C California Style & Culture

Heroism, Resilience, and Rebuilding

On Life’s Lessons and Bringing Bridget Jones Back

RENÉE ZELLWEGER

Prada

Prada

Saint Laurent

How do you highlight spring and all the excitement around a new season in fashion, culture, exhibitions, and restaurant openings when the world has been taken violently from so many in the blink of an eye?

As we were starting to put this issue together, I — along with so many others in the Malibu, Palisades, and Altadena areas — received an email the evening of Monday, January 6, warning power would be cut off because of oncoming “life-threatening winds.” Having evacuated just a few weeks earlier for another fire, I took the warning to heart and I left quickly, as I knew how staying put in a house without power (and internet) would leave me stranded without vital information. Less than 24 hours later, the house I loved so much — the one I bought after my divorce as a place by the sea to rebalance and rebuild a new life — had become a pile of ash. And not just for me: More than 12,000 homes were suddenly gone, leaving so many without a foundation for their lives. I know I am one of the lucky ones, and I don’t take it for granted. I was insured, I hope to rebuild one day, and I have a support system that lifts me up.

In those darkest moments, you can see the beauty in humanity with people wanting to help. Pop-up centers were established within days for clothing and furniture donations. Restaurants set up makeshift kitchens to feed the first responders. Hotels donated open rooms to people without shelter. It was inspiring to see how everyone came together, how neighbors helped neighbors in some of the saddest of times.

Founders Note

On the Cover

Photography by MATTHEW BROOKES.

Fashion Direction by PETRA FLANNERY.

Hair by JENNY CHO. Makeup by KINDRA MANN. Manicure by DIEM TRUONG.

RENÉE ZELLWEGER wearing BURBERRY coat, CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN shoes, and POMELLATO bracelet.

So how to publish an issue celebrating California and all its allure when it has been battered and bruised? With a cover story (shot a month before the fires) on Renée Zellweger cast as the ultimate Hollywood icon, Marilyn Monroe, we decided to make the issue a love letter to L.A. We quickly conscripted a portfolio spotlighting a few artists who lost everything, including their life’s work. When shooting them, we found a collective spirit that couldn’t be broken. A story on some of the firefighters who battled the blazes in Altadena adds to a message of heroism so rarely seen these days — almost out of a movie. Speaking of movies, we write about the push to bring Hollywood back to Hollywood when so many productions have gone on to more taxincentivized pastures. In a time when our town is struggling, bringing business back to Tinseltown would be a cinematic ending to a few unsettling years. But with all the seemingly biblical natural disasters we have endured, we keep coming back. Once you experience California and its golden light, salty sea air, dry desert vistas, rugged mountains, and jagged coastlines, you are hooked forever — which is why I keep returning, and why I will rebuild. One more day in the sun, by the sea, with the water glistening like diamonds, is worth it all.

Founder, Editorial Director and CEO

FEATURES

Spring Issue 2025

STATEMENTS

Alaïa brings its chic designs to Costa Mesa...............................................................................................

A slouchy bag is a smart idea...............................................................................................................................

Bay Area MycoWorks launches a furniture collection.....................................................................

Why artist Alexandra Grant added wine making to her oeuvre..............................................

Fresh sneakers to step into the new season.............................................................................................

Heroes of the Eaton fire reflect on the fateful night of January 7...............................................

How to rebuild better, according to the experts......................................................................................

What we lost in the fires and what is lifting us up, by L.A.’s creative community..........

Could film production coming back to Hollywood create a new golden age?..............

Renée Zellweger on what she learned from Bridget Jones............................................................

DISCOVERIES

Four charming new hotels open doors in SoCal.................................................... The fitness studios offering a break from old routines...................................... Artist Alex Israel shares his favorite spots in the state he calls home...

On

time Oscar winner Renée Zellweger

JOIN US IN HELPING THE LOS ANGELES WILDFIRE

JENNIFER SMITH Founder, Editorial Director & CEO

JENNY MURRAY

Editor & President

Chief Content Officer ANDREW BARKER | Chief Creative Officer JAMES TIMMINS

Beauty Director

KELLY ATTERTON

Contributing Fashion Editor

REBECCA RUSSELL

Senior Editors

GINA TOLLESON

ELIZABETH VARNELL

Managing Editor

SARAH RUTLEDGE

Photo Editor LAUREN WHITE

Graphic Designer DEAN ALARI

Research Editor CAITLIN WHITE

Masthead

Contributing Editors: Caroline Cagney, Elizabeth Khuri Chandler, Kendall Conrad, Kelsey McKinnon, David Nash, Diane Dorrans Saeks, Stephanie Steinman, Nathan Turner, Stephanie Rafanelli

Contributing Writers: Anush J. Benliyan, Max Berlinger, Catherine Bigelow, Samantha Brooks, Alessandra Codinha, Kerstin Czarra, Helena de Bertodano, Richard Godwin, Robert Haskell, Martha Hayes, Rob LeDonne, Christine Lennon, Jessica Ritz, S. Irene Virbila, Chris Wallace

Contributing Photographers: Juan Aldabaldetrecu, Christian Anwander, Guy Aroch, Mark Griffin Champion, Gia Coppola, Roger Davies, Victor Demarchelier, Amanda Demme, Francois Dischinger, Graham Dunn, Sam Frost, Adrian Gaut, Lance Gerber, Alanna Hale, Rainer Hosch, Bjorn Iooss, Danielle Levitt, Blair Getz Mezibov, Dewey Nicks, Frank Ockenfels, David Roemer, Jessica Sample, Jack Waterlot, Ben Weller

Contributing Fashion Directors: Chris Campbell, Cristina Ehrlich, Petra Flannery, Fabio Immediato, Maryam Malakpour, Katie Mossman, Jessica Paster, James Sleaford, Christian Stroble, Samantha Traina

RENEE MARCELLO Publisher

Executive Director, West Coast

SUE CHRISPELL

Director Digital, Sales & Marketing

AMY LIPSON

Sales Development Manager

ANNE MARIE PROVENZA Controller LEILA ALLEN

Information Technology Executive Director

SANDY HUBBARD

C PUBLISHING

2064 ALAMEDA PADRE SERRA, SUITE 120, SANTA BARBARA, CA 93103

T: 310-393-3800 SUBSCRIBE@MAGAZINEC.COM MAGAZINEC.COM

The lensman behind our story on L.A. creatives affected by the fires (page 86), Kurt Iswarienko, shoots intimate emotional portraits that are like close-ups inside vast cinematic panoramas. Whether captured on location or created in a studio, his imagery is charged with narrative and nuance. His career has taken him around the world shooting advertising and entertainment campaigns for a range of clients, including Lincoln, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Visa, Delta, Universal, Sony, Netflix, Amazon, and Apple. MY C SPOTS Carnitas Michoacan (the original one on Broadway near Chinatown) • The beaches in Santa Barbara • Palm Springs for desert air.

MATTHEW BROOKES

Photographer Matthew Brookes, who captured Renée Zellweger for our cover and feature story “Back in the Spotlight” (page 102), was born in England and raised in South Africa. He first discovered his passion for photography in Paris, and he currently divides his time among L.A., Paris, and New York. His latest book, Expression of Freedom: Through the World of Dance, was published by Damiani Books late last year. MY C SPOTS Tartine Bakery & Café • Book Soup in West Hollywood • Pace in Laurel Canyon for Italian food.

Contributors

Journalist and author Christine Lennon has written for C Magazine for 20 years. For this issue, she penned the profiles of the L.A. creatives who lost nearly everything in the January fires (page 86). Lennon is also the contributing home and design editor at Sunset magazine, and she has worked at W, Vogue, and Harper’s Bazaar. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and children. MY C SPOTS Inspiration Point hiking trail in Santa Barbara • The Flower Market in downtown L.A. is always exciting • Natalie Martin’s shop on Melrose for the most beautiful, comfortable dresses.

LESLEY M. M. BLUME

The author of our feature on the valiant firefighters who battled the historic blazes earlier this year, “The Heroes’ Journey” (page 76), L.A. resident and historian Lesley M. M. Blume has covered many wartime, nuclear, and environmental disaster events. Her third major nonfiction book, A Devil’s Bargain, which documents media coverage of the Charles Manson murder saga, will be published in 2026. MY C SPOTS The waterfalls of Big Sur • Griffith Park and the Griffith Observatory, which my office overlooks • The Frank Sinatra booth at Musso & Frank Grill.

CHRISTINE LENNON

KURT ISWARIENKO

CONTRIBUTORS

CATHERINE BIGELOW

KERSTIN CZARRA

DAVID NASH

REBECCA RUSSELL

ELIZABETH VARNELL

Statement - Opener

LANDSCAPE AS ART

New sculptures and installations meet elemental forces as DESERT X returns to Palm Springs

S. IRENE VIRBILA S T A T E M E N T S

The Coachella Valley’s site-specific international art exhibition, DESERT X, is back with situated-in-nature work by Agnes Denes, Sanford Biggers, Alison Saar, Raphael Hefti, Jose Dávila, Ronald Rael, Sarah Meyohas, and a roster of creatives. Our collective effect on the land continues to inspire those selected by the exhibition’s artistic director, Neville Wakefield, and co-curator Kaitlin Garcia-Maestas. It features timelines of the past and future, emerging technology, and the role of the elements themselves, from bursts of wind to unabating sunlight. The life cycle of plants animates Denes’ The Living Pyramid at Sunnylands Center & Gardens, while Biggers’ Unsui (Mirror) sculptures reflect the freedom and interconnection symbolized by clouds. Dávila’s marble blocks composing The Act of Being Together crossed the Mexico border to reside in the U.S., calling to mind the architectural works of ancient civilizations while looking at the future. Saar’s Soul Service Station, made from salvaged materials, is a place for reflection, pausing, and healing. March 8–May 11. desertx.org. E.V.

From top: Agnes Denes’ The Living Pyramid at Sunnylands Center & Gardens, Desert X 2025; John Gerrard’s Western Flag (Spindletop, Texas) 2017 , at Desert X 2019.

SCULPTURAL CHIC

The elegant minimalism of ALAÏA under creative director Pieter Mulier is immediately apparent in his Winter/Spring 2025 collection. It is installed in the brand’s new Costa Mesa boutique, along with architectural elements devised by the Swedish design firm Halleroed. Organic shapes and sharp lines derived from the house’s long reliance on precise craftsmanship define the South Coast Plaza space, a round skylit room clad in pale leather that

FIRST DRAFT

BALENCIAGA elevates Dr. Scholl’s slides.

SOLE MATES

contrasts with customcut Carrara marble tiles. Hanging inside is the collection Mulier showed in the rotunda of the Guggenheim Museum in New York, comprising geometric circles, squares, and spirals of fabric — no zippers or buttons — evoking the ease, practicality, and freedom of American sportswear. The designs, created in the American vernacular of denim and T-shirts, embrace the motion and liberation foundational to the brand. 3333 Bristol St., South Coast Plaza, Costa Mesa, 657-205-5822; maison-alaia.com. E.V.

Statement - Style News

KIKO KOSTADINOV, the London designer known for conceptual menswear whose women’s collection is headed by twin sisters Laura and Deanna Fanning, has landed in the Melrose Hill gallery district in L.A. His label’s first American location, stocked with Spring 2025 men’s and women’s collections, is a production proxy designed by artist Ryan Trecartin. The store’s placeholders include construction scaffolding and behind-the-scenes materials, along with photorealistic plans devised with Rhett LaRue, all part of an installation called Draft Settings. A permanent version will follow, also created by Trecartin with L.A.-based artisans. Eventually, domestic environs with objects, sculpture, and film will emerge, and clothes, bags, accessories, footwear, and collaborations will continue to captivate. 725 N. Western Ave., L.A., 323-380-5157; kikokonstadinov.com. E.V.

Dr. Scholl’s slides, comfort incarnate, get the BALENCIAGA treatment in Demna’s hands. They emerge as spike-heeled mules to pair with skirts and pants topped with massive scarves. The French house’s creative director combined his team’s savoir faire with the orthopedic footwear line’s scientific insights and insoles. Squaretoed silhouettes tap the innovative, wellness-first ethos of the company, which podiatrist Dr. William Mathias Scholl founded in 1906. The collaboration includes riffs on the ubiquitous beechwood Pescura sandals and the heeled mules, bottines, and bootees. Exposed cork soles are included in the offering, along with signature Scholl metal buckles. balenciaga .com. E.V.

CHAIN REACTION Pendants to depend on 1. 2. 5. 3. 4.

FOREVER YOUNG

The baby T-shirt is back and living its best life. PETIT BATEAU’s beloved childrenswear classics are being reworked, in collaboration with MIU MIU, into soft jersey basics sure to be snapped up by cool kids of all ages. The Italian designs are embellished with the French line’s delicate picot trim and elegant proportions, developed for the simplified silhouettes since its founding in 1893, are

NEW FACE

retained in the modern update. Early staples are recut and designed as slim shirts — shrunken exactly so — but in proportions that suit women, ready to pair with the new season’s assortment of skirts and shorts. In addition to T-shirts, there are bodysuits, tanks, and briefs, all embroidered with a combination of both company logos in red and navy. Wear it well. miumiu.com. E.V.

the universe are the SAVANNAH

Statement - Style News

latest jewelry handmade in Topanga Canyon. King, known for her classical goldsmithing

goddess of the sky, who is said to give birth to the sun each morning — as a foundational starting point. “Even the great mysteries of the universe are held in the body of the mother,” says King, who taps into Egyptian cosmology throughout the designs, themes she continues to explore after a recent trip there. Called Door to the Cosmos, after the song by jazz composer Sun Ra, the group of baubles includes zodiac charms, a Moonstone Temple necklace, an Angel amulet, and an Eclipse version and bold rings, including a Sun Ra Talisman and Moon Beam Talisman. savannahking.com. E.V.

A twisted-glass facade at the new GEARYS ROLEX boutique in Beverly Hills nods to the signature hue used for watch faces, certification, and much more by the Geneva watchmaker. The threelevel, 6,200-sq.-ft. store is lined with marble and wood cases and trimmed in bronze; a striking circular staircase includes a stucco of the L.A. skyline. The space also evokes ocean waves through fluted design elements that highlight the brand’s deep connection with the sea — forged through the airtight Oyster, the first waterproof wristwatch. In addition to the array of timepieces on the first floor, watchmakers sit on the second level and a rooftop deck gives collectors, adventurers, and explorers a view of the palm-lined street and the horizon beyond it. 312 N. Rodeo Dr., Beverly Hills, 310-8874100; gearys.com. E.V.

2. 5. 3. 4. 1.

MIU MIU x PETIT BATEAU delivers baby tees.

Check out the new GEARYS ROLEX store in Beverly Hills.

