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The Guardian
05-07-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Charred chimneys are all that's left of these LA midcentury homes. Inside the quest to save them
By mid-morning last Thursday, Evan Hall was standing near the top of Monument Street in Los Angeles's Pacific Palisades, looking out over the Pacific Ocean. He was running out of time. Hall stood in the charred ruins of a 1953 home designed by the modernist architect Richard Neutra. Beside him, a handful of hard-hat-clad preservationists, masons and construction workers all looked up at the same thing: a chimney. It was all that remained of the home consumed by January's massive wildfires, and the reason they'd all gathered. For months, Hall and his team have been scrambling to salvage and relocate chimneys from several of the Palisades' architecturally and historically significant homes – a task that has been both logistically and financially formidable. Now, they were facing a 30 June deadline – set by the Army Corps of Engineers, which is overseeing the post-fire cleanup – to finish this monumental task. Hall, an artist and founding director of the non-profit House Museum, had organized the group as part of Project Chimney, the preservation initiative he is spearheading. Hall himself had evacuated during the fire, and as he reeled in the days and weeks that followed it, the chimneys that dotted the burnt landscape moved him as symbols of the depth of the loss. Project Chimney aims to use them to create a memorial for the community, at an as-yet-unidentified site. The group is petitioning the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy for a location, Hall said, and in the meantime the chimneys will be held in storage. 'Other organizations went through the grounds and said: 'Oh, there's nothing here, the structure's burned,'' Hall said. 'But nobody was looking for what could be salvaged.' Hall and his collaborators have been workshopping their process on the fly. First, they identified over 55 surviving historically significant chimneys, including some designed by architectural titans such as Neutra, as well as Frank Lloyd Wright Jr, Eric Lloyd Wright, Paul R Williams, and Ray Kappe. 'We began just kind of placing the images next to one another, trying to understand the different design sensibilities,' he said. 'And it was actually really beautiful and surprising to see the range and diversity.' They began reaching out to homeowners to ask if they'd be open to having their chimneys salvaged, and ultimately narrowed their list to seven. But raising the money has been challenging and slow, Hall said. On top of that the Army Corps – which has for the last six months been methodically cleaning the mangled, toxic waste left by the fires – accelerated the timeline to finish the cleanup. While the Corps has been supportive of Hall and his team's work, it also needs to finish its debris removal in the Palisades, and as of 26 June had given the group a deadline of 30 June to finish removing the chimneys. Major Matt Grussing, deputy commander of the Army Corps' emergency field office for the Palisades, has been coordinating with Hall and Project Chimney as the Corps nears the end of its debris removal work. 'We're trying to be as flexible as we can while still meeting our primary mission of ending the public health and safety emergency,' he said. Project Chimney successfully moved its first chimney, designed by Ray Kappe, at the end of May. The Neutra chimney on Monument was the second, and the group had scrambled to secure the funds and crew to make its relocation happen. Hall had no idea if he would be able to move the other five before the demolition crews rolled in. All around the house on Monument, lots had already been cleared, with flat, orderly dirt squares replacing the wreckage, and bent metal and ash the fire left in its wake. 1367 Monument's mess – shards of porcelain, bedsprings and a chimney – stood out even more in late June because of this. New plants were growing in the neighborhood, green mingling with the char. Over the crest down towards the ocean, the wooden scaffolding of new home construction was popping up, too. Andy Gerber, a mason and president of the Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers Local 4, had come out to volunteer his time and expertise. He felt respect for the handiwork he saw as he and his colleagues chipped away at the mortar. 'It was all just built correctly, nice and plumb, flat, good lines, and the bond was good,' he said. 'I think just the stone itself is beautiful.' 'I've never done anything like this,' he added. 'I'm hopeful that it works.' Ean Frank, a preservationist, watched as the team prepped the chimney for removal. He had designed their process, which involved building a steel cage around the chimney itself and disassembling it in large pieces, in an effort to alter the chimney as little as possible. The group is 'trying to preserve the patina of the fire,' Frank said. Usually, he added, he would have months to plan for a project of this scale, plus substantial budgets to work with and manpower to support. The improvisation meant dealing with issues such as sandstone unexpectedly crumbling off the chimney's facade, as it was doing today, while the group prepared to move the first section, which Frank estimated weighed 7,000lbs. But he felt like he needed to be involved. 'The idea that the chimneys are the only thing that remains of these people's memories is incredibly profound,' Frank said. 'This disaster and the memories they have here won't just be paved over.' Lynn Fehr, 97, visited the site at Monument for the first time last week, as Project Chimney ramped up its work. She lived in the home for 65 years and raised her five children there. The house spoke to her on both emotional and architectural levels. She had become interested in Neutra after hearing his wife Dione speak at a University of California, Los Angeles, event, she said, and fell in love with his work's clean lines. She loved waking up early to look at the Santa Monica Bay and Palos Verdes and even sometimes Catalina Island in the distance from the bluff. As for the chimney project, she found it perplexing at first. 'I've never heard of chimneys being saved,' she said. But she liked the idea and agreed to it, even though she had no particular fondness for the fireplace. She hardly remembered using it beyond the first year she lived there, when everything felt shiny and new. It took her six months to finally come see the ruins. When she did, the chimney team was working. She brought two of her children with her for support, and told them to bring tissues for her. But when she arrived, something strange happened. 'I had no sense of loss,' she said. The house had served its purpose. 'We had a marvelous time living there. We enjoyed it while we had it,' she said. 'What can you do with something when you can't change anything?' A week later, past the deadline, Project Chimney had managed to relocate a third chimney. As of 3 July, the Army Corps still had about 75 of 4,000 clearance requests left in the Palisades, Major Grussing said. All of the chimneys on Hall's list were still standing. He was hopeful he could get to them in time.
