Edwin Castro, the $2 billion Powerball winner, has promised to restore Altadena, his hometown in Los Angeles County, California, which was largely destroyed by a wildfire in January.

One of the largest purchasers of the town's charred parcels, which are being bought by investors from locals who have opted to sell up rather than rebuild, is the richest lottery winner in the world.

Castro paid $10 for his winning lottery ticket in 2022 at Joe's Service Center, a petrol station located in Altadena at the intersection of Fair Oaks Avenue and Woodbury Road.  The New York Times called Joe's Fair Oaks Avenue home "the luckiest gas station in America" since it was saved from the fire, which destroyed over 100 other homes.

Destructive Fire

Many others were not fortunate.  On the evening of January 7, 2025, the Eaton fire started in the San Gabriel Mountains' Eaton Canyon.  It impacted Altadena particularly severely when it moved down into the foothill towns, propelled by strong Santa Ana winds.

A UCLA research found that about 37% of non-Black families and 48% of Black households were destroyed.  This indicates that almost 39% of all households were destroyed, which is catastrophic for a community with about 43K residents.

At least two of the 31 fatalities from the many California wildfires in January 2025 occurred in Altadena.

"I want it to feel like the old neighborhood,” Castro told The Wall Street Journal in his first words to the media since his gargantuan windfall. “Like if you put all those houses pre-fire in a time bubble.”

Instead of building houses for people who want to rent them out, Castro wants to create homes for families who wish to live in Altadena.  However, he made it clear that he also wanted to profit from the endeavor.

“The profit margin doesn’t have to be egregious. But I’m not building these homes just to give them away,” he told WSJ, adding that they might take ten years to build.

Man of Mystery Castro, who lost a $3 million Malibu mansion to the California flames, has mostly remained a mystery since his victory, but last week he gave WSJ some personal information.

He said that his father worked in construction and that he was raised in a middle-class household.  As a Boy Scout, he spent his early years repairing old cards, going fishing, and becoming fixated on Pokémon and Dungeons & Dragons.

When he struck it rich, he was working as a private architectural consultant and renting his house. He wants children "like yesterday" and is unmarried.

Castro's argument, however, does not persuade everyone.  He was "just another person trying to get some profit," according to a homeowner who told WSJ that smoke had damaged his home.