Featured image credit: Suiren2022
The Los Angeles wildfires of January 2025 were historic in their levels of property damage. And while we’re still assessing the full loss, the absence of several iconic structures and notable properties was quickly apparent. Obviously, there’s no comparing the loss of property, no matter how legendary, to the loss of human life experienced in such a tragedy. But for the latter, there are no words. When it comes to properties beloved by the community, we can at least fumble through eulogies that draw sketches of their emotional impact. Today, we look at 14 properties with community significance that were lost in the Palisades and Eaton fires.
The Will Rogers Ranch House
If you live in Los Angeles, you’ve no doubt heard of Will Rogers State Historic Park. And, even if you don’t live in LA, you’ve probably heard of Will Rogers. But for the unfamiliar, Rogers was a Renaissance man of modern entertainment. Actor of stage and screen, radio personality, and social commentator, he wore a lot of hats. But most of them were cowboy hats, earning him the nickname “the cowboy philosopher.”
Rogers used a portion of his success to establish a rapidly expanding ranch in Santa Monica at the beginning of the 1920s. At one point, he owned over 350 acres of what would become prime Pacific Palisades land. Rogers died in a plane crash in 1935, leaving his 31-room ranch to his widow, Betty. She in turn donated it to California State Parks in 1944, where it earned historic status. However, the Los Angeles wildfires of 2025 burned through Will Rogers State Historic Park, reducing the historic ranch house to cinders and ash.
The Freedman House
Richard Neutra, the legendary architect who specialized in mid-century modern designs, did a considerable amount of work in the Pacific Palisades area. Sadly, the site of such architectural prolificness was ravaged by the Palisades fire, robbing architecture enthusiasts of homes the likes of which we’ll never see again. Of the three notable Neutra homes lost to the Los Angeles wildfires, the Freedman House was the oldest, having been constructed in 1949.
Neutra designed the home for a screenwriting couple with a baby on the way, so placed an emphasis on peace and privacy in his designs. The Freedman House stood a considerable distance away from the cross street upon which it held the corner lot. While Neutra’s plans were for a single-story home, it would eventually expand to a two-story under renovations guided by Nonzero/architecture.
The Hees House
The next Neutra house lost to the wildfires once stood right along the coast with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the ocean. Built in 1950, the Hees House set a modernist ideal championed by Neutra, blending the exterior and interior worlds. Rather than compete with the ocean’s natural beauty, it integrated it.
The Kesler House
In 1953, Neutra designed the final of his homes claimed by the Los Angeles wildfires. Builders constructed the Kesler House directly into a hillside, allowing for a novel design feature. The attached garage was actually on the second floor, accessible by a higher point of the hill. The living areas played with concepts of space efficiency, smoothly converting from a communal area to a guest bedroom with a double bunk bed.
The Keeler House
Neutra wasn’t the only modernist working in Pacific Palisades. It was a city that embraced the style as evidenced by our next fallen icon. Jazz vocalist Anne Keeler commissioned architect Ray Kappe to intentionally recreate the modernist flavor of one of his previous creations; a 1967 residence on Brooktree Road. What initially makes the Keeler House such an anomaly is that it was a mid-century home completed in 1991.
But this was more than a novelty home. Kappe masterfully employed a cantilever design with rustic post-and-beam aesthetics with a rich variety of woods mounted to concrete. It would never pass the updated California seismic codes and building standards that passed shortly afterward. Of course, an earthquake became the least of the Keeler House’s worries. The legendary home hit the market last April for $12 million, months before the Palisades fire reduced it to mere memory.
The Rowen House
Neutra and Kappe had good company in Dutch-born architect Josef Van der Kar. His mind was the one behind the modernist masterpiece of the Rowen House. Built for military mastermind Henry S. Rowen, the home was immortalized in the lens of photographer Julius Shulman. At the end of the 1950s, she chose the Rowen House as one of her subjects for the Getty Library catalog. Less than a month before the Los Angeles wildfires ravaged Pacific Palisades, owners listed the home on the market for just under $7.5 million.
The Andrew McNally House
Before GPS outfitted every car and phone, maps guided us around the world. And in the United States, few, if any, names were bigger in the mapping business than Rand McNally. Co-founder and president Andrew McNally saw a lot of potential in the fledgling community of Altadena and chose it as the spot for his lavish 22-room Queen Anne mansion, built between 1887 and 1890. Local architect Frederick Roehrig designed the looming Victorian beauty for $15,000 (roughly half a million dollars adjusted to today’s rates).
McNally exerted an immediate influence on the area, attracting friends to build alongside his pioneering mansion on East Mariposa Street and Santa Rosa Avenue. The growing popularity among the wealthy earned the area the enduring nickname of Millionaire’s Row. McNally was also at the root of Pasadena’s iconic Christmas Tree Lane. The tycoon ensured that his personal gardener kept the public cedar trees lining Santa Rosa in tip-top shape. Sadly, the Los Angeles wildfires tore through this very area, burning Christmas Tree Lane, Millionaire’s Row, and leveling the historic Andrew McNally House.
The Zane Grey Estate
While most notable properties take the names of their original owner, that wasn’t the case with the Zane Grey Estate. The Altadena mansion earned its moniker after the purchase of adventure novelist Zane Grey. After honeymooning in the area with his wife, he found himself smitten with the community. Yet, architects Myron Hunt and Elmer Grey designed the 1907 home at the instruction of manufacturing maven Arthur Herbert Woodward. Employing a Mediterranean Revival style popularized at the time, designers touted the Zane Grey Estate as Altadena’s first fireproof home. In hindsight, we can confirm that no home is truly fireproof. The remains of the historic Zane Grey Estate are a sad testament to that.