The Guardian
04-07-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Charred chimneys are all that's left of these LA midcentury homes. Inside the quest to save them
By mid-morning last Thursday, Evan Hall was standing near the top of Monument Street in Los Angeles's Pacific Palisades, looking out over the Pacific Ocean. He was running out of time. Hall stood in the charred ruins of a 1953 home designed by the modernist architect Richard Neutra. Beside him, a handful of hard-hat-clad preservationists, masons and construction workers all looked up at the same thing: a chimney. It was all that remained of the home consumed by January's massive wildfires, and the reason they'd all gathered. For months, Hall and his team have been scrambling to salvage and relocate chimneys from several of the Palisades' architecturally and historically significant homes – a task that has been both logistically and financially formidable. Now, they were facing a 30 June deadline – set by the Army Corps of Engineers, which is overseeing the post-fire cleanup – to finish this monumental task. Hall, an artist and founding director of the non-profit House Museum, had organized the group as part of Project Chimney, the preservation initiative he is spearheading. Hall himself had evacuated during the fire, and as he reeled in the days and weeks that followed it, the chimneys that dotted the burnt landscape moved him as symbols of the depth of the loss. Project Chimney aims to use them to create a memorial for the community, at an as-yet-unidentified site. The group is petitioning the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy for a location, Hall said, and in the meantime the chimneys will be held in storage. 'Other organizations went through the grounds and said: 'Oh, there's nothing here, the structure's burned,'' Hall said. 'But nobody was looking for what could be salvaged.' Hall and his collaborators have been workshopping their process on the fly. First, they identified over 55 surviving historically significant chimneys, including some designed by architectural titans such as Neutra, as well as Frank Lloyd Wright Jr, Eric Lloyd Wright, Paul R Williams, and Ray Kappe. 'We began just kind of placing the images next to one another, trying to understand the different design sensibilities,' he said. 'And it was actually really beautiful and surprising to see the range and diversity.' They began reaching out to homeowners to ask if they'd be open to having their chimneys salvaged, and ultimately narrowed their list to seven. But raising the money has been challenging and slow, Hall said. On top of that the Army Corps – which has for the last six months been methodically cleaning the mangled, toxic waste left by the fires – accelerated the timeline to finish the cleanup. While the Corps has been supportive of Hall and his team's work, it also needs to finish its debris removal in the Palisades, and as of 26 June had given the group a deadline of 30 June to finish removing the chimneys. Major Matt Grussing, deputy commander of the Army Corps' emergency field office for the Palisades, has been coordinating with Hall and Project Chimney as the Corps nears the end of its debris removal work. 'We're trying to be as flexible as we can while still meeting our primary mission of ending the public health and safety emergency,' he said. Project Chimney successfully moved its first chimney, designed by Ray Kappe, at the end of May. The Neutra chimney on Monument was the second, and the group had scrambled to secure the funds and crew to make its relocation happen. Hall had no idea if he would be able to move the other five before the demolition crews rolled in. All around the house on Monument, lots had already been cleared, with flat, orderly dirt squares replacing the wreckage, and bent metal and ash the fire left in its wake. 1367 Monument's mess – shards of porcelain, bedsprings and a chimney – stood out even more in late June because of this. New plants were growing in the neighborhood, green mingling with the char. Over the crest down towards the ocean, the wooden scaffolding of new home construction was popping up, too. Andy Gerber, a mason and president of the Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers Local 4, had come out to volunteer his time and expertise. He felt respect for the handiwork he saw as he and his colleagues chipped away at the mortar. 'It was all just built correctly, nice and plumb, flat, good lines, and the bond was good,' he said. 'I think just the stone itself is beautiful.' 'I've never done anything like this,' he added. 'I'm hopeful that it works.' Ean Frank, a preservationist, watched as the team prepped the chimney for removal. He had designed their process, which involved building a steel cage around the chimney itself and disassembling it in large pieces, in an effort to alter the chimney as little as possible. The group is 'trying to preserve the patina of the fire,' Frank said. Usually, he added, he would have months to plan for a project of this scale, plus substantial budgets to work with and manpower to support. The improvisation meant dealing with issues such as sandstone unexpectedly crumbling off the chimney's facade, as it was doing today, while the group prepared to move the first section, which Frank estimated weighed 7,000lbs. But he felt like he needed to be involved. 'The idea that the chimneys are the only thing that remains of these people's memories is incredibly profound,' Frank said. 'This disaster and the memories they have here won't just be paved over.' Lynn Fehr, 97, visited the site at Monument for the first time last week, as Project Chimney ramped up its work. She lived in the home for 65 years and raised her five children there. The house spoke to her on both emotional and architectural levels. She had become interested in Neutra after hearing his wife Dione speak at a University of California, Los Angeles, event, she said, and fell in love with his work's clean lines. She loved waking up early to look at the Santa Monica Bay and Palos Verdes and even sometimes Catalina Island in the distance from the bluff. As for the chimney project, she found it perplexing at first. 