With a focus on movement and an eye for natural light, famed fashion photographer ARTHUR ELGORT transformed his métier with his career-making black-and-white shot of model Apollonia van Ravenstein

IN CONCERT

DOWN TO THE WIRE

Statement - Art News

running with two leashed dogs for British Vogue in 1971. Since then, his work has appeared in Vogue, Mademoiselle, Glamour, GQ, and Rolling Stone, and his advertising campaigns for Chanel, Valentino, and Saint Laurent have produced memorable images. Now the full range of his work, featuring models on bustling streets, in bucolic landscapes, or in midair is on view in Reverie, an exhibition of Elgort’s photography that spans decades and showcases many of his most recognizable images (and some you may never have seen) at Fahey/Klein Gallery. March 6–May 3. 148 N. La Brea Ave., L.A., 323-934-2250; faheykleingallery.com. D.N.

A celebration of what would be French iconoclast composer Pierre Boulez’s 100th birthday has brought together L.A. PHILHARMONIC conductor laureate Esa-Pekka Salonen and L.A. DANCE PROJECT’s Benjamin Millepied for a series of performances at Walt Disney Concert Hall. The company will dance Boulez’s Rituel, choreographed by Millepied, a co-commission with the Orchestre de Paris–Philharmonie and the New York Philharmonic. Pieces by Béla Bartók and Igor Stravinsky are also on the bill, and pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard is on hand for the evening of avant-garde work devoted to the modernist conductor, composer, and writer. May 8–11. 111 S. Grand Ave., L.A., 323850-2000; ladanceproject.org, laphil.com. E.V.

ALL THAT JAZZ

Ordinary industrial materials are transformed in the hands of Californiaborn sculptor, painter, and printmaker RUTH ASAWA, whose sinuous work covers 14,000 sq. ft. of SFMOMA’s fourth floor in a stunning new show. Ruth Asawa: Retrospective showcases the airy, hovering wire sculptures she handcrafted using a basket-looping technique she learned on a 1947 trip to Toluca, Mexico, and more than 300 other works. The exhibition, created in partnership with MoMA, highlights the spectrum of her six-decade practice, including incarceration with her Japanese parents during World War II. Her midcentury arrival in San Francisco is also highlighted, as is the role of her Noe Valley studio and home and the inspiration she found in her garden for late plant and flower drawings. Apr. 5–Sept. 2. 151 3rd St., S.F., 415-357-4000; sfmoma.org. E.V.

Jazz musician ALICE COLTRANE, who arrived in California after her husband John’s death and became spiritual director of an ashram, developed innovative sonic melodies from chants while leading a singular life. Her creativity, Hindu devotional songs, and musicality as a harpist and pianist are all on display at the Hammer Museum’s multisensorial exploration of her life and work, Alice Coltrane, Monument Eternal. Images and ephemera from Coltrane’s archive join new sculpture, paintings, and installations from 19 artists she influenced. Unreleased audio and rare video footage are also included in the show. 10899 Wilshire Blvd., L.A., 310-443-7000; hammer.ucla.edu. E.V.

From top: Stella Diving , 1995; Kate Moss at Cafe Lipp , 1993.

RUTH ASAWA’s work is on display at SFMOMA.

POST FASHION

Try as they might, style-savvy Angelenos and chic coastal insiders haven’t been able to keep Santa Barbara’s newest boutique shopping destination under wraps. THE POST MONTECITO

— an architecturally romantic six-building outpost with 13 sophisticated independent luxury retail shops and restaurants — has become a magnet for clients seeking celebrity-loved brands and fashion favorites. Nestled beneath bougainvillea and jasminecovered trellises with the sky as its canopy, the outdoor retail destination includes sustainable accessories brand Janessa Leoné, Emily Current and Meritt Elliott’s The Great (which carries American classics), The Optimist,

Merlette, Colombian resort wear brand Maygel Coronel, and designer Amber Lewis’ Shoppe Amber Interiors. Dining options like Ospi (serving modern Italian fare from restaurateurs Jackson and Melissa Kalb), Bogavante, and beloved Little King Coffee will inspire a feeding frenzy among locals. There’s also an evolving calendar of events, from wood-fired pizza pop-ups by local favorite Hi-Fi Pizza Pi to curated holiday fairs that will make it a year-round gathering spot for friends and families. 1801 E. Cabrillo Blvd., Santa Barbara; thepostmontecito.com. D.N.

Statement - Style News

Watches to match the Pacific FEELING BLUE 1. 2. 4. 3. 5.

1.

Knot your sweaters — WEEKEND MAX MARA is celebrating a preppy essential cocreated with Sebago: the penny loafer. The cultish Dan, newly revamped with micro studs and oversize detachable tassels (for those with strong opinions on the accessory), kicks off the new three-year collaboration between the Italian fashion house and the beloved shoe company. The smooth leather classics with unlined beefroll uppers and molded rubber heels retain the look and feel of the original, albeit with the house’s butterfly stud on the shoe’s side and enough hardware to signal a rebellious streak. Created in brown, burgundy, or black with handsewn details, the footwear arrives just in time for loafer season. 3333 Bristol St., South Coast Plaza, Costa Mesa, 714-754-1876; us.weekendmaxmara.com. E.V.

WEEKEND MAX MARA brings back the penny loafer.

GRAFF, price upon request. 2. VAN CLEEF & ARPELS, price upon request.

3. JAEGER-LECOULTRE, price upon request. 4. BULGARI, $28,300.

5. CARTIER, $35,000. – R.R.

PRETTY PENNY

COLLECTION RE-EDITION

Ever inspired by St. John's storied legacy, this season we revisit the early years of the brand under founder Marie Gray. The design team explored Gray's original archival designs, selecting an edit that feels relevant today and always. A special subsection of the Spring 2025 Collection features reeditions of these classic pieces, thoughtfully modernized for today’s clients. The looks are crafted with the very yarns selected by Gray herself, shown in crocheted sets and streamlined knit dresses. A mix of colors showcases the timeless sensibility of the reimagined pieces, with hand-sewn rosettes, scalloped hems, and open weaves bringing touches of St. John’s past to the present. The Collection celebrates the earliest looks of the fashion house and carries a distinct label honoring Gray’s St.John.

StJohn

Working Girl

The CORPCORE TREND means business

SAINT LAURENT BY ANTHONY VACCARELLO shirt, $1,190, tie, $225, pants, $1,600, belt, $820, briefcase, $2,950, bag, $3,200, and bracelet (left), $880. TIFFANY earrings, $3,200, necklace, $19,100, bracelets, $13,100, bangles, from $7,500, and ring, $8,175.

Photography by BRAD TORCHIA Styling by REBECCA RUSSELL

OVERLOOKING

THE SANTA BARBARA COAST

From distinguished speakers of film and culture to private film screenings and cinematic views out to the Channel Islands, El Encanto celebrates the filmmaking history and glamour of the region as well as the 40th Anniversary of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival with a year-long homage to Cinematic Arts.

Join us on Friday, February 7th at 10am for a discussion with Ink Factory/CEO and Filmmaker Stephen Cornwell, son of the acclaimed late British spy novelist John le Carré and producer of A Most Wanted Man, The Night Manager, Little Drummer Girl, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold and The Constant Gardener

Contact our concierge at (805) 845-5800 for more information about cinematic celebrations and film festival room packages.

EMPORIO ARMANI, jacket, $1,195, shirt, $375, pants, $545, and clutch, $475. VAN CLEEF & ARPELS rings, from $11,200, and watches, from $8,500.

Photography by BRAD TORCHIA Styling by REBECCA RUSSELL

RALPH LAUREN jacket, $2,290, shirt, $690, and short, $990. HARRY WINSTON watch, ring, and bracelet, prices upon request.

BRUNELLO CUCINELLI blazers, from $5,250, shirt, $2,450, pants, from $2,450, sunglasses, $880, and bag, $3,950.

Photography by BRAD TORCHIA Styling by REBECCA RUSSELL

Models KRISTINA ELISE and MARINA SAROVIC at Photogenics. Hair and makeup by NATALIE VENTOLA at Opus Beauty using Tom Ford Beauty and Bumble and Bumble.

NEW IN TOWN

FORZA ITALIA

After years designing boutiques housing eyeglasses and shades, Giampiero Tagliaferri is at work improving the places where we rest and revive. Born in Bergamo, Italy, Tagliaferri’s design work took him from Milan to Silver Lake as creative director of Oliver Peoples before he started his interior design practice. “Los Angeles is the city that has taught me to be more relaxed,” he says. Now, Italian furniture manufacturer MINOTTI is tapping Tagliaferri’s creative mind for a slew of new projects. Drawing inspiration from lowslung ’70s silhouettes, his nomadic Supermoon seating features “rounder, very low, very cozy

Statement - Design News

shapes.” The pieces are modular, starting with a sofa surrounded by flexible configurations with Ethan, Jason, and Diagramma occasional tables and benches and joined by the Pattie armchair with a lacquered base. Following the leisurely theme, there’s even a Supermoon bed. Tagliaferri’s deft combination of Southern California modernism and 20th-century Italian design culminates in a group of Pattie Cord outdoor chairs. 8936 Beverly Blvd., West Hollywood, 310-

WELL DUNHAM

The purveyor of authentic modern furniture and accessories DESIGN WITHIN REACH is making a splash in one of the centers of midcentury architecture. DWR Palm Springs, the brand’s 41st U.S. location, opened recently at the base of the Thompson Hotel. The 6,000-sq.-ft. light-filled studio space will immerse shoppers in the world of Desert Modernist living at the epicenter of Palm Springs’ Design District. There are furnishings for every room — living and outdoor spaces, dining areas, home offices — including Fritz Hansen chairs and Herman Miller Thin Edge pieces conceived by George Nelson, limitededition artwork from photographer Adrian Gaut, and playful, curvy pieces by Sydney-based Ellison Studios. 414 N. Palm Canyon Dr., Palm Springs; dwr.com. K.C.

Since founding his eponymous firm in 1998, L.A. interior designer PETER DUNHAM has amassed a throng of adoring A-list fans and clients with his trademark style, once referred to as “Merchant Ivory Moderne.” It has taken 27 creatively compelling years to deliver his first monograph. The World of Peter Dunham: Global Style From Paris to Hollywood (Vendome, $75) is a 320-page survey of the European-born aesthete’s formative years living in Paris with his stylish expat parents to his most enduring projects spanning Beverly Hills to Greenwich Village, including his own Spanish Revival duplex in Los Angeles. Organized into 12 illuminating chapters, the colorfully illustrated book also pays homage to the people who have influenced his career, including David Hicks, Salvador Dalí, Christopher Gibbs, and Teddy Millington-Drake. The book is a blueprint for Dunham’s design ethos that reveals an inspiring depth of character seldom shared in similar publications. vendomepress.com D.N.

MINOTTI unveils a modular collab.

PETER DUNHAM’s singular style has been called “Merchant Ivory Moderne.”

DWR lands in Palm Springs.

INCREDIBLE FULK

Like his dreamy coffee table book, Ken Fulk: The Movie in My Mind (Assouline, $120), heralded AD100 designer KEN FULK recently premiered his first Technicolor concept boutique in the West Hollywood Design District. The eponymous garden bungalow, swathed in an olive green facade and accented by an Edenic manicured courtyard, features an array of luxurious objets curated from Fulk’s fantastical creations for private clients, exclusive social clubs, and luxury resorts from his award-

NEWPORT ’ S NEW LOOK

winning 25-year career. Amid the wood-paneled galleries, which also includes a design studio for his Los Angeles creative team, Fulk offers accoutrements and artworks essential to elevating the lifestyle and art of hosting for his customers, including French linens, Linda Fahey candles, antiques (sourced from his San Francisco warehouse), vintage table settings, jewelry, Belgian bouclé throws, fine art books, garden tools, and floral designs. 555 Norwich Dr., West Hollywood; kenfulk.com. C.B.

MYCOWORKS’ furniture is design forward and Earthfriendly.

SHROOM SERVICE

High style and laid-back living just became more accessible in Orange County with the opening of RH NEWPORT BEACH, the venerable brand’s latest gallery at Fashion Island. The 97,000-sq.-ft. emporium was conceptualized as a transparent four-level contemporary structure imbued with natural light and fresh air. Expansive glass-and-steel French doors open to a vibrant garden courtyard, with floors featuring indoor furnishings, outdoor collections, the first dedicated Waterworks showroom within a gallery setting, and a 270-seat restaurant (RH Ocean Grill) and two adjacent wine bars — all with sweeping views of the California coastline. And with RH MONTECITO’s recent opening at The Gallery at the Old Firehouse, as well as RH INTERIOR DESIGN PALM DESERT, design inspiration is just a stone’s throw away. 1101 Newport Beach Center Dr., Newport Beach, 949-760-9232; rh.com. D.N.

FLOWER POWER

Statement - Design News

Bay Area–based MYCOWORKS, known for creating reishi — an innovative material woven from mycelium strands produced by rootlike underground fungal networks — is again at the forefront of design. Architects Sophie Dries, Marion Mailaender, and Fanny Perrier; interior designer Joséphine Fossey; and artists and artisans Sarah Valente, Pauline Guerrier, and Anna Le Corno have used it to create a new series of furniture — including desks, screens, lamps, and chairs — that sustainably combine art and nature.

The Mycelium Muse collection looks and feels like leather, and even develops a patina, yet the biodegradable material is completely plant based and uses little energy to produce, hinting at the possibilities for conceptual furniture. Prices upon request. myceliummuse.com. E.V.

“I have to be completely enamored and excited by a material to want to work with it, and then the rest kind of flows organically,” says Ren MacDonald-Balasia, the owner and force behind the Los Angeles– and Honolulu-based floral design studio RENKO, who has been creating eclectic arrangements for clients like LOEWE, Hauser & Wirth, and Formula Fig since 2017. She credits Southern California with imbuing her work with a rebellious streak, resulting in sculptural, vivid, and slightly surreal arrangements in texture and form. She recently opened a studio and showroom that is part Wonka factory and part modernist gallery. Amid the bespoke arrangements is a collection of branded hoodies, baby tees, and aprons designed with Paris fashion designer Noémie Sebayashi and cheeky artwork of tropical fruits by artist Emma Pryde. 424 West Collage St., L.A.; renkofloral.com K.C.

Enjoy otherworldly floral creations at RENKO.

Find KEN FULK in West Hollywood.

RH opens a new emporium in Newport Beach.

REAL NEW YORKER

Beverly Hills’ restaurant scene is heating up with New York’s Daniel Boulud and Milos on the way. The city’s top high-end Italian seafood spot, MAREA, is already here with palm trees behind the octopus logo and P.J. Calapa, the executive chef of the New York and the Beverly Hills restaurants.

Start with crostini topped with uni and lard, langoustine tartare, or anything from the crudo bar. Primi dishes shine, including their signature fusilli with red wine–braised octopus and bone marrow, a classic spaghetti with clams and baby leeks, and lobster risotto lavished with hazelnut brown butter.

