Friday, May 15, 2026

A Century After Myron Hunt Built It, Five Acres’ Altadena Campus Throws a Party

The child welfare nonprofit survived the Eaton Fire and now marks 100 years at its headquarters with a 1920s gala and a new youth mental health push

The building that Myron Hunt designed for children in crisis opened on a five-acre lot off Mountain View Street in 1926, the same decade he was finishing the Rose Bowl and the Huntington Library. A hundred years later, it is still standing which, after January 2025, is not something the neighbors can say.

Five Acres, the Altadena-based child and family services nonprofit whose campus survived the Eaton Fire that destroyed 9,418 structures around it, will celebrate the centennial of its headquarters with the Golden Five Acres Gala on June 6. The 1920s-themed evening complete with period cocktail attire, live music, and what the organization describes as “tantalizing fare from the 1920s” doubles as a fundraiser for an agency that has operated continuously since 1888 and now serves more than 7,000 children and family members annually across six counties, according to Five Acres. The organization’s mission centers on three pillars: safety, well-being, and permanency for children and families in crisis.

The gala coincides with the organization’s expansion of Wear Your Heart, a mental health initiative launched in 2025 that provides early intervention services for children through parent education, community referrals, and multilingual outreach. Five Acres says the program was created in response to the U.S. Surgeon General’s advisory on the youth mental health crisis and California’s goal to improve mental health for every child by 2030.

“Wear Your Heart reflects our belief that mental health care should start early and feel accessible,” Chanel Boutakidis, CEO of Five Acres, said in a statement published by LA Magazine. “If we want children to thrive, we must help them feel seen and supported before they reach a breaking point.”

The initiative also addresses what Five Acres describes as the mental health toll of the Eaton and Palisades fires, which displaced thousands of families in January 2025. The Eaton Fire, which began January 7, 2025, burned 14,021 acres and left 19 people dead, according to Cal Fire and Los Angeles County records. Five Acres says many of the children and families it serves, 62 percent of whom are Latino, according to the organization are navigating wildfire-related trauma.

The organization’s own campus at 760 W. Mountain View St. in Altadena weathered the fire. Children in Five Acres’ residential care were evacuated and returned to the main campus by January 17, 2025, after more than 50 volunteers turned out for a recovery day to clean, repair, and prepare the grounds, according to the organization’s Eaton Fire relief page.

To expand its Wear Your Heart reach, Five Acres has partnered with Kidspace Children’s Museum, the YMCA, and Ellie Mental Health, according to a sponsored feature in LA Magazine. Media partners LA Parent and LAist support outreach and awareness, while Exodus Recovery serves as a referring partner linking families to services outside Five Acres, according to the organization’s website. Five Acres cites federal data indicating that one in five children lives with a significant mental health concern and that in California, more than 284,000 children have been identified with major depression while only 34 percent receive treatment.

The history behind the centennial stretches back well before the fire. Five Acres formally the Boys’ and Girls’ Aid Society of Los Angeles County, an IRS-designated 501(c)(3) was founded in 1888 as a downtown Los Angeles orphanage. Its board purchased the Altadena acreage in 1921 and commissioned Hunt, the architect responsible for the Huntington Library, the Rose Bowl, and Pasadena’s Central Library to design a purpose-built campus for children’s care. Hunt’s firm, Hunt & Chambers, produced a complex that opened in 1926 at a cost of approximately $800,000, the equivalent of roughly $13 million today, according to Five Acres. The organization says Hunt envisioned the campus as “an outstanding child-oriented facility.” The agency has been accredited by the Council on Accreditation since 1957, and in 2018, Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger officially declared March 12 as Five Acres Day.

Under CEO Boutakidis, who took the helm in 2011 after serving as executive director of Pasadena Mental Health Center, Five Acres has expanded from residential care into community-based mental and behavioral health services, foster care, adoption, and deaf services. Boutakidis has more than 30 years of experience in behavioral health, child welfare, advocacy, and policy-making, according to the organization. Five Acres operates out of multiple locations, including facilities in Altadena and at 867 N. Fair Oaks Ave. in Pasadena.

Early bird tickets to the Golden Five Acres Gala are $350 per person or $3,500 for a table of 10. Sponsorships range from $1,000 to $100,000 and are available through the event page at e.givesmart.com/events/Mzw. The event is outdoors on a lawn; the organization advises 1920s-inspired cocktail attire with comfortable shoes. For information, contact Jenny Lin at 626-390-8453 or JennyLinn@5acres.org.

Hunt designed the Altadena campus to last. A century and one wildfire later, it has.