'I've never heard of chimneys being saved,' she said. But she liked the idea and agreed to it, even though she had no particular fondness for the fireplace. She hardly remembered using it beyond the first year she lived there, when everything felt shiny and new. It took her six months to finally come see the ruins. When she did, the chimney team was working. She brought two of her children with her for support, and told them to bring tissues for her. But when she arrived, something strange happened. 'I had no sense of loss,' she said. The house had served its purpose. 'We had a marvelous time living there. We enjoyed it while we had it,' she said. 'What can you do with something when you can't change anything?' A week later, past the deadline, Project Chimney had managed to relocate a third chimney. As of 3 July, the Army Corps still had about 75 of 4,000 clearance requests left in the Palisades, Major Grussing said. All of the chimneys on Hall's list were still standing. He was hopeful he could get to them in time.
Daily Mirror
11-05-2025
- Daily Mirror
Charming overlooked town surrounded by animal-filled meadows is day trip heaven
Few towns can boast a mummified cat and the decapitated head of an Archbishop among their tourist attractions. Fewer still were home to one of Britain's greatest painters, and are surrounded by ancient commonland where cows freely pasture. Sudbury is a beautiful town with a rich industrial and cultural history, yet like many of the sweet settlements in East Anglia, it suffers from its location. 'We're on the way to nowhere here. No one comes to Sudbury by accident,' a volunteer in Gainsborough's House Museum tells me as we admire the gallery's latest exhibition - a selection of 18th-century masterpieces borrowed from Kenwood House in Hampstead Heath. Sudbury's problem is that it's very much at the end of the line. The Gainsborough Line to be specific. You'll have to take the 50-minute train from London Liverpool Street to Marks Tey and change onto a three-carriage trundler, which emerges from leafy cuttings to ride high above the pastoral beauty of the Stour Valley on a 32-arch viaduct (the second largest brick-built structure in England) before terminating in Sudbury. It also finds itself competing with its neighbours in the informal 'great beauties of Suffolk' rankings. Seven miles up the road is Lavenham, Britain's best preserved medieval village where rickety houses dyed pink with pigs blood limewash line the streets. Over on the coast the pastel colours of Aldeburgh sit above a wide East Anglian pebble beach. The most direct competition comes 15 miles down the River Stour in Flatford, where John Constable painted The Hay Wain. Today the white mill that inspired the painting remains as it did in the early 19th century, like much of Constable Country does as it merges into Gainsborough territory while you make your way back west along the Stour River to Sudbury. Approached by foot, the town could exist at any point in the last thousand years, thanks to the meadow's commonland status which have kept this Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty a haven for moorhen, field mice, collared dove and, as my niece kept pointing out, 'ducks!' On a sunny day a table up on The Mill's terrace is the best place to sit and watch the wildlife, the cattle roaming and the toddlers toddling by the water. When the sun is shining is also the best time to visit Gainsborough's House, due to the way the light bounces around its spacious galleries, filled, of course, with the artist's work, but also modern pieces responding to Thomas by the likes of Royal Academician Katherine Jones. After looking around, you could do worse than a cup of tea beneath the branches in the museum's garden. Other places in the town to enjoy a bite include vegan joint Cradle, brunch specialists Painters at the Angel and, as everyone I met kept recommending, The Henny Swan. The 17th-century pub is an hour's walk out of town along the Stour and rewards those who make the journey with a riverside garden and an esteemed Ploughman's. 'Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing–absolutely nothing–half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats,' Ratty once opined to Moley in A.A. Milne's Wind in the Willows, and he is right. Happily, to this end, both the Henny and the Sudbury Boat House are on hand with cheap rowing boats, paddle boards, and kayak options, which can be used to travel between Sudbury's riverside pubs. Once you've done messing about on boats it'll be time to get down to the serious business of Sudbury's second and third most popular tourist attractions - the mummified cat and the head. The poor moggy is entombed in a glass cabinet at the Mill, where she was found during a conversion in 1971. It's likely that the cabinet had been there for 300 years, in line with an old Suffolk tradition that saw live cats buried in the foundations of buildings to ward off witches, warlocks, and fires. The head is arguably less sad but more appointment viewing. Simon of Sudbury was another local lad done good, the wise young man working his way up from Rector of Wickhambrook to the Archbishop of Canterbury in the 14th century. Unfortunately, he took his seat and the role of Lord Chancellor just as the Government decided to pay off the King's huge war debts with a poll tax. In came the revolting peasants from the Home Counties, and off came Simon's head. Before the spike he was impaled on was used to hold up the later defeated People's Champion Wat Tyler, Simon's head was spirited away back to his hometown and tucked away in St Gregory's Church. Today, if you ask the caretaker nicely, they might get it out of storage and give you a look.