DREAMY DINING

Statement - Dining News

For the main course, go for the “tunahawk” — a big-eye tuna loin paired with cauliflower or a grilled swordfish with clams in a chorizo

GEE, SHUCKS

vinaigrette. Or go bigger with a massive 40-ounce Tomahawk prime rib eye. Choose your accompaniment from a well-padded Italian-focused wine list that offers many by the glass.

The room defines quiet luxury, all honeyed wood and natural tones with a pop of blue in the Murano glass chandelier. If you missed the Golden Globes after-party there, make a reservation. Marea is perfect for a night to dress up and eat very, very well. 430 N. Camden Dr., Beverly Hills, 310-6208463; marearestaurant.com/beverly-hills S.I.V.

A breathtakingly ambitious and highly exclusive restaurant just opened on a quiet street in WeHo. SOMNI Catalan) is the longnurtured project of chef Aitor Zabala. It is also a 14-seat restaurant in the tasting-menu–only format that earned the chef two Michelin stars the first time out. Think magical country house where a crazy genie chef and his helpers are turning out extremely polished cuisine that’s as delicious as it is cutting edge. Take the dashi caviar bite, a 1-inch-high fishshaped meringue flavored with dashi and topped with smoked butter cream and caviar — lots of caviar — framed with violet rosemary flower petals. $495 per person. 9045 Nemo St., L.A.; somnirestaurant. com. S.I.V.

Austin oyster bar CLARK’S, from chef and owner Larry McGuire, is making the move west to Montecito. The menu courts seafood lovers with fat crab cakes, classic New England clam chowder, lobster rolls with drawn butter, California sea bass — and, of course, oysters and more oysters. Settle in with a martini and steak tartare accompanied by hand-cut shoestring fries dusted with rosemary. Or go for broke with a giant plateau de fruits de mer, which is definitely more of a twomartini affair. A pan-roasted black Angus burger with Gruyère and sauce gribiche deserves its place on the menu. It’s SoCal, after all, so grab a spot on the patio under one of the umbrellas. 1212 Coast Village Rd., Montecito, 805-974-0655; clarksoysterbar.com S.I.V.

MAREA is open seven days a week for lunch and dinner.

SOMNI is open Wed.–Sun., for dinner only.

B E YOND THE CANVAS

Wine making might not seem like an obvious next step for Alexandra Grant, the L.A. artist who has spent her career exploring language and text through thought-provoking paintings, drawings, and sculptures. But for Grant — who frequently collaborates with writers (like Michael Joyce) and philosophers (including Hélène Cixous) and cofounded the art publishing house X Artists’ Books in 2017 with her frequent collaborator and life partner Keanu Reeves — it feels long overdue.

“I’ve wondered since I was younger if I would join the wine industry,” Grant says when we meet at her cavernous downtown studio (and former apartment) to discuss her latest project, a limited-release California Brut Cuvée, the result of a collaboration with California sparkling house J Vineyards & Winery.

Statement - Artist Profile

Against a backdrop of some of her most powerful, provocative artwork, from her 2019 I Was Born to Love series (neon, acrylic, and oil paint on shaped wood) to the more recent Everything Belongs to the Cosmos (silk screen, colored pencil, acrylic paint, and sumi ink on paper), Grant, 51, cheerfully makes tea and pours snacks into little bowls. She can vividly recall her introduction to wine. It was as a child, when she relocated to Paris from the U.S. with her mother, an American diplomat.

Why

painter Alexandra Grant is blending fine art with fine wine

“On our first night in a restaurant, my mom said to the waitress, ‘My daughter is only 12; she should have a Coca-Cola.’ The waitress stormed off, came back with a glass of red wine, and said, ‘Coca-Cola is terrible for your daughter’s health,’ and left,” Grant says, laughing. “I knew what a Kir Royale was by the time I was 13. I realized I had quite a palate.”

This two-year period in France, “seeing this culture, learning about wine as something that was local, complex, and affected by with science, weather, and soil,” had a profound impact on the Ohioborn artist, who founded art and design initiative grantLOVE in 2008 to raise funds for arts nonprofits such as Heart of Los Angeles and Project Angel Food, which is involved in fire-relief efforts.

Photography by BRAD TORCHIA Words by MARTHA HAYES

She is the honorary chair of its gala, she has donated two pieces for auction, and she has released four prints on the grantLOVE website, with a portion of the sales going directly to the nonprofit.

“A painting and a good bottle of wine are similar — poetic, physical, sensory experiences,” she says. “Isn’t that what makes us human? These moments. This is what life is about.”

Knowing she wanted to do something equally philanthropic with wine — “to support women in the arts and arts education” — Grant started visiting prospective vineyards in California and Europe 10 years ago. When she eventually met Nicole Hitchcock, the estate director and head winemaker of J Vineyards, something clicked.

longer-term vision for additional wines includes other artists over many years. “Genevieve worked closely with Gallo, which owns J Vineyards & Winery, on the label. I worked very closely on the taste profile. We got to make something that none of us would have made had we not come together.”

Collaboration has always been at the heart of Grant’s work, which warranted its first solo exhibition at MOCA in 2007. Her first collaboration with Reeves was a book called Ode to Happiness in 2011; he wrote the words to accompany her paintings.

“When you have a life partner who’s creative, there’s a constant exchange,” she says. “The experience of having another human who is always rooting for you is such a profound feeling. To be

loved, and to be allowed enough space to investigate what the other person appreciates about you, is the biggest gift. Not to get too mushy!”

Grant now divides her time between L.A. and Berlin. Over the past year her work has been exhibited in galleries in Bordeaux, Warsaw, and Berlin. Although Europe might represent “new ideas, exchanges, and different politics and responses to the urgencies of today,” California is where her heart is. “It’s walking in nature. It’s the hummingbirds, the owls, reminders of the natural world. It’s Huntington Gardens. It’s people... it’s my love.” She’s talking about Reeves, of course, but she could easily be talking about art — or wine. jwine.com. •

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“We’re data nerds,” she says. “I presented data from the Burns Halperin Report [that from 2008 to 2020 only 11 to 20 percent of opportunities went to women in the arts], and they had prepared data on women and wine. It was clear both industries need to improve in terms of being inclusive to women, and to do so in ways that are not optical but profound.”

LOVE Wine came to fruition when Grant commissioned artist Genevieve Gaignard to design the wine’s colorful label (“she’s someone who could make something exciting that’s also a work of art to open conversations”), and the pair traveled to the Russian River Valley of Sonoma County.

“We created a wine that’s brandnew. I’m not a repackager. I know that would be good business, but that’s not what this is about,” says Grant, whose

“A painting and a good bottle of wine are similar — poetic, physical, sensory experiences.”

SAINTLY SPACE

DONI’S NEW DIGS

DONI NAHMIAS selected a low-slung Venice space for his namesake label’s first brick-and-mortar boutique, which has windows cut to resemble his square-circle-square logo designed in tribute to Route 101 and PCH. The past year has been a homecoming of sorts for the Santa Barbara native, who is based in Los Angeles. He showed his Spring 2025 menswear collection, Physical Education, at the Pan Pacific Gymnasium on Beverly Blvd. after several seasons on the Paris calendar.

troubled teen, I did juvie, I did house arrest, all that stuff,” says Nahmias. “I’m telling that story, that transformation to playing basketball, loving to design, the beauty of that transformation.” 1842 Washington Way, Venice, 213-313-0295; nahmias.com E.V.

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The looks hang inside a concreteand-wood space complete with racks resembling handrails, a parking lot basketball goal, and a half-pipe. The collection is a gritty blend of sportswear and workwear, including perforated leather suits recalling mesh uniforms.

“I was reflecting on high school. I was a

CASUAL COOL New sneakers for spring

Long an American style staple, the knit dress has returned to Beverly Hills with ST. JOHN’s newest boutique opening behind an ivy facade in a 2,200-sq.ft. space. The versatile Spring 2025 collection takes inspiration from the house archives, with updates to founder Marie Gray’s 1960s originals and pastel Palm Springs landscapes and interiors viewed through the lens of Slim Aarons. In a nod to its California roots — Gray designed her first prototypes in L.A. — a capsule of modernized reedition looks is also here, including throwback labels for loyalists looking to update an existing trove. Sportswear and tweeds in spring florals, bright citrus tones, pinks, lilacs, blues, and heather grays also join lacy slip dresses and leather pieces in deep claret hues. The new shop heralding the return of these SoCal originals proves they never really left. 9533 Brighton Way, Beverly Hills, 310858-1116; stjohnknits. com. E.V.

1. 4. 5. 3. 2.

ST. JOHN has a new boutique in Beverly Hills.

DONI NAHMIAS poses near his new collection.

Where it’s been a summer vacation since 1965.

Rediscover La Costa—where original Spanish-inspired charm meets modern elegance.

This year, Omni La Costa Resort & Spa celebrates 60 years as a premier Southern California destination. This iconic resort has been reimagined to honor its storied past while embracing a vibrant future with updates to its guest rooms and award-winning spa and golf facilities.

GROWING UP AT THE CHATEAU MARMONT

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Jill Selsman recounts her rock ‘n’ roll youth at the STORIED HOTEL

In my room I had a sticker of Nudie that some previous tenant had left above the door. He made all the fab, baroque, and really expensive Western-wear for the Eagles and other 1970s rockers. His sticker was like a portrait of Trigger. Not that he looked like a horse, he just had a long mane and a round, generous face. I used to think that over my door as he was, he protected me like a saint.

The making of a young drug addict: I used to go down to the lobby and spin for hours.

crash out on the floor, which was covered by a big oriental rug. This was in the part of the lobby that was between the front desk and the front door. I’d spin and lie on the ground for hours at a time and watch the ceiling do major 360s. I can only imagine what people coming and going in the lobby must have thought of me, let alone someone who was actually trying to check in.

Like everyone else, really, we moved in for two weeks and stayed three years. The first apartment we had was a quiet one-bedroom in the back of the hotel. I thought we’d landed on Mars. Though we’d lived in town and in London when I was small, for five years or so we’d been living in Malibu, where our last stop was a canyon house with a creek and mountains for my backyard. I was much more accustomed to fort-building and hiking than being in an apartmenttype building off a major road, where I was specifically instructed not to talk to anyone. On the first day there, my mom, actress

Words by JILL SELSMAN

“Like everyone else, really, we moved in for two weeks and stayed three years.”

Carol Lynley, handed me a new “old” (secondhand) pair of Levi’s, old-school Big E’s, with flowers she’d embroidered all along the pockets. They were deep, dark navy, and I felt I’d been given a new uniform for my new life. I was quite used to traveling with my mother, and when I asked how long we would stay at the Chateau, she just sort of shrugged and started on a new pair of jeans to embroider.

The elevator at the Chateau — I think it may even still be the same — had many fluorescent lights and gruesome wood paneling. Most buildings in L.A. are either hacienda-style or split-levels, so just living in a building with an elevator was different. One time when we came in, Myrna Loy was already in the elevator. Because I wasn’t climbing mountains after school anymore, I’d turned my attention to old movies.

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The only other significant elevator experience I had was when this upperschool girl got in. She had her upperschool kilt on, and the coolest of cool Rocky Horror Picture Show micro tee-shirts, enormous platforms, and amazing frizzy hair. I didn’t know who she’d come there to see, and since she was in the upperschool uniform, the last thing I was going to do was interrogate her. But she was drop-dead cool and pretty shocked to see me there. Seeing her made me want to grow up to be bad and in the wrong places at the right time like her.

My mom was never home. I used to have to go looking for her a lot. Once I went up to one of the penthouses where the Mamas and the Papas were staying. I don’t know if just Cass Elliot was staying there, or if the rest of them were there, or what the deal was, but Cass was so gregarious, oversized, and friendly. The furniture at the Chateau was exceptionally appalling. It was Goodwill and below, a

lot of plastic wood veneers and olive green and orange-and-brown shag carpeting. I just remember looking at her, all hair and teeth, and thinking how much her floral dress clashed with the rest of the room and how genius that was. She died soon thereafter. It seemed like I kept meeting people just before they died.

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A black muscle Mustang with New York plates, the old orange ones, sat out back forever. Naïve me, I couldn’t begin to imagine that the car was stolen, but it was. It took more than two months for them to remove it. What stays with me is just how long it sat there, unnoticed and unbothered. A car left on a street in West Hollywood today would be towed within the hour. In my mind, I still live in a sleepy little town that doesn’t really care about much, where funk and funky are still king. But that doesn’t extend past the boundaries of my mind.

My mom was always sporting a look. If it wasn’t a Victorian granny dress, or hot pants and platforms, or — my personal favorite — a long, baby blue halter teeshirt dress with really expensive platform shoes in two colors (left was Easter-egg blue, right was pale hospital-green) and an enormous jacket made from ostrich boa-feathers, it

“It seemed like I kept meeting people just before they died.”

quasi-temporary member of the household (such as it was), then he’d start trying to be friendly and win my affections. I was by this time a very tough customer, had seen them all, and knew they had very short shelf lives. •

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Excerpted from The Chateau Marmont Handbook (Rizzoli, $39.95)

was elephant-bell trouser suits with floppy flowered hats. Whenever my mom went anywhere or did anything, she’d get stoned first, blow the smoke out the window (who was she kidding?), and swathe herself in Joy perfume.

Ours was an open-door policy when we lived at the Chateau. Not surprisingly, I came home one day to find the door ajar and a dude standing there, in kind of a daze. He was wearing a black cowboy outfit head to toe. The Eagles, one or some of them, had taken the apartment downstairs, and there was one of them in my living room asking me where my mother was. I was too hot to cope with all the black, especially his big black hat. It was too High Noon. All I wanted to do was jump in the swimming pool and here was this man, sporting a big look, all black in a really sunny room. I shrugged, went to my room, and changed for the pool. I don’t remember if he was still there when I went downstairs. I wasn’t much bothered either way, just as long as I didn’t have to deal with him, or worse, if he became a

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SPECIAL SECTION Heroes of the Eaton Fire Reflect on the Fateful Night of January p.76. How to Rebuild Better, According to the Experts p. 82. What We Lost in the Fires and What Is Lifting Us Up, by L.A.’s Creative Community p. 86. Could Film Production Coming Back to Hollywood Create a New Golden Age? p. 100. COVER STORY Renée Zellweger on What She Has Learned From Bridget Jones p. 102.

On January 7, Engine 732 was one of the first to the scene of the Eaton fire as 100 mph winds tore through Altadena. The team reflects on the first night fighting California’s second most destructive fire in history

Words by LESLEY M. M. BLUME

Feature - Heroes

Like most experienced firefighters, Captain Paramedic Paul Porraz can read fire smoke like musicians read sheet music. “Whether it’s white, dark brown, black: that shows what’s burning,” he says. The San Gabriel Valley native estimates he has fought hundreds of fires in his 20-year career: brush fires, wildfires, and vehicle fires; fires in houses, apartment complexes, and commercial buildings. But battling the Eaton Fire — which incinerated 14,000 acres in Altadena, the equivalent of around 11,000 football fields, and claimed at least 17 lives — was a once-in-acareer event. At least, that’s what he hopes.

