept to add onto and remodel the existing library would have required demolition and significant remodeling. The remodel would involve expenditures of natural resources and energy, at a cost about 50 percent higher than building from scratch. By reusing the large quantity of existing high-quality lumber and hardware, Kenter Canyon School became a partner with community groups and governmental agencies. The mission of these groups and agencies is to eliminate waste and cultivate creative reuse opportunities.

The story of the house that became a library will be a model throughout the district and the nation. It will demonstrate efficient resource management to other business-community-school partnerships on how to reuse buildings and construction materials that otherwise might be destroyed. Additionally, the Kenter Canyon School Library will become a showplace to demonstrate how the CIWMB assists schools in reusing materials to enhance education.

This library project shows possibilities in reuse of land, buildings, and building materials, whether from business sources or from within the school district itself. This is especially critical at a time when the entire district has a shortage of classroom space and a lack of money for expansion. There is a potential for this story of the house that starred in a movie and became a children's library to inspire many other similar "happy endings."

At the special screening and reception of Life as a House, the new library committee raised approximately $16,000 for the project. The film's production designer, Dennis Washington, told parents he was joyous that the house would survive. "Usually what we do is bulldoze," said Washington. "I'm thrilled this house has a chance for a second life." This "second life" will not only will provide the current students at the school with their first adequate library in nearly half a century, but it will serve students and the school community for many years to come.

*Text for this article was provided by Leigh Austin.

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Last updated: August 01, 2008