Boston Globe
07-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
In their participatory performance, ‘NO SLEEPING,' these artists invite small audiences into the felt memory of a historic house
'The oldest brother was killed in a typhoon in Southeast Asia when he was 27 years old,' said Lorie Komlyn, the museum's assistant director. 'The two other brothers built this house as a memorial for him,' and placed the heart above the door. In March, interdisciplinary artists Sue Murad and Deb Todd Wheeler toured the Forbes House as they scouted locations for their upcoming participatory performance 'NO SLEEPING,' curated by Shana Dumont Garr. With soundscapes, video projection, observational activities, and a simple dinner, 'NO SLEEPING' invites small audiences into the felt memory of a historic house to explore efforts to preserve what — or who — occupied the house. Wheeler and Murad will stage performances twice a month starting in June. They're still seeking potential sites. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Artists Deb Todd Wheeler, left, and Sue Murad in one of the bedrooms at the Forbes House Museum in Milton. David L. Ryan/Globe Staff Advertisement Where to find them : Age : The collaboration was 'born on March 7, 2024, in my living room,' Wheeler said. Originally from : Murad is from Derry, N.H. Wheeler spent much of her childhood in Rye, N.Y. Sue Murad and Deb Todd Wheeler eye cellphones while touring the Forbes House Museum. David L. Ryan/Globe Staff Live in : Both are decades-long Boston artists. 'This stew of the sciences, medicine, artists, and academics is such a specific environment for making,' Wheeler said. 'With people in this area, we say, 'This is what I'm doing.' And they say, 'I don't really know what you're talking about, but I'm down.'' Advertisement Making a living : Wheeler teaches at Clark University. Murad, a videographer, documents other artists, dancers, performance artists, and musicians. 'Does my personal work from my soul earn me money? Not really,' Murad said. 'Do I make a living as an artist in the world doing film and video work as a gig worker? Yeah.' A guide book used by artists Deb Todd Wheeler and Sue Murad, who are exploring historic homes to create their upcoming live performance, "NO SLEEPING." David L. Ryan/Globe Staff How they started : Wheeler spends time in the unaltered bedroom of her son Lucas, who died in 2017 at 18, where she has taken pinhole photographs. With that ancient technology, she discovered dust motes moving and light shifting in the stillness and was inspired to script a video. She invited Murad to help expand the project into a more communal investigation of memory, grief, and preservation in historic sites. What they make : 'There's a tour like we just went on — we're really visitors that are learning about the details and the history of the family,' Murad said. 'With our tour it's almost the flip of that, where the visitors are invited to share their story, their view, or what they're seeing as poignant, interesting. Curious.' In the basement kitchen of the Forbes House Museum, from left, Deb Todd Wheeler, Maureen Coffey, and Sue Murad. Coffey is a food artist who will prepare meals for "NO SLEEPING." David L. Ryan/Globe Staff Why they work in historic houses : 'Instead of 'Look at the artists doing a thing,'' Wheeler said, 'I'm always really interested in how the audience becomes 'us.'' That second-person plural is expansive. 'It's not just the Sue and me 'we.' The house is the 'we,'' Wheeler said. 'More importantly, the people who donate their time to the house — also 'we.' How are we holding these histories through objects?' Advice for artists : 'Remember to dream,' Wheeler said. Sue Murad takes a detail photograph of a decorative light in a stairway inside the Forbes House Museum in Milton as Deb Todd Wheeler looks on. David L. Ryan/Globe Staff Cate McQuaid can be reached at