Journey

Firefighters across the region had been warned that the night of January 7 would likely be a long one. Urgent red flag warnings forecasting unusually high winds — possibly reaching up to 100 miles per hour — plus extremely dry conditions and low humidity had been issued for Los Angeles and Ventura counties. It was prime fire weather. After eight months without rain, the dry brush on the hillsides across the region was kindling, practically beckoning embers to set it alight. A fire in the Palisades, which ignited at 10:30 a.m., was already raging and had claimed

The winds would seem to calm, but then surge in powerful gusts toward them, like a dragon breathing fire down the hill.

more than 1,200 acres by the time Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency at 5:30 p.m. “This is a highly dangerous windstorm creating extreme fire risk,” he announced, urging residents to heed evacuation orders. “And we’re not out of the woods yet.” This would turn out to be the epitome of understatement.

Just after 6 p.m., Captain Porraz and a team of three other Pasadena-based colleagues — Firefighter Paramedic Kari Jenkins, Firefighter Masateru Chae, and Fire Engineer Sean Katt — had been standing in line to order dinner at the Stonefire Grill restaurant in Altadena. The team, then staffing Pasadena Engine 732, had already put out a small brush fire on Rim Road at 3:30 that afternoon, but it had quickly been subdued.

At 6:14 p.m., as they waited their turn to order, a call came in announcing a brush fire in Eaton Canyon. By 6:23 p.m., helicopters equipped with water tanks were also being dispatched to the location.

“We didn’t even make it to the counter,” recalls Engineer Katt, 36, who lives in the Simi Valley with his wife and their two young children. “We just ran to the fire engine.”

The twilight sky above remained clear, he says, but the winds were picking up fast. As the firefighters neared their destination on Canyon Close Drive, the team could see a fire flaring around an Eaton Canyon hilltop electrical transmission tower, owned by Southern California Edison; the site is currently under investigation as the possible origin of the catastrophic fire that would soon consume much of the area. The Engine 732 team was among the first to arrive at the site, along with Engine 36 nearby.

“We saw literally the beginning of this entire incident firsthand,” says Firefighter Jenkins, 43, a native Angeleno, mother of two young children, and a firefighter with 19 years of experience. At first, she adds, “it didn’t look that big.” Yet by the time the team positioned themselves in a nearby cul-desac at the end of Canyon View Lane, the fire was already searing down the slopes and had nearly reached the homes.

“It was shocking for me,” says Katt, who, as engineer, is responsible for driving the engine. “I grew up in Ventura County seeing fire behavior like that, but not in Pasadena. It was eerie to see it happen that fast there.

“The wind would just blow the entire stream back at you.”

FIREFIGHTER JENKINS

The foothills in Pasadena are very protected from our typical Santa Ana winds; we don’t usually get them.” There had been precedents, such as a devastating 2011 windstorm that had ravaged the area, but such wind events are relatively rare.

Firefighters Jenkins and Chae each grabbed hoses and ran to separate backyards to try to stave off the flames. Their confidence was still reasonably high: “I had [hydrant] water for days,” recalls Firefighter Jenkins. But soon, she noticed that Eaton Wash, a stream in the reserve, appeared to be smoldering.

Feature - Heroes

The firefighters would think they’d saved a house, only to see it engulfed in flames a few hours or even minutes later.

Feature - Heroes

The winds would seem to calm, but then surge in powerful gusts toward them, like a dragon breathing fire down the hill. Overhead, the winds were already making life hell for aerial firefighting crews: downgusts were violently pushing the choppers down, reportedly bringing one of them within 400 feet of the ground. By 7:30 p.m., all aircraft had been grounded. (“This by far is the worst event I’ve been in, in my career — without a doubt,” Los Angeles County Fire Department pilot Ken Williams, who has 42 years and 11,000 hours of flying experience, told the New York Times .)

Miraculously, Captain Porraz’s team was able to save the cul-de-sac houses. They were then dispatched to a new location on Pinecrest Drive and Alta Loma Drive, where they became part of a larger task force. “Embers were flying everywhere,” recalls Firefighter Jenkins. “[They] were hitting us, the water streams were hitting us, debris was hitting us.” The fire was spreading incredibly fast, and it was jumping: “I mean it literally jumped city blocks,” says Captain Porraz. “It just kept going above us.”

“Wind-driven fires like this one, we call them campaign fires,” says Engineer Katt. “They’re going to grow very large … and it’s going to continue to spot. That’s one of the biggest problems.” Burning branches, torn from their trees by the winds, can be blown through the air for three-quarters of a mile, he says; embers can be carried up to three miles on those winds and set distant locations aflame. “When it’s a fire that strong,” he adds, “nothing we have is that powerful.”

THE GEAR LIST for firefighters is intense: goggles, N95 masks, heat-resistant face shrouds, and face shields. Helmets. Gloves. Flame-resistant Nomex brush coats. And yet none of it, in the face of a monster fire event of this magnitude, was sufficient when the winds really went into overdrive at around 2 or 3 a.m. and the team found itself inside peak hell. The earlier part of the night, it turned out, had only been preliminary hell.

“Even with the goggles we had, the winds were so strong that [they] would find any gap and get inside your eyes,” recalls

Firefighter Chae, 48. Born in Tokyo and raised partly in L.A., he has been a firefighter for nearly 10 years. By the middle of the night, he recalled, he could barely keep his eyes open: “I was doing my job keeping one eye open to give relief to the other eye.”

Not even their 40,000-pound engine felt a safe haven for the team as they were dispatched from location to location along Altadena Drive and smaller streets in the area, navigating snarls of downed power lines, burning branches, and felled trees. There is not yet a full record of the full list of addresses and locations to which the team was dispatched over the course of the fire; it will take months for the Incident Management Team to compile and finalize, says Pasadena Fire Department Deputy Fire Chief Anthony James.

“It was the first time I’ve ever seen a fire engine shake,” says Engineer Katt. “And your visibility is 5 to 10 feet in front of you.” Even getting in and out of the rig grew dangerous, with the winds threatening to slam its doors violently. The smoke assaulting them, he adds, was composed of

Overhead, the winds were making life hell for aerial fighting crews. By 7:30 p.m., all aircraft had been grounded, leaving firefighters on the ground to battle the blaze alone.

“All of us were in shock. It was like a war zone.”

FIREFIGHTER

CHAE

not just scorched vegetation and brush, but also the incinerated remains of “everything from your household cleaners to your cars, to the houses themselves.”

Walls of wind were now occasionally knocking the firefighters down, throwing them. Their water hoses were increasingly useless. “We were spraying as much as we could,” recalls Firefighter Jenkins, “but most of the time my partner and I both ended up getting drenched because the wind would gust so hard it would just blow the entire stream back at you.” Other nearby teams using powerful deck guns — different models can spray between 500 and 2,000 gallons a minute — affixed to their engines couldn’t even make a dent. “It was just blowing,” says Captain Porraz. “You couldn’t reach the fire. The winds were just taking it apart.”

something,” recalls Firefighter Chae. “I remember thinking, ‘I could just take a bite out of this orange or even a lemon. I don’t care: I’ll take a bite out of a lemon with the skin still on.’ ” Instead, he sat on the ground and peeled an orange with his dirty hands: “I couldn’t eat it fast enough.”

Sometime between 4 and 4:30 a.m., there was another call — someone was trapped in a house on W. Mariposa Street. As Engineer Katt steered the engine through the streets toward the address, the true extent of the devastation started becoming clear to the team. The familiar streets they drove down every day were unrecognizable. Until then, says Captain Porraz, “I had no idea that everything, literally everything, was on fire.” Firefighter Chae adds, “All of us were in shock. It was like a war zone. I couldn’t believe how much was already gone.”

His eyes were bloodshot and puffy: “They were just torn up.”

Captain Porraz prepared to get on a different engine with a new team of firefighters. According to a Cal Fire Situation Update filed at 7:20 a.m., firefighters were still facing rapid and dangerous fire growth under extreme conditions and spot fires in Altadena, Pasadena, and Sierra Madre. The new crew was psyched to get into the fight, he recalls: “They’re all fresh, excited, ‘Let’s go to work.’ ” He also remembers thinking, as he looked at them, “You have no idea what you’re in for.”

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As the night went on and the fire continued to rage without mercy, the team kept getting dispatched on new assignments, spending less and less time at each location. “We would be trying to make a stance and they would just be calling [on the radio] for more of us: more houses were starting to catch,” says Firefighter Jenkins.

Often the firefighters would think they’d saved a house, only to see it engulfed in flames a few hours or even minutes later. It felt defeating, says Captain Porraz. He went into overdrive to keep the team’s morale up. The camaraderie helped, the firefighters say, but they knew the cruel truth: The fire had them outgunned.

“You’re doing everything you can,” says Firefighter Chae, “and yet you’re fighting this wind, nature, God — whatever it is that you believe in. There’s something higher going on here that’s determining what’s going to happen.”

NO ONE CAN remember who first saw the oranges hanging on a nearby tree. Ravenous and fatigued, at around 3 a.m., the firefighters started grabbing them and passing them around. “We just needed

The team kept picking up people who waved them down in the streets, evacuees trembling with shock, often lost and disoriented. One woman flagged the team down and asked them to rescue her cats from a house completely engulfed in flames. The firefighters believe that they ultimately picked up four or five people even before they reached the rescue address at 454 W. Mariposa Street, where they encountered an elderly woman and her daughter. They implored the firefighters to let them take their suitcases and several garbage bags filled with their possessions. Most of the bags were left behind, but the women were successfully steered into the crammed ambulance now flanking Engine 732. “When I came back, around two days later,” recalls Engineer Katt, “their house had burned to the ground.”

WHEN THE SUN finally rose over L.A., the world watched in horror as the first images and videos emerged of the miles of charred city blocks smoldering across the region. For Captain Porraz’s team, it was nearly time for a shift change, and the crew members from Engine 732 made their way back to their respective Pasadena stations, which remained unscathed. At Station 39, Firefighter Chae’s base station, a half-cooked dinner from the night before languished on the stove of the kitchen. As he greeted other firefighters onsite, Firefighter Chae felt like they were viewing him with alarm.

“I hadn’t seen myself yet,” he says. “I went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror.”

One member of his fresh crew: Firefighter Brendan Adams, who drove into Pasadena from Whitehead, about 40 minutes away. On his way in, he had seen three overturned trucks on the highway, flung over by the winds. “The sun was up, but it was still pitch black,” he recalls. “There was just debris everywhere and smoke; the city’s on fire. It was a surreal sight to roll up to.”

IT WOULD TAKE 24 days for the Eaton and Palisades fires to be contained, or for control lines to be completely established around the fires’ perimeters. (At the time of writing, units involved in the Palisades Fire and other regional fires were still too busy to be interviewed, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Fire Department said.) As the winds began to subside on January 8, aerial support could resume and help turn the tide against the flames.

The Eaton Fire is currently assessed as the second most destructive fire in California’s history, with 9,418 structures burned; the Palisades Fire has grimly distinguished itself as the

third-most destructive, with 6,837 structures and nearly 23,500 acres burned.

The firefighters who worked Engine 732 in those early hours say that they are still decompressing and processing what they experienced and saw; their bodies are still recovering. In the hours and days after that hellish night, “the stuff coming out of your noses and your pores after the fire is disgusting,” says Captain Porraz. “It’s just black. Your ears are completely black … the smell stays with you for quite some time.”

“It definitely beat us up quite a bit,” adds Firefighter Jenkins, who says for weeks afterward she could see the exhaustion on her colleagues’ faces. But, she says, “The bumps, bruises, the hacking, the coughing has somewhat subsided.”

The long-term psychological impact on their community remains to be seen. As

they emerged from their own Sisyphean battle the morning of January 8, the Engine 732 team soon learned that some of their colleagues had seen their own houses go up in flames — and then had gone straight back to work, battling to save other homes.

The streets of Altadena have now been cleared, so you can drive rather smoothly through the blocks of ruins. What remains: a landscape of jagged chimneys standing amid charred debris, all that is left of walls and roofs. Somewhat cruelly, the fire spared small reminders of the lives once lived in these homes: a little book-borrowing box still stands on the green lawn of a decimated house; intact, glistening Christmas ornaments dangle from a blackened front yard tree; an iron garden bench sits serenely in front of the blackened remains of a front porch.

“We’re just in the realization of, ‘We live in this now every day,’ ” says Engineer Katt. “This is going to be a new reality for probably the next two years before they rebuild. And just not knowing what the community is going to be: that’s probably part of what hits most of us the hardest.”

Captain Porraz says he is still trying to boost morale. He feels terrible that they weren’t able to save more with the resources they had. They rescued people from the streets and burning homes, he reminds his team. It feels good to remember that, he says. The houses on Canyon View and Canyon Close were saved, too.

“So I took a picture [of the houses] and sent it to the crew,” he says. “I’m like, ‘Hey, we did a good thing that night, guys.’ We saved lives. At least we can say we can hold on to that.” •

What remains in many parts of Altadena: a landscape of jagged chimneys standing among charred ruins, all that is left of walls and roofs.

As L.A. rebuilds, the multi-million-dollar question facing those who lost everything in January’s fires is, How? C Magazine quizzed the experts on the best methods and materials to optimize for protection

When fires rampaged through parts of Los Angeles in January, a few houses survived the lethal combination of 100 mph winds, flying embers, and brush that hadn’t seen rain in eight months. One in particular that stood strong went viral on social media. Designed by architect Greg Chasen for a client in Pacific Palisades, the house was a symbol of resilience amid the ash and rubble. It also became a template for fire-safe building practices: Chasen had incorporated walls made of fire-rated materials, tempered glass windows, a metal roof, and no vents into the home’s design. As L.A. residents, architects, and planners look to rebuild, many have taken note.

As L.A. reels from the devastation of the Eaton and Palisades fires, many residents who have lost their homes are eager to rebuild. With some 12,000 residences destroyed by the flames, the process will be difficult and costly (the L.A. Times says it could be up to $250 million), not to mention timeconsuming — Blackrock CEO Larry Fink has said it could take a decade. Even after toxic substances are cleared the from scarred lots, rebuilding could be hindered by the high cost of building materials, the torment of dealing with insurance company hurdles, and building regulations. Some of those regulations — including requirements under the California Environmental Quality Act and the California Coastal Act — have been suspended by Governor Gavin Newsom. But the process is still daunting.

BUFFER ZONE VEGETATION OR BRUSH WITHIN 5 FT OF HOME IS A NO-GO

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Those who lost their homes will also face several hard choices over how to rebuild. They are already trying to balance their desire to re-create their homes while making them more firesafe, especially from the emberdriven conflagrations that engulfed L.A. beginning on January 7.

