Devon Douglas wears an apron, eye protection, and a mask as she chips away inside a fireplace at a flattened home in Altadena. The brick chimney rises like a palm tree above her, surrounded by collapsed walls and broken red roof tiles.
Douglas is a skilled mason who is part of an effort called “Save the Tiles.” She and other volunteers are collecting Batchelder and other historic tiles before bulldozers clear the Eaton Fire rubble.
“It’s so big of a devastation for everybody involved, and it’s just the smallest piece of something that we can do,” Douglas says.
Devon Douglas of “Save the Tiles” removes historic tiles from a fireplace at the destroyed home in Altadena. Photo by Susan Valot.
Many homes in Altadena date back more than 100 years and are beautiful examples of the “arts and crafts” design style, which includes simple, handmade elements like built-in wooden shelves and cabinets, exposed beams, and stained glass windows.
Also typical: fireplaces with tiles designed by Ernest Batchelder, an artist who moved to Pasadena in the early 1900s. He put a portable kiln behind his bungalow and created handmade, decorated art tiles.
These tiles toss a cloak of charm around a mantlepiece, with soft metallic browns and blues reminiscent of the desert. Some have detailed scenes with majestic trees, peacocks, and other animals. They are a definitive feature of many homes in Altadena, Pasadena, and beyond. The tiles from that era also include other makers, such as Claycraft Pottery.
Today in some parts of Altadena, where the Eaton Fire destroyed more than 9,000 homes and buildings, the historic tile is almost all that’s left.
A box of removed historic tiles sits outside a home in Altadena. These particular ones had the markings for Claycraft Pottery. Photo by Susan Valot.
Soon after the fire, Altadena resident Eric Garland, whose home barely survived, walked through the neighborhood with his 18-year-old daughter.
“It was just an exercise in taking a few steps and weeping, and taking a few steps and weeping. Part of it was just incremental loss, wading into the next neighbor, and the next, and the next. And part of it was gasping at what remained. … There’s nothing. It’s just a debris field,” Garland recalls. “And in the middle of the ash pile, where that house should be, is this beautiful, red brick chimney, standing in the middle of nowhere and at the base of it, this perfect work of art — this fireplace that was just like the day it was made.”
Because the tiles were forged by flames to start with, the Eaton Fire became like a second run through the kiln, allowing many of them to survive.
As Garland and his daughter walked their neighborhood, she said to him, “‘Dad, that’s all they have left,’” Garland remembers. “I said, ‘Lucy, I think that’s all this neighborhood has left.’ And she said, ‘Well, who’s going to save the fireplaces?’”
That was the start of a volunteer campaign to “Save the tiles, save the town,” as Garland says. A couple of weekends ago, about 50 neighbors showed up to canvass the neighborhoods to identify homes with historic tiles.
In two days, the “Save the Tiles” group identified 200 surviving fireplaces with historic tiles from that era. They started contacting owners for permission to bring in masons to remove them and restore them for free, so they can be used in rebuilds — a tiny bit of the home’s DNA to live into the future.
Volunteers from “Save the Tiles” work on removing historic tiles from a fireplace in Altadena. The tiles are being saved and restored for free so homeowners can use them when they rebuild. Photo by Nick Agro.
Now, masons and crews are carefully chiseling away at remaining chimneys to pry the tile off. Douglas says the fire actually burned off much of the dirt and grime that had collected on the tiles over the decades.
“They look new,” Douglas says, as she stacks tiles from a doctor’s home into boxes that will go into storage. “It’s almost bigger than just the tile. It’s symbolic in its own.”
They’re working against the clock.
“What this town wants is to get started on the comeback. They want cleared, graded lots where they can start to rebuild. And we want that, too, because we are they. We are those same homeowners,” Garland says. “But we are trying to get out with these tiles before those bulldozers roll.”
They’re trying to find funding to bring in workers to help. They’ve set up a GoFundMe campaign because grant funding will be too slow. They are also looking for volunteers who have expertise in masonry.
They hope their work will build Altadena’s future, one tile at a time.