When you win two billion dollars, you can do just about anything — buy islands, build spaceships, start a cult of golden Labradors. But what Edwin Castro is doing with his fortune? It’s something a little different. He’s trying to buy back the past.
Earlier this year, Castro’s $25 million Malibu mansion — the one plastered all over the tabloids — was reduced to ash in the Palisades fires that tore through Los Angeles. Whole neighborhoods vanished overnight. Lives, memories, and homes — gone.
Now the 33-year-old Powerball winner is quietly buying up pieces of what’s left. Fifteen plots so far. Not to flip them for profit. Not to build a gated megamansion complex with infinity pools and robot butlers. But to rebuild homes for people who actually want to live there.
“This is for a family that wants to move in,” Castro said while walking through what used to be someone’s living room. “Those are the people that need to be looked out for right now.”
He’s not turning into a saint overnight — he’s not giving the homes away or pretending he’s Mother Teresa with a black card. But he’s choosing a slower, more human path: selling single-family homes at market value to people who want to stay, not investors looking to turn the ashes into Airbnbs.
Locals are split. Some think he’s just another rich guy trying to make his money look noble. Others — the ones who remember him as the kid from Altadena whose dad worked in construction — actually believe him.
“I feel better about him than anybody else because he’s from the area,” said Joel Bryant, a local contractor.
Castro’s plan isn’t fast, and it’s definitely not simple. Ten years, he says. That’s how long it might take to rebuild the neighborhood the way he remembers it — Craftsman homes, Spanish tiles, porch lights glowing through oak trees.
He knows it’s ambitious. He’s never built homes before. But maybe that’s the point.
“You don’t want to be the first to finish your homes because everybody else will be doing construction,” he explained. “If you sell at the end of the timeline, the whole neighborhood will be at value.”
This isn’t the usual billionaire arc. There’s no private jet, no crypto startup, no reality show about “life after winning.” There’s just a guy who lost his house, remembers his dad pointing at buildings he helped construct — “I built that. I worked on that.” — and now wants to do the same for his future kids.
“I want to have kids like yesterday,” Castro said. “It’s about family. Family is important.”
Maybe that’s what makes this story weirdly beautiful. Because while Edwin Castro could rebuild anything with his money, he’s choosing to rebuild home.