The top of a smoldering utility pole hung in the air from a power line in Topanga Valley Saturday morning. The telephone pole itself was burnt down. The remaining crosspiece resembled a burning cross. By the time Bob Merrett videotaped the eerie scene, firefighters had managed to halt the progress of the flaming patch that was inferno-lashing elsewhere.
Located just 100 meters from the front door of Mele's store, Mele Mercantile (a destination for fashion and interior designers who have followed Mele's unique tastes for decades) was founded in the 1920s. A fire line was installed at Camp Wildwood, a summer camp that was established and is no longer in use. It was later turned into a resort and community center by two local residents, Julia and Oka Stewart. Almost everything to the west and along the Pacific Coast Highway was burnt.
“The canyon is like a funnel that passes right in front of me,” Meret said by phone from a friend's apartment in Corona del Mar, where he was evacuated. “If it had gotten to me, the whole city would have been wiped out.”
The fact is that it did not represent the miraculous survival of an ecosystem as fragile and abnormal as it was in its natural state. Eccentrically retaining the counterculture spirit that once played a major role in defining the Southern California lifestyle, Topanga sits on the western edge of a vast canyon cut into the Santa Monica Mountains by a series of Cyclops knives. It is located in
Of the 28 valleys, valleys such as Laurel, Beachwood, and Runyan may be better known beyond the Los Angeles Basin, primarily due to their place in rock and roll history and lore. Although those places have gradually succumbed to the irresistible forces of gentrification over the decades, Topanga Canyon remains a treasure trove of its natural beauty, its rebellious spirit, and its former history of bootleggers and drug traffickers. Clinging to the persistent aura that remains as a fortress. Bisected by a winding mountain road, Topanga straddles the mountains, connecting the vast expanses of the San Fernando Valley with the vast blue ocean.
“One of the things we are most proud of in Topanga is the strength of our community,” said Stephen Ashkenazi, a longtime canyon resident. By some standards, Ashkenazi's Elsewhere luxury hotel complex, built on 39 hilltop acres that was once the Howard Johnson family's vacation ranch, is a sign of gentrification. Maybe. That's thanks to his efforts to maintain the hotel's communal, local feel (he provided free accommodation to the area's temporary fire brigade, known as the Heat Hawks), and the light he left on the property. isn't it.
“Believe me, I know how lucky I am to have held on,” said Ashkenazy, who also owns the four-star Petit Hermitage hotel in West Hollywood.
Self-taught social historian Emmeline Summerton's Instagram account Lost Canyon LA has become an addictive source of Los Angeles history and lore. The story of Topanga Canyon is one of unlikely survival, a completely wild place less than an hour's drive away. From the city's business center.
“I don't know how much people outside of Los Angeles know about this,” she says, adding that the canyon itself, home to coyotes, rattlesnakes, and mountain lions, and its unusual counterculture reputation have long been worn. He spoke about both communities. As a proof of pride.
“It has a very rural feel, with a small local community,” Ms Summerton said. This community remains heavily influenced by the first wave of New Age pioneers. There were free-love naturist retreats like Elysium Fields and Sandstone Retreat, as well as Moonfire Ranch, she explained. Moonfire Ranch is a 60-acre sanctuary founded in the late 1950s by Lewis Beach Marvin III, an animal rights activist and heir to S. & Company. H Green Stamp, a once-popular grocery store reward system.
“It was really about people harvesting sunlight and rainwater and living off the grid,” Somerton said, continuing long after a series of real estate booms forever changed the character of others. , talked about his tolerance for oddballs and eccentrics. There are fewer remote canyons. “A lot of things have changed and new kinds of hippie-type people are emerging, like influencers and wellness entrepreneurs. So it's certainly more upscale and expensive than it used to be,” she added. “But this is still the only canyon where you can still feel the way it was.”
This meant she was a haven for rebels and outsiders, artists like Neil Young, who wrote his groundbreaking solo album After the Gold Rush at home. In the case of storied '60s groups like Canned Heat, its members once worked as the house band at the Topanga Coral Club (which burned down not once but twice). Linda Ronstadt went solo days after quitting the folk-rock trio the Stone Ponies, creating music with the musicians who would later form the Eagles. American actor Will Geer built an open-air amphitheater on a hillside and named it Theatricum Botanicum. The name comes from a 17th century English botany book.
To this day, an itinerant community known informally as the “Creekers” remains in Topanga Canyon, whose members live in encampments along a stream in the hills behind the defunct Topanga Ranch Motel. He is living an extraordinary life. Residents market on horseback at Topanga Creek General Store. Some naturists hike the canyon trails wearing nothing but sun hats and sneakers.
Of course, this was before the wildfires.
On the first day of the Palisades fire, the Reel Inn, the popular Malibu fish restaurant opened by Teddy and Andy Leonard in 1986 at the base of Topanga Canyon, was gone. Also gone is the bustling Thai restaurant Cholada. Its takeout was a staple of coastal dining and a source of catering for art world heavyweights who regularly traveled to Los Angeles for the annual Frieze Art Fair. Topanga Ranch Motel, a bungalow-style motel complex built by William Randolph Hearst in 1929 to house railroad workers, and Malibu Feed, a remnant from the days when this stretch of California coast was still largely farmland. The bottle also disappeared.
Entire hillsides and washes were reduced to ashes, and by late that afternoon, so was the stretch of improbable multimillion-dollar homes along the Pacific Coast Highway, where the canyon meets the water.
“If you want to use the word surreal, it was surreal,” Mele said of the devastation.
Almost miraculously, given the destruction surrounding the area, the fire did not reach Teatricum Botanicum, and a dining table was placed on the stone terrace by the stream, and the gift shop was stocked with merchandise. The Inn of the Seventh Ray was unharmed. Crystals and mystical arcana.
“So far, Topanga has been largely spared,” actress Wendy Malick said by phone from her ranch on a ridge above Topanga.
“The wind was in our favor,” she added. “However, we are not out of the woods yet. Things can change in an instant.”
And indeed, cyclonic winds — some of the most ferocious, Biblical winds in memory — began blowing again on Monday.
“The fire didn't come to us last week,” said French-American designer Nick Fouquet. His Western-style hats are worn by celebrities such as Tom Brady, Rihanna, J. Balvin, and LeBron James. When the first warnings sounded last week, Mr. Fouquet ran up the coast from his headquarters in Venice to the topanga geodesic dome he calls home, enlisting the help of local residents to drain pools and repair homes and buildings. was soaked with water. Surroundings.
Fouquet said the scene was being repeated across the valley, and neighbors were tasked with “house triage” to put out small burns before they became larger. Early video of the fire, which Fouquet sent to this reporter, showed bright red flames covering a ridge less than 400 meters from the property line. “The wind, the firefighters, a myriad of factors were on our side,” Fouquet said.
Among these factors are continued evictions despite evacuation orders, and the fact that wildfires, earthquakes, mudslides, and rockfalls have continued consistently over the decades as they visit the canyon. As before, there was a close-knit community triage effort that continued to act despite evacuation orders. A seismically unstable coastal desert on the edge of a continent.
“Topanga always felt like the ugly stepchild that no one cared about,” Fouquet said, acknowledging her role in her current reprieve from both the firefighters and fate. “We're used to doing things ourselves.”
