Gone With the Wind

FUELED BY POWERFUL SANTA ANA WINDS, which prevented fire-fighting aircraft from taking to the air, flames swept through parts of Los Angeles in early January 2025, from the foothills of Altadena and Pasadena, to along the Pacific coast, through Malibu and Pacific Palisades.

Since then, there have been numerous individual and collective attempts to reckon with the loss. At last count, 16,251 buildings were destroyed. Each is a tragedy, gone forever, even if rebuilt. They include architectural, historic, and cultural landmarks such as Neutra houses, Art Deco churches, Queen Anne mansions, WPA lodges, Will Roger's ranch house, the Reel Inn on Pacific Coast Highway, the Zane Grey Estate, the Bunny Museum in Altadena, and most of Zorthian Ranch, the legendary bohemian compound near the Jet Propulsion Lab (which itself was unscathed, just the other side of the Arroyo from the denuded blocks of Altadena).

Another reckoning of the loss was conducted internally by the CLUI using the Center's Coast Realty Archive, our collection of real estate listings from the 1960s, covering the west side of Los Angeles. Around 400 of the 14,000 addresses in the archive were in the burn areas of Malibu and Pacific Palisades, and of them, the structures at 286 addresses were destroyed. ♦

16577 Chattanooga Place, Pacific Palisades, for sale in 1962 for $59,500. 
Situated on a spacious corner lot, this house was built in 1951—and built to last. "Earth-quake stress proof type of structure / fireproof features & roof sprinklers / small home fall out shelter,” the listing notes. The house survived until 2025, when it burned in the Palisades fire.

650 Lachman Lane, Pacific Palisades, for sale in 1965 for $59,500. 
According to the real estate listing: "The warm homely atmosphere of the large living room with an enormous brick fireplace draws upon your exthetic feelings. The unmolested view from the living room through the sliding glass doors that grace the entire wall toward the ocean, draws you immediately onto the lovely balcony that allows you to breath in the beauty of the world that we live in. The large pullman type kitchen with built in electric range, grill, oven, dishwasher all contribute to the pleasures for the housewife." The house was built in 1953 by Earl Lachman, whose family business developed much of the area, building hundreds of houses during this period. This house looked much the same (including the palm tree) until 2025, when it burned in the Palisades fire.

20620 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu, for sale in 1963 for $112,000. 
Built in 1958, the building's furnished apartments, with access to the ocean, rented for $250 a month, with "steps to beach on both sides of building, large sundecks on each apartment." Although the furnishings must surely have changed from what is portrayed in the photos on the real estate listing, the view of the carports from Pacific Coast Highway remained remarkably the same until 2025, when the structure burned in the Palisades fire.

16513 West Sunset Boulevard, Pacific Palisades, for sale in 1963 for $108,750, and for sale again in 1965 for $125,000. 
Built in 1961, the apartment building was repeatedly photographed by artist Ed Ruscha (as documented in the Getty’s website 12 Sunsets: Exploring Ed Ruscha’s Archive) in 1973, 1974, 1975, 1985, 1990 (when it had lost its name, Miramare, and also lost its dingbat), 1995, 1997, and 2007. In 2025, it burned in the Palisades fire.