Zorthian Ranch
Armenian-American outsider artist Jirayr Zorthian loathed waste, a viewpoint he’d adopted after his family fled the Armenian genocide for the promise of the American dream. It’s why he built his vision from the discarded treasures of others, culminating in an ever-expanding residential sculpture called Zorthian Ranch; a 48-acre commune for artists established in 1946.
Anything from broken-down automobiles to discarded toys became building material at Zorthian Ranch. But this wasn’t a junkyard. It became a bohemian mecca attracting the likes of Bob Dylan, Andy Warhol, and Charlie Parker. The latter even became the center of an all-nude jazz free-for-all often referred to as the wildest party in the city’s history. Two buildings managed to weather the flames of the Eaton fire. But the Los Angeles wildfires more or less claimed the heart of the ranch which was just as much art as structure.
Reel Inn
It might not have been much to look at when stacked beside the likes of the Andrew McNally House or the Will Rogers Ranch. But the Reel Inn Malibu likely touched more people with its unpretentious menu of seafood favorites, scrawled across a chalkboard every morning. Or its walls of aged surfboards, exuding the classic character of Malibu. Even its basic counter service and paper plate presentation exuded a comfortably familiar West Coast take on Americana.
In 1986, Andy Leonard established the Reel Inn. And even as it was officially incorporated into Topanga State Park in 2001, the love of Malibu’s community kept it in the state’s Parks and Rec Department’s best interest to keep it in operation as a historic site. While the Reel Inn quickly fell to the Los Angeles wildfires, Leonard has expressed interest in rebuilding. But he also admits that’s ultimately a decision for the state to decide.
Moonshadows
As reports first came in that Moonshadows had been lost to the Palisades fire, an outpouring of social media posts resounded from honeymooners and romantics who held many fond memories of the oceanside seafood restaurant. Established in 1966, the spot quickly grew in popularity for its panoramic views and prime Pacific Coast Highway positioning.
But it was its creative menu, integrating seafood favorites through a variety of cultural cuisines, that kept people coming back. More notoriously, action movie fans across the country may recall Moonshadows as the restaurant Mel Gibson was leaving prior to his highly publicized 2006 DUI. But for Malibu residents, that’s a sour footnote in a decades-long string of pleasant memories.
The Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center
The Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center stood as a bastion for those of the Conservative Jewish faith since 1945. The Mission Revival style building was actually older, but the congregation acquired it in 1941, two decades after formally organizing. To commemorate its role as a community sanctuary, Jewish artist Peter Krasnow carved a wooden Torah ark.
In the mid-1970s, a fledgling Van Halen performed at the center after utilizing it as a practice space. Legendary guitarist Eddie Van Halen was mentored by Jewish-American guitarist Harvey Mandel, so the pairing was less of a stretch than David Lee Roth’s jeans. To be clear, Roth is also of Jewish heritage.
Though the structure itself was lost to the Los Angeles wildfires, the congregation perseveres with around 400 families under its membership. And quick thinking thankfully spared all of the 13 Torah scrolls that were safeguarded in the building.
Theosophical Society Library Center
The Theosophical Society Library Center wasn’t as fortunate when it came to preserving historic records and media. In 1951, the official headquarters of the Theosophical Society was in need of a new home. It found it in Altadena.
Unfamiliar with the Theosophical Society? It’s an organization that marries mysticism, science, and philosophy in pursuit of spiritual wisdom. Under this commitment, the organization collected rare texts spanning a variety of religions and esoteric mystical sources. Prior to the Los Angeles wildfires, the Theosophical Society Library Center housed over 40,000 obscure texts plus an art gallery and records dating back to the 1800s. The irretrievable loss carries echoes of the burning of the Library of Alexandria.
The Bunny Musem
Oddly enough, Altadena was also home to the world’s largest collection of rabbit memorabilia. And that’s a fact confirmed by the Guinness World Records since 1999. The Bunny Museum was the vision of sweethearts Candace Frazee and Steve Lubanski. Early in their relationship, they initiated a daily exchange of rabbit-themed memorabilia. The collection became so impressive, that they soon offered admission to their home where thousands of rabbits were on constant display.
By 2017, the collection became so unwieldy that the couple had to relocate from their Pasadena home to a commercial building in Altadena. The Bunny Museum was cheekily billed as “The Hoppiest Place on Earth” and displayed over 40,000 rabbit-themed mementos. Some of these were even of immense value, such as an ancient Roman brooch and an Egyptian amulet, both with rabbit theming. As a heck of a silver lining, the live rabbit residents of the museum were saved. Though the loss of the Bunny Museum was no doubt a personally devastating setback to the couple, they have vowed to rebuild in leaps and hops.
The High Cost of the Los Angeles Wildfires
We don’t intend this as an exhaustive list. The community doubtlessly
mourns the loss of Theatre Palisades. And who could forget the
Palisades Charter High and Elementary Schools. Or the Malibu Feed Bin
which already endured so much over the years. But every structure lost
in the fires was significant to someone. And though we’re watching the
dollar amount rise on the assessed damage from the fires, we have no way
to quantify the emotional loss. And that’s before we even factor in the
loss of life. It’s perhaps cruel to detract from the spirit of
rebuilding. But some things just can’t be rebuilt. And that’s the silent
pact we’re resigned to, no matter where in the world we call home.
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