LA fires: How to preserve history when the buildings are gone?

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Will Rogers' historic ranch house lies destroyed at Will Rogers State Historic Park. Photo credit: Jonathan Alcorn/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa via Reuters Connect.

The Eaton and Palisades wildfires mark some of the most destructive blazes in California history, and the totality of losses endured is still coming into focus. Among the thousands of structures that burned are many historically-designated and otherwise culturally-significant homes, businesses, and other community mainstays. 

In the aftermath, Angelenos are grappling with the painful reality of losing these cultural touchstones. And it raises one particular question among preservationists: Is there a way to preserve history when the buildings themselves are gone? 

That’s the billion-dollar question LA Conservancy President and CEO Adrian Scott Fine is asking: “In some cases, we have a facade standing, but the building's gone. Is that facade now important?”

He continues, “We always say it in preservation: If the physical place no longer exists, it's much harder to understand the stories, the people that were important to that place, the architecture. If you can't see it, touch it, feel it, and experience it by going into that place, it's so much less real.” 

So far, the LA Conservancy has tracked and verified dozens of historical places that have either been partially or completely lost in the wildfires. In Altadena, the 1887 home of Andrew McNally, the co-founder of Rand McNally Publishing, is confirmed to have burned, as well as the 78-year-old artist colony Zorthian Ranch, and the 1925 Spanish Colonial property featured in HBO’s Hacks

Across town, the Palisades Fire destroyed Will Rogers’ Santa Monica Mountains home, as well as the residence of modern classical composer Arnold Schoenberg. The Viennese musician fled the Nazis in the 1930s and eventually settled in the Palisades — an experience he once described as being “driven into Paradise.”

For every local landmark claimed by the wildfires, there are dozens of others without formal historic designations that nonetheless represent a community’s culture and history. That includes Altadena Hardware, which served the area since 1934, and restaurants like century-old Reel Inn and roadside staple Cholada Thai in Malibu.

Read more: Remembering the Reel Inn, a century old building, lost to the Palisades Fire

It’s tough to say what recovery or eventual rebuilding may look like right now. That’s due in part, Fine says, to the sheer scale of damage the wildfires have wreaked on Southern California. 

“It's complete annihilation. There's nothing standing at all, maybe a chimney,” he says. “So it's much more destructive in terms of the kinds of losses we're seeing here, versus even things like [Hurricane] Katrina,” Fine explains. 

While damage from the devastating 2005 hurricane was similarly  widespread, many of New Orleans’ buildings and structures remained standing or otherwise intact, with recovery efforts instead centered around issues such as water damage and mold, Fine points out.

Fine now wonders if neighborhoods should be rebuilt exactly as they were, as he’s heard from many community members, or if it’s time to start from scratch. 

Benjamin Kahle, a realtor and member of the LA County Historical Landmark and Records Commission, says it’s time to get creative. 

He asks: What about Case Study Homes, a series of post-World War II homes designed as an affordable and easy-to-construct option for prospective homebuyers? There were also the old Sears Modern Homes that Americans once purchased by mail order catalog that were updated to modern standards. 

Read more: Homeowners rebuilding after LA fires: What to expect?

Today, many of the lost historic buildings, or decades-old homes, can’t be replicated exactly. Years of new California building codes and legislation have made homes more energy-efficient, reduced their carbon footprint, and changed what materials are used to build. The Bel Air Fire in 1961, for example, led to a ban on wood-shingle roofs. Meanwhile, as Kahle points out, vinyl windows and LED lights help give new developments their modern appearance. 

“Perhaps there's a series of models that a family could pick. There's a batch of Spanish, Tudor, Craftsman, Bungalow, whatever it may be,” Kahle says. “It doesn't have to be overly sophisticated,” Kahle says. “You're talking [about a] 14-2000 square-foot home. There's probably a way to do it, to also make it energy efficient, but retain its historic nature in an economical way.”

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