“A big wave of homeowners want to rebuild what they had. They want their house back just like it was,” says Ben Kahle, a real estate

RESISTANT ROOFS TO PREVENT EMBERS BURNING THROUGH

COMMUNITY CISTERN STORES RAINWATER

Words by DEGEN PENER Illustration by SOÑA LEE

agent with Historic Real Estate LA and a commissioner on the Historic Landmark and Records Commission for unincorporated L.A. County. “Rebuilding is such a feat. People are staring at this mountain, and they don’t know how to climb it quite yet.”

To help with that arduous undertaking, a number of L.A. architects and building experts shared with C Magazine their advice on constructing a firesafe home (known as home hardening) or simply improving an existing house. But there’s one big caveat: There are no guarantees.

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“Having worked on a few different rebuild efforts after [other] fires, the thing that you realize is that even best practices — such as using stucco, which is noncombustible — sometimes can’t help,” says Brian Wickersham of Aux Architecture. “Especially with fires like Eaton and Palisades that burned so hot and so intensely with the winds that we had.”

RESISTANT PANELS

EXTERNAL SPRINKLERS TO FIRE WATER OR RETARDANT FOAM CLASS A MATERIALS EARTHEN BLOCKS ARE VIRTUALLY INDESTRUCTIBLE WINDOW FRAMES INTUMESCENT PAINT CREATES A FIRE BARRIER

These architects also hope that Los Angeles will find a way forward that preserves the distinctive character of these communities. “I hope that there is not this knee-jerk reaction to say, ‘We’ve got to build these concrete homes,’ ” says Ben Stapleton, the executive director of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) California. “There’s a whole palette of materials you can select from that can be more fire resistant, feed into a beautiful design, and also have a lower carbon footprint.”

On the night that fire broke out in Pacific Palisades, embers were flying at architect Michael Kovac’s modernist home in the neighborhood. “It looked like a blizzard at Mammoth, except in embers,” says Kovac, who recorded footage using his home’s security cameras after he and his wife evacuated.

Their home survived, but “the houses just on either end of our house, 15 feet away, burned to the ground,” he says. Kovac credits the home’s array of fire-resistant materials (used when it was built in 2010),

“One of the most effective things is if each house has its own water source and external sprinkler system.”

starting with covering the mostly wood-andsteel-framed house in fiber cement panel siding. “It’s virtually impervious to wildfire. It’s an incredibly dense cement material. You could take a blowtorch to it, and it just wouldn’t really care, which is basically what did happen.”

Other fire-resistant finishing materials recommended by design pros include traditional stucco, U-Stucco (made from cement and granular minerals specifically formulated to withstand heat and fire), Hardie board (made of cellulose fibers, sand, and cement), and even wood siding that’s permeated with fire-retardant chemicals. Some of these, like stucco and Hardie board, are relatively “inexpensive building materials, so you can minimize flame spread in a cost-effective way,” Wickersham says. He also recommends investigating whether a home’s concrete foundation can be retained.

“There’s a process to clean the concrete, and then there’s a process to X-ray the rebar in the concrete to make sure it wasn’t damaged by the heat of fire. If we can preserve and build off the existing foundation, you’re a lot closer to your ability to rebuild. [A foundation] is 30 or 40 percent of the cost of a building these days.”

layer beneath any roof covering. “We used DensDeck, which is a gypsum-based product that adds further fire rating.” A slanted roof can also be more fire-resistant than a flat one.

“Having more of a slope means that when embers come, they fall off the roof rather than sit on the roof. They fall down,” says architect Lara Hoad, who notes that flat roofs are an important element of midcentury design’s vernacular. “A sloped roof is a little bit of an antithesis to how we do things in California.” Overall, a fire-resistant roof should be designed to remove places where embers can gather and smolder, which is why some architects avoid using skylights in fire-prone regions. Similarly, overhangs such as eaves can be covered in soffit panels. “Ideally, you are creating smooth surfaces so that embers blow over the homes,” Stapleton says. (USGBC California has published a Wildfire Defense Kit for California Homeowners at usgbc-ca.org.)

with intumescent paint (“It’s super, super cheap,” Kovac says) can also help block embers. In the Palisades, Kovac gathered plumbing and exhaust vents in one location and then screened over them.

Adding protected vents, installing triplepane windows, and covering eaves help protect against wildfire, but they’re also good green-building practices, Stapleton says: “When you’re leaking air, you’re losing energy.” Combined measures like these hew to passive home design, principles Chasen employed when building his home.

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Homeowners looking to rebuild may also want to explore constructing a home out of virtually indestructible earthen blocks, an ancient building practice, or prefab options from companies like Kern County–based Plant Prefab and Turkel Design in Massachusetts.

One of the most vulnerable parts of a home is the roof. It should always be made of a Class A fire-rated material, which can include clay tile, metal, fiberglass asphalt shingles, and concrete tile. At the Getty Villa, which survived the Palisades fire, the roofs are covered in crushed rock. Kovac chose a synthetic thermoplastic polyolefin roofing material for his house in the Palisades. “It’s designed expressly for embers to land on it and not burn through,” he says. He also recommends installing a second fire-resistant

“Vinyl windows just melt,” says David Hertz, an architect known for his sustainably built residences. And wood windows are easily combustible. Instead, the best bets are aluminum windows, preferably with tempered triple-pane glass. If a client has existing wood windows or prefers installing a wood window for aesthetic reasons, Kovac recommends coating the exposed surfaces in intumescent paint, which swells when exposed to high heat, ideally creating a fire barrier. In a worst-case scenario, where fire is approaching, a homeowner can also spray down wooden window and door frames with a gel-based, fire-retardant product called Barricade before evacuating.

Any fire-resistant home should also have vent covers that are designed to prevent embers from entering the home. “If you can keep the flames from getting inside, that’s the biggest thing that will help protect the building. Once the flames get in through the vents, that’s where we’ve actually seen buildings that burned from the inside out in a number of cases,” Wickersham says. Covering vents with 1/8-inch or 1/16-inch wire mesh or spraying vents

In fire-prone areas, it’s best to avoid planting vegetation within five feet of a home. This creates what’s known as a defensible space, defined by fire agencies as a buffer zone. If a homeowner wants to avoid a bare-looking perimeter, however, it’s best to choose plants that have high water content, like succulents or agapanthus. Native oak trees at the far edge of a property can also serve as fire breaks. “Oaks are well adapted to fire. When planted as a kind of grove, they end up creating an ember catch and a windbreak with their small leaves,” Hertz says, adding that “decks around a house are a huge problem. You’re bringing fire from the landscape right up to the building. The same with wooden fences. They are like wicks that just bring the fire right to the house. And Astroturf is flammable and horribly toxic.”

Homeowners should also be conscientious about clearing out dead brush regularly and should avoid garden designs that create a ladder for fires to move from a shrub to a tree and onto a house, according to guidelines from the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Sprinklers are required inside newly built homes in California, but many owners are considering installing private fire hydrants (connected to a pool or a water tank instead of the municipal water system; they start at $3,000 for equipment and installation but can run much higher) as well as sprinklers on top of a building. “One of the

most effective things that could be done is if each house has its own water source and then to have an external sprinkler system that’s activated only the moment it’s needed,” says Hertz, who has a client whose home, equipped with a rooftop sprinkler system, survived the Palisades fire. “I’d much rather have sprinklers outside than inside.”

Extremely vigilant homeowners can also install systems that spray properties with fire-retardant foam. “We always knew that the biggest source of danger for us was a fire coming up the hill because it likes to climb up,” Kovac says. “So on our chimney, we had two commercial sprinklers that sprayed Phos-Chek, which is the fire retardant you see come out of the tankers, that orange stuff.” (Because power will often be out during a fire, any electricity-reliant fireproofing measures would need to be powered by a generator.)

Materials Lab (healthymaterialslab .org). Interiors also burn faster today because of the presence of plastics and other synthetics. A recent study by Underwriters Laboratories found that the interiors of homes dominated by furnishings made with synthetic foams and fabrics can be engulfed by flames in less than four minutes.

droughts. In Altadena, the architecture firm Lovers Unite has already spoken with a client who wants to work with her neighbors “on a shared vision where they plan around each other’s needs and maybe they can get one contractor to work across the neighborhood,” cofounder Alan Koch says. After the Woolsey Fire, which burned 96,000 acres in L.A. and Ventura counties in 2018, Wickersham worked with a client on a cul-de-sac where neighbors pursued just such a strategy. “They hired a single general contractor and design team in order to try to get the economy of scale,” Wickersham says. “The idea being that if you hire one contractor, it’s one job site trailer, it’s only one dumpster.”

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It’s important to remember, however, that the majority of the toxins in the ash and debris on charred sites came from inside people’s homes. The rebuilding process offers an opportunity to choose furnishings and interior materials that are better for the environment and its occupants. “We cannot build with these toxic materials anymore … because we’ve seen the end life of these buildings,” says Hoad, a professor at Otis College of Art and Design. A great resource for exploring options — like low VOC paints, insulation made from natural materials, and bio-based flooring — is the Parsons School of Design’s Healthy

Although some families, especially in the wealthier Palisades, will be able to afford many fire-proof innovations, other homeowners won’t be so lucky. “We’re talking to families in both areas [the Palisades and Altadena], and almost all of them have the same issue: Their payout is going to be less than the cost for construction to rebuild,” Wickersham says. “Most of the payouts won’t make the people whole for the loss. And that’s a painful thing to hear.”

Amid rebuilding efforts, there’s also the persistent question of whether the fabric of neighborhoods can be preserved, whether in Altadena’s Black community or the Alphabet Streets in the Palisades. There are worries that developers will buy up lots and tract homes will replace midcentury and Craftsman homes with nondescript, high-density townhomes. It’s also likely that certain areas will become even more affluent, dominated by bigger and more luxurious multilot estates. Other firedevastated communities in the West have seen this happen.

Community-centered planning offers another way forward. Hertz says one of his dreams is for cities to create more green space for residents that can also serve as firebreaks. “Planted with oak trees, these parklets would provide ecosystem services to residents,” he says. Hoad would like to see residents on a street come together to invest in underground community cisterns, which can store rainwater for emergency uses and for irrigation amid California’s

Interior designer Jaime Rummerfield, also the cofounder of the nonprofit Save Iconic Architecture, is working to jumpstart a new Case Study program that would develop blueprints for distinctive California homes designed for the fire-prone era. “It would be an amazing opportunity to create 20 houses for the future of Los Angeles,” Hoad says. It may not be feasible to perfectly re-create an early 20th-century Craftsman cottage that was lost in the fires, but architects can work to retain elements of that aesthetic that will gratify homeowners still hurting from the loss of their beloved homes. Karen Spector of Lovers Unite says it sometimes comes down to simply retaining the scale of a lost home or creating an interior with built-in cupboards. “Some people come to the table thinking there’s a replica rebuild or a glass box and they can’t see anything in between,” she says. “But you don’t have to have a super-muscular architectonic home. You can build a new home that is lovely. And Altadena is unique because there are a lot of really small modest houses on big lots. I think if people now rush to kind of max out, it’s going to really change the feeling of the neighborhood.”

Ultimately, Kahle says, rebuilding is about more than materials. “If you don’t have the community within those structures, you also lose the neighborhood, you know? In Altadena, it’s so multigenerational. There’s a big African American community there. There are people who are passionate about the neighborhood. And that’s what you’ve got to keep. If you lose the people, you lose the soul.” •

January’s fires hit L.A.’s creative community hard. Many lost not only their homes, but also their archives, personal collections, and instruments of trade. Here, some of its members share what they lost and what lifts them up in these hardest of times

“Our home burned in 1993, but it was nothing like this.”

“EVEN IF THEY REBUILD, IT’S NEVER GOING TO BE THE SAME.”

“MY DAUGHTER WILL ASK TO GO HOME. WE CAN’T GO HOME.”

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“I hear a woman on the street scream, ‘It’s on fire!’ ”

“I COULD SEE THE FLAMES FROM THE YARD.”

“A neighbor called. Our house was burning.”

“I COULD SEE THE FIRE. THE THOUGHT WAS, ‘WE’LL BE BACK.’ ”

“THE FIRE WAS AT OUR DOORSTEP. ALL WE HAD WAS A GARDEN HOSE.”

“Within

an hour, the sky was black.”

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“It’s a horrible mess that will take ten years to come back.”

“WE’VE GOT TO KEEP GOING.”

“It’s bizarre to see what looks like an atomic bomb hit.”

“BLOCKS AND BLOCKS ARE JUST GONE. IT’S VIOLENT.”

“I left with nothing.”

Photography by KURT ISWARIENKO

Words by CHRISTINE LENNON

People who don’t understand Los Angeles perceive it to be an isolating place. They grouse about a disconnected city linked by crowded but lonely freeways, and never quite manage to crack the surface to find its heart. True Angelenos, the people who love this flawed but beautiful place, see things differently. They recognize that there are close-knit, authentic communities to be found in every corner of the sprawl. These come in the form of physical neighborhoods, places like the Pacific Palisades and Altadena, charming hamlets where generations have cared for modest bungalows and architectural treasures hidden among the trees. They know that broader communities also exist among groups of like-minded people drawn together by common interests, like conservation, or a shared cultural heritage, or a love for the arts — especially a love for the arts.

Where else in the Unites States is there a higher concentration of working artists who are not just subsisting but thriving? An army of composers, painters, milliners, musicians, hair and makeup artists, ceramicists, graphic designers, production designers, interior designers, costume designers, floral designers, clothing designers, writers, furniture makers, healers, and performers of all kinds call this city home. Their work, and the sunshine, is what makes the whole place sparkle. Tragically, the fires hit the creative community extremely hard, and the stories of their loss are profound.

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drawings and prints off the walls, or grabbed armloads from a carefully curated vinyl collection. Second to the people and animals that perished, it’s the lost art that haunts people most.

Painter Kim McCarty lost her home and her painting studio in Malibu — for the second time. She has lived in Los Angeles since 1976, and she and her husband, Michael, have owned Michael’s restaurant in Santa Monica for 45 years.

“Our home and studio burned in 1993, but it was nothing like this,” she says. Their home in Malibu was a beloved spot for frequent gatherings for their vast circle of friends. “This time, we lost everything in our home and the studio was trashed, but I feel so much luckier than others. I feel so bad for young families in the Palisades and Altadena. I feel so bad for L.A. It got hit hard.” McCarty is trying to find solace in the groundswell of support she has received from fellow artists and Los Angeles at large. Ceramicist Victoria Morris has expressed a similar mix of gratitude and disbelief about being on the receiving end of so much kindness.

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“For now, I’m relying on the generosity of the community, from people like Heather Levine and Adam Silverman, to help me fire some pieces and use their glazes while I wait for my new kilns to arrive, and I get settled in a new rented space,” Morris says. “The outpouring of the L.A. community at large has been incredible. I have to admit that I’ve had to work really hard to receive it. It’s uncomfortable for me, but I’m so grateful, and I’m trying to help others when I can.”

