Serenity Heights: Echo Park Home to Become a Christian Recovery Center

Raygoza Family Honors Matriarch with Vision for Faith-Based Healing

Tucked along Laveta Terrace in Echo Park, a longtime family home—once alive with generations of laughter, struggle, and tradition—is quietly being reimagined with a sacred new purpose. In Summer 2027, the Raygoza family plans to open Serenity Heights — a Christian faith-based recovery center envisioned as a place of restoration, spiritual renewal, and healing.

The project is being led by Cuca’s Nest LLC, a nonprofit organization established in 2023 by the heirs of Maria del Refugio Raygoza Real de Iglesias. Maria, who purchased the home in 1979, passed away in 2022 after a life of quiet faith, service, and family devotion. Since her passing, the house has remained unoccupied — but not forgotten. It now stands at the center of a mission her family is committed to realizing.

“This house was the center of our family’s story,” said Joanna Maria Raygoza, Maria’s granddaughter. “Now we’re preparing it to become a place where other people can start new chapters in theirs.”

A Legacy of Faith Lived Quietly

Maria Raygoza was not a pastor, nor did she claim religious leadership. She was shaped by a strong, traditional religious upbringing, and she lived her beliefs through action — in how she raised her children, treated others, and held herself to a high moral standard.

An immigrant from Jalisco, Mexico, Maria came to the United States as a teenager, graduated from La Puente High School, and built a career helping immigrant families gain legal status. In the 1990s, she served on the Board of Directors at Grand View Foundation, an alcohol recovery center in Pasadena, after her own brother lost his life to alcoholism. That experience sparked in her a lifelong commitment to dignity, discipline, and healing.

Passing Faith Forward

Maria’s values found deep roots in her children and grandchildren. Her son, John Raygoza, enrolled his daughter Joanna — Maria’s granddaughter — in St. Mary’s Christian School in Aliso Viejo, where she was introduced to Christian teachings early in life. Today, Joanna is a parishioner in Orange County and plays a key role in shaping the vision for Serenity Heights.

“My grandmother wasn’t loud about her faith, but she lived it,” Joanna said. “Now, we’re building something that carries that quiet strength forward — a place for healing, structure, and transformation.”

A Vision for 2027

Though not yet operational, Serenity Heights is planned as a non-residential, faith-based recovery center offering resources for those seeking spiritual and emotional renewal. Program plans include:

• Faith-informed 12-step recovery programs
• Christian mentorship and life guidance
• Prayer gatherings and pastoral support
• Community outreach and service opportunities

The Raygoza family is currently renovating the property and forming advisory partnerships with faith leaders, counselors, and recovery specialists in anticipation of the center’s launch in 2027.

What began as one woman’s home is now on track to become a house of hope. Serenity Heights is not yet open — but the vision is alive, and the work is already underway.