Who Owns The Website I Designed?

I am a former HR manager in California who designed websites for friends. It is a hobby. Several years ago, I designed and used two websites for my former employer on my own time, with a personal laptop, with assets I bought (hosting, domain name, theme, plugins, images, continuous uptime monitoring service). I was never reimbursed for my expenses. I was laid off last month and took down the websites on the day of my dismissal. The former employer is demanding that I restore the websites. I used them to (1) onboard remotely and (2) to store information to quickly respond to employee requests. There is no proprietary information on the websites, the info can be easily found on the internet. Do I have to restore the websites with my [limited] personal funds?