A spreadsheet of more than 100 working musicians who lost their homes, studios, and instruments — many of them teachers and performers for the Los Angeles Philharmonic — has circulated widely online. Many of them, like legendary saxophonist Dale Fielder, had a lifetime of sheet music and archives, as well as rare instruments, that vanished overnight.

The visual art and design community has been equally devastated. Interior designer David John Dick of Disc Interiors had to flee his historic, recently renovated home in Altadena. He and his husband had little more than the clothes on their backs and escaped in a neighbor’s car. Then they welcomed a newborn son, their first child, just days later. One of the items he wished he’d been able to save was a 14th-century Chinese painting he purchased at auction. “It’s so devastating to think that future generations won’t be able to enjoy it, too,” he says.

When you ask residents of Altadena and the Palisades who had time to load their cars before they fled what they reached for first, they’ll tell you about their art. After family photos and important documents, they took rare

Borrowed studio space, new supplies, and the belief that art is what lifts people up during challenging times are what keeps everyone moving forward. “I left with nothing when we evacuated. I was more worried about being stuck on PCH than anything,” says McCarty. “But I have a commission I was working on for a gallery in Detroit, so I just had to get back to work. It’s a bummer to lose stuff, but as an artist, it’s what’s in your head at the time that matters. Just to be connected to that process, and to have a place to do it, has been a lifeline. Having been through this before, I know I have to keep going. What else do you do?”

The message that the artistic community returns to time and again, and that emerges in each of the interviews for this portfolio shot by Kurt Iswarienko, is one of frustration and sadness over what was lost countered by tenuous optimism and hope. The smoke has cleared. The cleanup has begun. And the work continues.

“We just want L.A. to come back,” says McCarty. “It’s so quirky here, but it works. For some odd reason we all love this place.”

“There are wild peacocks that visit our yard. I heard one up in a tree, and I thought, ‘Are you OK? How did you survive?’ ”

VICTORIA MORRIS, 50

L.A. native, ceramics artist, and Altadena resident who lost both her home and her business in the Eaton fire

In early January, I had a huge amount of orders in various stages of production, from wet clay to two full kilns that were cooling. We had a monster day on Tuesday. We threw in the morning from 8 to 12. We set up new shelves. We mixed new glazes. I remember leaving around 6:30. I knew the power was off at the house, so I said to my husband, Morgan, “Let’s make sure the cats are inside.” I had to walk backward because there was so much debris in the air. As I’m getting into the car, I hear a woman on the street scream, “It’s on fire!” I was trying to be calm, but I know in hindsight I was panicking. We went to the studio and I covered all the work in plastic thinking I wouldn’t be back for a few days to trim it. I left my computers. We drove to Ojai. We knew the next day that everything was gone. We were watching the news, and it all became really clear. You feel like a five-year-old when you talk about missing your stuff. But it’s so much deeper and weirder than that. Blocks and blocks of houses in West Altadena are just gone. It’s violent, what you see. Walking through my garden is what made me weep. There are wild peacocks that visit our yard. I heard one up in a tree, and I thought, “Are you OK? How did you survive?”

I rented a studio in Ventura and we’re getting settled in. I ordered kilns and they’re on their way. And the outpouring of support from the L.A. community at large has been incredible. It’s uncomfortable for me, but I’m so grateful, and I’m trying to help others when I can. We’ve got to keep going. I know I’m being incredibly optimistic. But there’s nothing left. Why not create a little utopia for people to return to? X

“My daughter asked to go home; she misses her scooter. We explained to her that there was a fire. I think she understands.”

KRISTINA ADAM, 34

Yoga teacher, energy healer, and founder of Aether Healing, a well-being studio for women, who lost her home and business in the Palisades fire

My husband and I lived with our two-year-old daughter in the Palisades village, about a four-minute walk to my studio on Via La Paz. My daughter was born at home, so she’s a native Palisidian, which is rare because there were no hospitals there. It was heaven, and we got to experience a little slice of it for a few years. Every day since she was an infant, we’d walk through the neighborhood, to the library, or down Temescal to the beach. We ended up there quite by accident when we moved into our condo and feel so lucky that we did.

In 2023, I found a studio space that I renovated and made my own. It was the perfect place for treatments and sessions, or just to have tea to connect with people. The wellness community has been so generous. People have reached out and offered acupuncture, or herbs, and it’s really kind. It’s a very L.A. thing that feels really special. I have a retreat that I organized coming up in Mallorca and I’m trying to focus on that and shift back into planning mode. But I lost all of my equipment in the fire, and I am thinking about how to rebuild. It’s an opportunity for a fresh start and I don’t know where we’ll end up. We’re staying in Ojai for the moment.

My daughter will ask to go home, and we explained to her that there was a fire, and that we can’t go home. Her communication skills are just developing, but I think she understands. She misses her scooter, but she’ll be OK. I’m a self-employed wellness practitioner and business owner, so it’s a very unsettling time, not knowing what to do. Looking at everything going on around us, it’s hard to know what to do. X

“I built my business one hat at a time. Some of my tools were 100 years old. I don’t know if I’ll ever find them again.”

CODY WELLEMA, 32

Hat maker, shop owner, and father of three who lost his store, his studio, and his tools in the Eaton fire

Istarted making hats about 11 years ago in Santa Barbara. I collected vintage clothing and the hats came with that. The hats stuck with me as a symbol of the American West. I started making them in the kitchen when my wife and I were first married there. Then we got our first little studio downtown. We moved to Altadena nine years ago.

We were thinking about going back to Orange County where I grew up, but my wife had a music degree and wanted to go back to school for music, and there was an option for her in Pasadena. We were at a flea market in town talking to a dealer there and he was telling us about his store in his little pocket on lake in Altadena. We went to see it and it was so nostalgic and romantic, kind of love at first sight. It was a humble space, but it felt like home. We rolled the dice and took a risk, hoping it worked out. But we grew with the community and loved it.

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By 10 p.m. on that Tuesday night, we knew it was getting closer, so my wife and I went to the shop and grabbed a few things like my grandfather’s art, a collection of Navajo rugs, and some rare hats. The next morning, we woke up at 7 to evacuation orders. We were in the car with the kids when an employee called and said, “Cody, it’s gone. The whole block is gone.” We lost it in the car for a few minutes, in front of the kids, which was awful.

I didn’t make a lot of money doing what I did. I make hats in a world that doesn’t really wear them anymore. I built my business making one hat at a time. But I lost my tools. Some of them were 100 years old and I don’t know if I’ll ever find them again. I’d like to think the hats will stay with me, and the people we met along the way, but right now, I don’t know. X

“I could see the flames from the yard and I thought, ‘Maybe I should put my saxophones in the car?’ ”

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DALE FIELDER, 68

Composer, band leader, and multi-instrumentalist (he plays all four saxophones — soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone) who lost his home and studio in the Eaton fire

Icame out to L.A. from New York in 1988. I got into the scene here playing at 5th Street Dick’s and founded the Clarion Jazz label in 1993. I met my wife, who lived in Pasadena, and we decided to try living together nearby in Altadena. That was 16 years ago. Most Black folks know about Altadena, but I’ll never forget the first time I went out there. I couldn’t believe how much I liked it. We were sitting on the patio one night and my wife asked me, “Can you see yourself here in five years?” And I said, “You could bury me in that backyard.” We rented the house, but we treated it like our own. We grew tangerines, kumquats, and avocados. I turned the garage into my studio, and I would sit in the lush backyard and express my gratitude.

The night of the fire I was performing at The Baked Potato with one of the top five drummers in jazz, Marvin “Smitty” Smith. My wife and I were heading home at about 1 a.m. and from the 134 we could see all the hillside on fire. Both of us were so quiet.

At home, I could see the flames from the yard and I thought, “Maybe I should put my saxophones in the car?” I was so tired after this gig that I just wanted to rest. Then the phones went off telling us to evacuate.

We ended up at the convention center in Pasadena. I managed to sleep for about an hour. Then I went on Facebook and I saw a neighbor, Louis Van Taylor from Kool and the Gang, said his house was gone. So I went out to see it for myself. When I got to my block, it was gone. I sat in the car and bellowed.

Now everybody knows what we always knew about Altadena. It felt like the best-kept secret. Neighbors respected each other. Especially for African-Americans, that history went back to the 1930s. Even if they rebuild, it’s never going to be the same. X

KATE MARTINDALE, 54

Vintage collector, stylist, interior designer, and costar of the Discovery Channel’s Capturing Home who lost her home and most of her inventory in the Palisades fire

Iwas based in the Palisades, that neighborhood you’ve seen on the news that’s just completely gone. We were renting a beautiful little 1937 Sears kit house. I’m a decorator and a stylist and my home was where I could really be me. It was like a laboratory. My house was my “kit” with all the props I use. I’m always late when I leave the house for a shoot because I scan my living room and grab 10 more things to load in the car. My garage was filled with art, pillows, ceramics, and books. That’s all gone.

I’ll be honest: Right after the fire, I swore off buying vintage. I only wanted new things that can be replaced, not the one-of-a-kind stuff that I had, but those feelings lasted for about a week. I had a bowl from the 1800s that survived without a single chip, and then it’s just gone in a fire in the Palisades? Now that everything is gone, I’m thinking I’m going to do it differently this time and start over on the East Coast.

I was in New York shooting when they fire happened, and my husband and my daughter, who was in town for the holidays, called me when they had to evacuate. I told them to take four pieces of art that are worth money, and then they left. My husband says that there was a reason I wasn’t home that day, because if I had been, I would have tried to save everything, and we may have gotten trapped. I left the day before and I remember thinking what a beautiful day it was, and how lucky we were. The next day, it was gone. •

“After the fire, I swore off buying vintage. I only wanted new things that can be replaced.”

“We packed three days’ worth of clothes. The thought was, ‘They’re going to take care of this. We’ll be back.’ ”

TAYLOR JACOBSON, 49, JOHN KNUTH, 46, AND MATEO, 5

Interior designer (Jacobson), painter and community college professor (Knuth), and their son who lost their home in the Eaton fire

We lived in Echo Park for years [says Jacobson], but when we were finally ready to buy a house, nine years ago, Altadena was what we could afford. We felt lucky to find such a special place. It was a diverse community with people who lived there their whole life mixed with young artists. Mateo had just started at a local elementary school and was playing tee ball and soccer, and we were feeling entrenched in the community.

The night of the fire was windy as hell, but in our minds, the wind was blowing in the opposite direction. I went to bed, and then woke up at 2 a.m. I could see the fire from the window. I knew we needed to leave. The thought was, “They’re going to take care of this. We’ll be back.” We packed three days’ worth of clothes, calmly woke up Mateo, and left for our friends’ house in Los Feliz.

The next afternoon, we connected with our neighbor whose son works for the county. He told us our block was on fire. An hour later our house was gone. One of our neighbors stayed behind and saved two houses, but we’re glad ours is gone. I am so worried about the

toxicity of the environment. Mateo’s school is open, but I didn’t want to send him back. I’m on a Facebook group for Altadena, and about 90 percent of the community has said they want to rebuild. We don’t. As a designer, I know the cost, the time, and the headache of building a house. I’m just not in the headspace to deal with that. Maybe it’s because those people don’t work in my industry, they have a more hopeful picture? It’s a horrible mess that will take 10 years to come back. I don’t want to live like that, but we’ll hold on to our land in case we change our minds.

In the meantime, John is back to teaching and his art studio survived, but I have had to pause work to deal with insurance. Luckily, my clients have been really terrific. They have all said, “We can wait for our throw pillows, just do what you need to do.” X

“We saw a single plume of smoke from our bedroom. Within an hour, the sky was black.”

Feature - 10 Creatives

ALEC EGAN, 41

Painter, lifelong resident of the Pacific Palisades, and father of two who lost his home and his studio in the Palisades fire

Igrew up splitting time between my parents’ houses. My dad lived in the Palisades. I loved being from there and I wanted to raise my kids there. Then when my wife, writer Harper Dill, was pregnant with our first child, we took over the house. That’s one of the saddest things. There were old pockets of the neighborhood where generational families still lived. Now they couldn’t afford to live there anymore.

The morning the fire started, we saw a single plume of smoke from our bedroom. Within an hour, the sky was black. Our nanny took our baby and went to pick up our daughter at preschool, so they got out before they had to see the harrowing scene of people evacuating. Families were running from St. Matthews. Cars were melted to the ground.

My studio was in my home, and it’s all gone. I have a couple of shows coming up, Frieze and Hong Kong Basel, and I have to start from scratch. We were able to mount one exhibition with some work that was in inventory that went to the San Francisco Fog Art Fair. Now I’m working in one of gallerist Anat Egbi’s spaces on Fountain Avenue, and we’re renting a house in Melrose Hill. The generosity of the community has been hard to feel. I’ve been experiencing intense confusion for a long time with adrenaline involved. The great thing about being an artist is it’s not only a great form of catharsis, but also a great distraction. Being in an empty studio is really helpful. I was so stressed, but those four white walls were a refuge.

When you drive through the Palisades now, it’s bizarre to see what looks like an atomic bomb hit. For young families like us that aren’t billionaires, rebuilding is going to be a long haul. We hope to find the plans for our house through the city and build again. Maybe it won’t be terrible? Maybe every house won’t look the same? But I am not living in an optimistic space right now. It’ll take a minute. •

“We lost everything I made in the fire, and I’m too old now to remake it.”

KENNETH BROWN, 79

Retired auto body worker, former Stanford hospital facilities worker, skilled woodworker, father of producer Naomi Scott, and father-in-law of actor Adam Scott who lost his home and work in the Eaton fire

We’ve been living in Altadena for about two-and-a-half years. We moved down from the San Mateo area where our kids grew up. During the pandemic, we came down to be closer to the kids and the grandkids. Before we moved, we looked for a good six months before we found this great two-bedroom house. It had really nice mahogany paneling in the front room, and so many nice nooks. We had to downsize quite a bit when we moved and kept only the furniture we loved, a lot of which I made myself. My wife, Mary, got me a saw 40 years ago, and making furniture is what I love to do. We’d been working on the house for a while and finally got it to the place where we wanted it. Then the fire came.  We love the community in Altadena, which is really diverse and very close. Everyone talked to each other and went out of their way to help. We were at a birthday party when we got a call that a fire was coming down the hill. By the time we got home, the wind was blowing trees down. It was 7:30 p.m. and we had no power. A neighbor came over and said, “We’re not leaving until you get out of here.” Mary was able to grab some jewelry and other important things. We went to Naomi and Adam’s house and spent the night there. The next morning, a neighbor

called to let us know that our house was burning. Then we had to evacuate Naomi’s house in the hills, so we went to a hotel in Long Beach.

