INTO DARK CORRIDORS: A Tale of Hands, Heart, and Home By Constance Hood \tThe abandoned house sat our 35-acre canyon, a neighborhood hazard and the weekend roost for two competing Los Angeles street gangs. From our hilltop cottage we saw a back patio, sliding glass doors now smashed, twisted bits of aluminum and steel poking out of concrete. Weeds and brush covered the barns, and stables. Fire prevention crews and equipment roared through there on Labor Day 1985, and my husband wandered down the hill. He returned, “You’ve got to see that place – gorgeous woodwork.” \tWe took on the task of finding the owners of the home, a massive 1909 Craftsman by a master builder. The Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission gave it temporary protected status, and the next task would be to find a millionaire to restore the home. Downey Savings called that evening. "Do you want it? Just get it off our land. We will send you a letter authorizing you as caretakers." \tI moved forward with researching the costs and labor attached to "getting the house off their land." Relocating a house is a mess. It involves geologists, engineers, inspectors, and of course a house mover. Neighbors supported the idea of bulldozing a road up the canyon. Halfway through the work, the husband decided that he’d rather live in an apartment after all. One problem? He’d borrowed his father’s entire equity for the venture. We split. I moved the house, in two pieces. (www.constancehood.com/media for videos) \tEverything ended up sacrificed to unrealistic expectations - marriage, family life, health, money. It was time to declare bankruptcy and accept failure, but an art director friend suggested a one-month delay on that idea. He needed a location for a film shoot, "not your type of pictures, but their checks are good. We can plaster a couple rooms for you and pay you enough to make your mortgage through the summer." (extensive before footage is available) \tAnd so the crew plastered through a long weekend, finishing the "set" at 1:30 AM. Four hours later the doorbell rang. I staggered to the front door of my cottage in a filthy work T Shirt, paint in my hair, and opened up to an Irish grin under a baseball cap. \tChet Hood threw in his lot four days later. Like me, his family had owned very old homes, and we had complementary skills. I knew cosmetic work, and he is a mechanic. Both of us knew how to use crowbars and sledgehammers. Unemployed actors and crews added their antics to the constant action. A five-year-old and his puppy completed the days, ending in hugs and homemade soups. Friends circled around for our 1989 wedding, and the dream was finally under way. We entertained family ghosts and outrageous realities. The previous owners had managed actors and horses for 1950s western films. Their stories sat in files. Calamities and miracles of reassembling an old house continued room by room. For the next three years we worked furiously to obtain our Certificate of Occupancy, facing off to bureaucrats and heroes of all types. The book ends with a showdown at City Hall, when permit sign offs nearly cost our home in an absurd tangle for power and money. Needed: Just one more hero. Ultimately cash was not the driving force that made a beautiful home possible. Physical labor and manual skills made it possible for a ruin to become a loving reality.