We’re in an apartment now, but boy, is it expensive. One of our neighbors is a retired lawyer and a great negotiator, and he’s been helping us navigate FEMA. We’re grateful for people who can help us, because we are feeling so overwhelmed. We have plans to rebuild, but it will take a while. We lost everything I made in the fire, and I’m too old now to remake it. But I’ll always have the memories. X

“We didn’t evacuate until the fire was at our doorstep. We tried to stay, but all we had was a garden hose and it was just too dangerous.”

RENATA ORTEGA, 32

Florist, owner of Orla Floral, and native Angeleno who lost her home and her studio in the Eaton fire

My partner, Andrew, and I have lived in Altadena for three years with our three dogs. It was perfect for us. We were surrounded by nature and quiet, and I was able to work out of the garage that we converted into my studio. We loved taking our dogs on hikes every day to places like Echo Mountain so they could play in the creek.

We had this perfect little midcentury house with a pool, a mango tree, and a guava tree. There is a swing on a tree in the front yard that survived the fire. So that’s a little sliver of hope.

We didn’t evacuate until about 3 or 4 a.m., until the fire was right at our doorstep. We tried to stay as long as possible, but all we had was a garden hose and it was just too dangerous. We loaded the dogs and their food first, and some important paperwork. But even then we always thought we’d be back. Andrew went to check on a neighbor before we left, and he was asleep. He had to wake him up to get him out to safety.

Right now we’re staying with my sister in Glassell Park and my team is with me working out of a temporary studio space across from the flower market downtown. We need each other, and the generosity of the floral community has been truly incredible.

We’re willing to wait as long as it takes, but we are 100 percent going to rebuild. The community is so worth it, and there is nowhere we’d rather be. X

As Angelenos sift through the ashes of the Palisades and Eaton fires, Colleen Bell has turned her attention to something far more prosaic: taxes. Indeed, for a film industry already on its knees from the triple blows of pandemic shutdowns, the writers’ and actors’ strikes, and the fizzling of the golden age of streaming, production taxes — more specifically, avoidance of them — have become existential.

“The tax credit program is right now the most important priority for us. We absolutely need to prevent more runaway productions from California,” says Bell, executive director of the California Film Commission, the state body that hands out tax breaks to film productions. “The story of California’s entertainment industry is one of creativity and perseverance. We will overcome adversity because that’s what we do.”

Even before the fires incinerated more than 12,000 homes and businesses, the state of Los Angeles film production had been pushed to the brink. Says Paul Audley of Film LA, the group that permits productions throughout the region, “If you take out the COVID year, 2024 was the worst year on record in terms of shoot days for L.A.” Which is why Governor Gavin Newsom, weeks before the fires, announced plans to double the film and television tax credit program from $330 million to $750 million annually. The increase, he argued, would stem the tide of productions moving to places like Georgia and New York, which have lured productions with generous incentives.

Reeves, Kevin Bacon, and Bette Midler, as well as showrunners, gaffers, and editors. “We need a flood of new work to help our beloved city rebuild itself and ensure L.A.’s future viability as a place where craftspeople, film workers, and businesses thrive,” they wrote.

There are some green shoots. Investment giant Hackman Capital Partners is plowing ahead with a $1 billion revamp of Television City at Beverly Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue. The expansion of the site that was home to All in the Family and American Idol would double the number of sound stages and add several hundred thousand square feet of office space.

LOS ANGELES WANTS YOU

depth and breadth of talent in the state is in Hollywood’s favor. “Everybody wants to shoot in California,” Bell says. “We have a continent’s worth of talent in one state.”

Bell’s bet is that a tax reset could ignite a rebirth that would fill the empty sound stages and get underemployed production hands back to work. If approved — the increase is going through the budget process in Sacramento — the breaks could start being handed out on July 1.

Meanwhile, some productions had already returned to work. Hacks , the hit Max show, got back to shooting its third season in and around L.A. in January despite the destruction of some of its prime locations.

Feature - LA Film Production

The entertainment industry employs more than 680,000 people in the state, adds $115 billion annually to the regional economy, and is synonymous with California. But it stands on the precipice. Screenwriter Alexandra Pechman, an L.A. native, knows more than 20 people who lost their homes in the fires. She and writer Sarah Adina Smith became so alarmed about what the tragedy could do to the industry that in January they started the “Stay in L.A.” campaign. Their petition, which called for Newsom to uncap tax credits for three years and for studios to pledge an additional 10 percent of their budgets for L.A. productions, quickly garnered more than 20,000 signatures from A-listers like Keanu

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Even before the fires, film production in L.A. had sunk to an all-time low. But with billions committed to new studios combined with some hefty tax breaks, Hollywood could be on the verge of a new golden age

A $500 million expansion of the Warner Bros. Ranch lot in Burbank is set to be completed this year, and a $1 billion overhaul of the 100-year-old Radford Studio Center, the former location of Gilligan’s Island and Seinfeld , is also expected to be done by 2028.

For Hollywood, however, the next couple of years are critical. With so many people displaced and homes and locations destroyed, the fear is that some will relocate and never come back, that a talent drain will become a torrent. But the

The 7,000-sq.-ft. Spanish Colonial estate in Altadena that served as the “side mansion” for Deborah Vance — the caustic comedian played by Jean Smart — was destroyed in the Eaton fire. It was one of countless wellknown properties that were lost, including the ultramodern, $83 million hilltop estate featured in the opening episode of the final season of Succession , and the home at 1090 Rubio Street used in Risky Business and This Is Us . Film LA has sent staff fanning out across the city to help productions find new locations to replace ones that were destroyed or irreparably altered — anything to keep them from moving elsewhere.

“We are seeing the potential for things to come back. The new stages on Warner Ranch are already pretty fully booked when they open in 2026,” Audley says. “I’m not telling people here that we ever expect to see us back at peak TV time, but we certainly would like to get back up toward the 2019 levels in order to sustain the business here.”

Another challenge has been the exodus of reality television and unscripted shows, which accounted for a large portion of work but do not qualify under the tax credit system. Unscripted shooting days last year plunged 45 percent from the previous year. Newsom’s proposed tax credit does not include unscripted programs.

For Pechman, the stakes could not be clearer. “Studios are building huge facilities in Nevada and New Mexico and Georgia,” she says. “L.A. could become a place where people don’t make movies anymore. Look at the Rust Belt and all those great American cities. This could become a place where people once made movies, and many, many jobs will move elsewhere.” •

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Renée Zellweger

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Fashion Direction by PETRA

As a fourth BRIDGET JONES movie drops, the two-time Oscar winner reflects on what middle age has taught her beloved character, as well as the life lessons she learned by herself

BURBERRY coat, $2,320. CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN shoes, $895. POMELLATO bracelet, $3,400.

Words

ROB HASKELL

Photography

MATTHEW BROOKES

FLANNERY

PRADA top, $2,250, and skirt, $1,850. Opposite: MICHAEL KORS COLLECTION sweater, $1,050, dickey, $290, skirt, $6,190, and belt, $295. JIMMY CHOO shoes, $795. BULGARI watch, $47,100.

“I think we’d all be much better off if we had fewer opinions.”

REN É E ZELLWEGER

STELLA McCARTNEY cardigan, $7,500. CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN shoes, $795.

Midway through Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy , the boy in question, drunk and unguarded and played by Leo Woodall, says, “I wish I had a time machine.” The point is clear enough. This intergenerational romance between Bridget Jones, now a widow and a single mother in her 50s, and 29-year-old Roxster, a scientist with biceps that suggest priorities outside the laboratory, will strain to surmount the age gap. Zeitgeists can be funny things: After a cinematic year that included The Last Showgirl , The Substance , and Babygirl — three films that contemplate the pressures on and desires of middle-aged women — here, right on time, is Renée Zellweger as Bridget, 24 years after Bridget Jones’s Diary made her an international start by celebrating the messy humanity of its title character.

“It’s a really unusual thing for an audience to grow with a character and have shared experiences in different phases of their lives,” Zellweger says. Originally it spoke to a young generation in the middle of that universal experience of trying to determine what the rest of your life is going to look like — facing those big, heavy choices — and feeling that you’re not good enough, correcting yourself, and trying to appease the people you seek validation from. Back in 2001, folks found her relatable because she sort of reflected their life experiences. That applies now.”

is powerless against the chaos sown by her young children. She faces many challenges that surely bedevil her audience too: rebuilding her life after a tragedy, confronting the judgment of other moms at school pickup, reentering the workforce, and revisiting love and sex in the era of dating apps. “In your 50s, life is simultaneously more and less complicated,” says Zellweger, who is 55. “You lose people. Things don’t turn out the way you expected they might. Bridget’s dealing with grief, and she’s trying to find her way through being a mom on her own and judging herself pretty harshly about her shortcomings. At this age there’s more that you understand about life, because of the inevitabilities of life — what it delivers and what it doesn’t. Over time you sort of learn about what’s extraneous.”

Feature - Renee Z

It’s a sunny afternoon two weeks after the Eaton and Palisades fires upended life in Southern California, and Zellweger has interrupted her habitual C-Span watching to drive to the Fairmont Breakers in Long Beach, a stone’s throw from the esplanade where she used to go rollerblading as a young actress in the mid-’90, when she was brand-new to L.A. For the past few years Zellweger has lived near Laguna Beach with her partner, the television presenter Ant Anstead, and his 5-year-old son.

It’s a convenient stop on the way to Canine Rehabilitation of Orange County, where Chester, her senior German shepherd, will be learning to use his new wheelchair. “So far he’s like, ‘OK, I’m ready to do my usual way of getting around, which is you carry me,’ ” she says. “But we’ll see.”

Twenty-plus years and four movies later, life still spreads out like an oil slick, and Bridget is skidding across it. At home, she

The Bridget Jones films, while never explicitly political, have always held a mirror up to the culture. Zellweger famously put on 20 pounds to play the part the first time, and her character inspired a collective conversation about weight and the tyranny of perfection. Would Girls , for example, have been possible without Bridget? “It was frank about the imperfections of its main character,” Zellweger says. “Bridget thrives anyway, and she gets the guy anyway. It sort of made being less than perfect acceptable.” Mad About the Boy suggests that the series still has the capacity to explore real-world problems sometimes overlooked by Hollywood. “How do you meet people?” asks Zellweger, who says dating apps were never available to her because of her celebrity. “How do you reengage? We certainly don’t talk about grief and what that looks like.”

Zellweger’s career took off in 1996 with Jerry Maguire , and in the ensuing decade she declared herself a versatile talent and a stylish red-carpet stalwart with a string of successes — including Bridget Jones’s Diary , the musical Chicago , and the wartime drama Cold Mountain , for which she won an Oscar for best supporting actress. Mad About the Boy is Zellweger’s first feature film since she took home a second Academy Award, this time as best actress, for Judy , Rupert Goold’s 2019 biopic about Judy Garland. The film was a kind of redemption for Zellweger, who took a hiatus from acting in the preceding years and had faced ruthless scrutiny about her appearance. “I never really existed in the orbit of

VALENTINO dress, $20,000, and jacket, $13,700. CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN shoes, $795.

Hollywood,” she says. “When I first came to L.A. from Texas and I did live in Hollywood — physically — my life was really simple. I would tool around with my Thomas Guide and go to auditions and occasionally go to a small dinner party. It was never really a thing for me to rub shoulders. It’s so fun to go and celebrate the thing that you worked on with these people whom you’ve come to love,” she says of the commotion around Judy . “That’s a wonderful thing, and I don’t slight it by saying that I know that I do well when I’m more quiet. I live a quiet life. It’s easier to do now, I suppose, because I don’t have to go into the rooms as frequently as in the beginning. But Hollywood is magic and spectacular, and it has meaning in ways that I couldn’t imagine when I was a young person. It’s only negative if the wrong things are motivating you or if you’re doing things that aren’t necessarily healthy.”

Feature - Renee Z

It’s hard for Zellweger to imagine what young women coming up in Hollywood must face now that social media — far from adopting Bridget Jones’s lovable disarray — foists unreachable perfection on its audience. “I was having a conversation with Hugh [Grant], actually, and he called Bridget the Instagram antidote,” Zellweger says. “She sort of subverts the notion that you have to create the idea of an unattainable existence and presentation in order to be happy in your life.” This isn’t to say that Bridget has learned to tune out the mean girls altogether. “Some things don’t go away, but we’re just better at managing them. We know it’s a waste of energy to ruminate. The dumb thing that you did that you wish you hadn’t done, you learn to

“In your 50s, life is simultaneously more and less complicated.”

REN É E ZELLWEGER

fast-forward to the feeling of, ‘It’s all right.’ I think Bridget still challenges herself with ideas about what she’s supposed to be and what success looks like, and trying to meet a particular standard. We all sometimes subconsciously acquiesce to that standard. With the internet, if you want to feel bad about yourself, you can do it in less than 30 seconds.”

For her part, Zellweger has chosen to avoid social media; the dog videos her friends send are the extent of her investment. She feels better when her world is smaller, and this attitude has helped her find some calm in a political environment that is apt to cause her to wring her hands. “I read all the news — all of it. The whole spectrum, from the standards to the goofy, the local to the international,” she says. “I’ve been digging around for wisdom, like, ‘Teach me, teach me, teach me!’ The most valuable wisdom I’ve found is: Get small. Look at your community. It’s so hard to find consensus in a nation that is so enormous and is populated by so many different kinds of people experiencing different struggles. So look at what you share. Because when you get smaller, the challenges become more uniform, don’t they?”

She pokes a few errant strands of golden hair into her orange University of Texas cap, a reminder of where she comes from. The daughter of a Swiss father and a Norwegian mother, Zellweger grew up in Katy, about 30 miles west of Houston. She majored in English literature at UT but caught the acting bug in a drama elective. After graduation she landed a few acting jobs in Texas (including an uncredited role in Dazed and Confused in 1993) before heading to Los Angeles full time.

Nobody is putting on a dress to insult you and your beliefs.”

Environmental calamity notwithstanding, Zellweger says it’s an awfully good time to be a Californian. She loves the state for its natural beauty, and above all she relishes long drives with her dog. “There’s a lot of nature in my California,” she says. “You can surf and ski on the same day — although I’m a horrible surfer, and I’ve never gotten past the big padded blue board, which, by the way, seems just fine to me when I see the noses of my friends who do surf. I’m not a big fan of sharks, so there’s that, too. But I do love it. And I love the desert. I’m a road tripper: up to Carmel, San Francisco, the northern border, and south to Escondido.”

Feature - Renee Z

“I’m also trying to learn about my own perspective as a liberal person, how I came to sit in the place where I sit,” she says. “One thing I’m doing is trying not to have opinions about things that I don’t need to. I really have to clean up dog poop and make sure that Chester has what he needs, and I don’t need to be spending time trying to decide how I feel about something that is essentially none of my business. I think we’d all be much better off if we had fewer opinions. I don’t need to have an opinion about the guilt or innocence of a person when I’m not on the jury, and I don’t need to have an opinion about who people love or whether they should be parents or whether they should wear dresses if that’s what makes them happy. It’s not an affront.

In the Laguna area, her life is simple and domestic. She has a few friends but mainly enjoys time at home with her partner. They just watched The White Lotus. “My fellow had never seen it, so I had to introduce him — the genius of Jennifer Coolidge,” she says. Zellweger has run her own production company, Big Picture, since 2019. They partnered with Blumhouse Productions on The Thing About Pam, a true-crime series in 2022 that she starred in. Today she has several irons in the fire. “I want to make things I’d like to watch and things that have a reason for being made,” she says. If it’s entertaining, that’s sometimes good enough. But it’s also nice if it’s necessary.” And if there’s a role that compels her as an actor, even better. “I don’t think it’s true anymore that there are few meaty roles for women over 30. I think at a certain period that was a reality. But streaming has changed all of it, hasn’t it? All these different platforms catering to different audiences who want to see variety in representation and in content. I think that’s great.”

It makes sense for Bridget, after a nine-year break from the big screen, to reappear now, as women are tackling roles about growing up and growing older. Without spoiling the ending, it’s worth pointing out that Bridget has a response to her young beau’s wish that she were closer to his age. She’d like to have a time machine too — so he could jump in, grow up, and meet her where she is.

“Fifty is awesome — it really is,” Zellweger says. “I hope I’m a little bit wiser. I’m definitely better with boundaries and with recognizing what’s important. And I have a better understanding of my business and of what makes me happy, personally, working within it. I’m just better under the radar. That’s good for me.” X

Hair by JENNY CHO at A-Frame Agency. Makeup by KINDRA MANN at Tomlinson Management Group. Manicure by DIEM TRUONG at Star Touch Agency. Shot on location at EAST END STUDIOS.

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SOUTHERN CHARM

Where to stay in the GOLDEN STATE’S lower third

Words by DAVID NASH

E R I E S

The THOMPSON PALM SPRINGS is a yearround splash pad.

Pops of green and woodlike textures bring the awe-inspired landscape inside.

Thompson Palm Springs

Live like a snowbird — even if only for a long weekend — at the newly opened THOMPSON PALM SPRINGS, a modern two-and-a-half-block oasis along Palm Canyon Drive downtown. The 168 bungalow-inspired guest rooms, including 18 suites, feature private balconies with sweeping views of the skyline and San Jacinto Mountains. Soft natural hues, pops of green, and woodlike textures bring the awe-inspiring landscape inside as envisioned by SMS Architecture in Irvine and B2 Design of Dallas. The lobby’s open-air design beckons guests with lush pathways and one-of-a-kind artworks marking the way to their accommodations, each of which is outfitted with amenities like Italian-woven SFERRA linens, flat-screen TVs, curated minibars, and D.S. & DURGA bath products. The second floor of the hotel is home to Lola Rose Grand Mezze, a Levantine-inspired restaurant that celebrates sophisticated Mediterranean style with an all-day dining experience led by executive chef Quentin Garcia. Coming soon are the HALL Napa Valley Tasting Room & Wine Lounge, a cozy cocktail spot called Bar Issi, and another 42 guest accommodations. From $550. 414 N. Palm Canyon Dr., Palm Springs, 760-778-1234; hyatt.com/thompson-hotels.

Travel

From top: Set beneath the San Jacinto Mountains, Thompson Palm Springs is a desert oasis; on-site Mediterranean-style dining at Lola Rose Grand Mezze; a bungalow-inspired guest room.

PALM SPRINGS

Fairmont Breakers

Owing to a firm belief in reincarnation, the FAIRMONT BREAKERS LONG BEACH continues to reinvent itself. Conceived by Long Beach capitalist Fred B. Dunn as one of Southern California’s preeminent luxury hotels — and designed by renowned L.A. architecture firm Walker & Eisen — the hotel opened in 1926 to rave reviews, but it has changed ownership, purpose, and name more than a dozen times. The picturesque coastal property has finally reclaimed its original glory and is welcoming guests with accommodations and amenities not seen on that stretch of East Ocean Avenue since Rita Hayworth and Clark Gable frequented its Sky Room restaurant with panoramic views of the Pacific Ocean. The design collaboration between HBA and L.A.-based RVD Associates showcases the property’s meticulously restored 1920s architectural features and sumptuous contemporary interiors. All 185 guest rooms, including 22 spacious suites, exude coastal elegance with a palette anchored by deep blue tones and pops of gold echoing the sun’s reflection on the ocean. Several on-site food and entertainment concepts — like Italian coastal-themed Nettuno, upscale jazz bar Alter Ego, and the city’s only rooftop bar, Halo — are poised to become popular SoCal destinations. From $349. 210 E. Ocean Blvd., Long Beach, 562-3171000; fairmont-breakers.com.

The picturesque coastal property has finally reclaimed its original glory.

LONG BEACH

Clockwise from top: The sumptuous updated interior design; the coastal property opened in 1926; the original architectural features were carefully restored.

The oceanside fixture has been reinvented as a two-story hotel.

LAGUNA

Le Petit Pali

What began as a run-of-the-mill Travelodge in 1967 — later known as the Laguna Beach Lodge — has been transformed into LE PETIT PALI LAGUNA BEACH, the newest property in Avi Brosh’s Palisociety portfolio, which opens in April. Situated at the southern end of the town’s sinewy and fabled Coast Highway, the oceanside fixture has been reinvented as a two-story 41-room hotel by Brosh’s design team. The charming European-inspired interiors of its public spaces and accommodations include layered textures and patterns, a weathered coastal palette of soft blues and grays, reclaimed wood flooring, and a mix of curated art and decor. The property is steps from Goff Cove and Treasure Island Beach, two of the area’s most iconic beachfront destinations. Guests may also opt to take advantage of the centrally located pool surrounded by palm trees. Ranging from 230 square feet for a Le Petit King to 600 square feet for the LPP Suite, every guest room includes Diptyque bath amenities, Bellino linens, Marshall speakers, a 50-inch flatscreen TV, a mini Smeg refrigerator, a Grind espresso machine, and a well-stocked minibar. Guests receive a complimentary Champagne continental breakfast with locally made pastries and other seasonal offerings. From $320. 30806 Coast Hwy., Laguna Beach; lepetitpali.com.

BEACH

Clockwise from top left: One of the Europeaninspired guest rooms; a former Travelodge, the property dates to 1967; the 41-room hotel is steps from Goff Cove and Treasure Island Beach.

CORONADO Hotel del Coronado

WTravel

hat began in 2018 as a $550 million multiphase renovation of the iconic HOTEL DEL CORONADO reaches its completion this spring with the revitalization of the original structure established in 1888. Known as The Victorian — one of the resort’s five “neighborhoods” — the historically landmarked structure includes 404 reimagined Victorian guest rooms, a stunningly visual garden courtyard, and event spaces like the Crown Room. Led by Wimberly Interiors, in collaboration with WATG’s California architecture studio, the final phase of the redesign celebrates the property’s legacy and highlights its Queen Anne architecture. But it also enhances the guest experience with contemporary updates to bathrooms, furnishings, and artwork, along with the addition of state-of-the-art technologies. The Del’s catalog of accommodations across its other neighborhoods — The Views, The Cabanas, Beach Village, and Shore House — includes another 467 rooms, suites, villas, and cottages that have also been thoughtfully revived (or newly conceived), along with many amenities and dining venues. And, after much anticipation, Nobu also opens at the San Diego resort as the newest culinary hot spot. 1500 Orange Ave., Coronado, 619-435-6611; hoteldel.com.

After much anticipation, Nobu also opens at the San Diego resort as the newest culinary hot spot.

From top: Inside the Gray Malin–designed suite; the luxe pool; the Ocean Club, one of many updated dining spots.

...AND BREATHE

Reset and restore at these new wellness studios

Hume

HUME is a members-only club blending fitness, recovery, and social connection. With an emphasis on holistic well-being, it offers an extensive range of recovery therapies, making it a goto destination for those seeking top-tier wellness treatments. Inspired by traditional bathhouses, the space features custom equipment, infrared saunas, cold plunges, and site-specific artwork. “From the start, we wanted to highlight local experts, artists, and designers,” says creative director Sandy Bole. “Working with creatives we admire has been a privilege.”

HUME offers yoga, high-intensity interval training (HIIT), Pilates, and an extensive suite of recovery services, including lymphatic drainage, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, and treatments developed in partnership with Rebecca Faria of Detox by Rebecca — a favorite among celebrities and influencers. Members can also access a holistic menu of IV therapies and

Words by KELLY ATTERTON

VENICE BEACH

supplements. “As former athletes and travelers, we wanted to create an experience once reserved for retreats,” says CEO Roger Briggs. “We curated every detail, from architecture to scent and sound, to promote balance in daily life.” 200 Main St., Venice; hume.la.

Silver Springs Studio

SILVER SPRINGS STUDIO on Melrose blends hot yoga, Pilates, and high-intensity interval training (HIIT) in a space designed for both movement and inspiration. With an artgallery aesthetic and a focus on community, the studio offers a refreshing departure from the typical gym experience.

“We wanted to create a space where fitness and creative expression intersect,” says founder Olivia Spralja. “Silver

Opposite and left: Sun-filled members-only HUME is a state-ofthe-art facility. From top: SILVER SPRINGS offers yoga, HIIT, and Pilates in a gallery-like space.

WEST HOLLYWOOD

“Open is about building a mindfulness ecosystem.”

Springs is not just about working out — it’s also about feeling inspired and supported in the process.” The studio provides a variety of amenities, from high-quality workout gear to community events and specialized workshops, ensuring members experience fitness as a holistic lifestyle. 825 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood; silverspringsla.com.

Beauty

OPEN ’s Market Street studio blends breathwork, meditation, movement, and hot and cold therapy. The Open Method™ integrates contemplative practice, nervous system regulation, and mindful fitness to optimize both physical and mental well-being. Breath + Sound™ sessions combine rhythmic breathing with curated soundscapes to deepen relaxation and build resilience. Designed in collaboration with awardwinning architecture firm Leong Leong, the space emphasizes light, openness, and natural materials, reinforcing the studio’s mission to cultivate presence and connection. Further elevating the experience, Open recently named Grammywinning artist James Blake as its chief sound officer, bringing his expertise in immersive sound design to ensure each session is a multisensory experience beyond the typical class. “Open is about building a mindfulness ecosystem,” says CEO and cofounder Raed Khawaja. “We aim to create community around a way of life.” 57 Market St., Venice; o-p-e-n.com.

VENICE BEACH Open Studio

OPEN focuses on contemplation and nervous system regulation in a studio that emphasizes natural materials.

Hyperbaric chambers and other cutting-edge treatments are

LIVV Natural

At LIVV NATURAL , IV drips, hormone therapy, and regenerative treatments take center stage — think bespoke wellness plans, cutting-edge tech, and a clientele that includes pro athletes and biohacking devotees. LIVV Cardiff stands apart as the only wellness club in the region to house a hyperbaric oxygen chamber — the same one used by Manchester United Football Club — giving members access to elite-level recovery and performance enhancement.

Beauty

“LIVV Cardiff is in the heart of a vibrant coastal community,” says founder Jason Phan. “The location, once the neighborhood’s post office, has been transformed into a hub for well-being.” Designed by Julien Albertini of Asthetique Group, it’s a study in seamless luxury. “Our vision was to craft a highend sanctuary where natural elements and the interplay of light whisk you away from the everyday hustle,” Phan says. “Each room has been thoughtfully curated to offer an immersive experience, inviting members not merely to drop in for a service but to indulge in a genuine escape from life’s stressors.” 111 Cardiff Blvd., Cardiff; livvnatural.com

WELLNESS ESSENTIALS To support balance, detox, and recovery

1. CERATO Peace Root Perfume Oil, $68. 2. OMORPHO G Vest, $285. 3. BALA x EMILIO PUCCI Bala Bangles, $129. 4. LARQ Bottle PureVis 2, $119. 5. TERRA & CO. Charcoal Oil Pulling + Hydroxyapatite Toothpaste, $53.

SAN DIEGO

on hand at LIVV NATURAL.

Alex Israel

How the multimedia artist winds down

WHERE DO YOU LIVE?

In L.A., above the Sunset Strip in the Bird Streets.

WHERE DO YOU FEEL MOST ZEN? Coachella.

FAVORITE PARK/HIKE?

Disneyland. It’s a theme park; does that count?

FAVORITE BEACH?

Leo Carillo, a Malibu Icon.

FAVORITE RELAXING GETAWAY?

I’m not very good at relaxing.

FAVORITE HEALTH FOOD FIX?

My morning smoothie from Earthbar: the Basic Chocolate with an extra scoop of Earthfusion protein, spinach, and Mayan Mix.

FAVORITE COMFORT FOOD? FROM WHERE?

Chicken soup from Nate ’n Al’s. No noodles.

DO YOU FOLLOW A DIET?

I do my best to avoid sugar and carbs. I rarely drink alcohol anymore. It doesn’t sound like fun, but it keeps me energized and able to do much more.

FAVORITE BEVERAGE?

Decaf coffee at Jon & Vinny’s. My morning ritual.

FAVORITE HOTEL?

The Beverly Hills Hotel. And I’ve never even stayed there — I just love the Fountain Coffee Room, the pink stucco, and all the palms, real and wallpaper.

FAVORITE WORKOUT?

Ultimate Performance. It’s the most hardcore training program I’ve ever done, but it has also yielded the best results.

FAVORITE SPA? TREATMENT?

My friend Maggie’s house. We sauna, cold plunge, lie in her red-light-therapy bed and drink pickle juice, and play with her incredible dogs.

WHERE DO YOU TAKE VISITING FRIENDS?

Erewhon. It’s world-famous.

WHAT’S IN YOUR BATHROOM CABINET?

A sizable collection of Louis Vuitton colognes. We’ve now collaborated on seven scents.

FAVORITE SKINCARE?

A close friend always brings me the latest and greatest Korean face masks from Seoul — whatever’s trending at beauty emporium Olive Young. I keep them in the fridge so they’re cold and extra refreshing against my skin.

WHAT DO YOU WEAR TO WORK OUT?

Various souvenir t-shirts (from a trip to Kyoto; Craig’s Restaurant; my Burning Man camp’s pizza stand, Deep Pie), Lululemon shorts, Hokas.

FAVORITE HOME ITEMS?

I was recently given an Elder Statesman cashmere blanket and now I can’t imagine my life without it.

FAVORITE GURU/HEALER?

My hypnotherapist, Bruce Bonnett. He helps me keep my sweet tooth in check.

FAVORITE ALBUM/MUSICIAN TO HELP YOU RELAX?

Anything by Lana Del Rey. Lana forever.

FAVORITE ROAD/DRIVE?

Sunset Boulevard. It’s the way home.

WHAT’S YOUR MANTRA?

Like the Eagles always sing, “Take it easy.” •

ALEX ISRAEL encircled by his Fins exhibition at Gagosian Rome, 2023.

ALEX ISRAEL’s exhibition Noir is at Gagosian Beverly Hills