Last month’s firestorm destroyed more than 9,000 homes and buildings in Los Angeles County. In the unincorporated community of Altadena, the Eaton Fire leveled entire neighborhoods and, in some cases, left behind only chimneys and fireplaces.
Many of the homes here were built in the Arts and Crafts style, which was popular around a century ago. And some of them included distinctive tiles that were created by a local artist. A few weeks after the fire tore through this community, a group called Save the Tiles formed to begin saving historical fireplace tiles from those chimneys so homeowners can include them in their rebuilt houses.
It started with Eric Garland, whose home barely survived. He’d been on vacation with his family when the fire struck, and his neighbors saved his house by dumping water from a nearby pool. His family is still displaced, but one day, he was walking through the neighborhood after the fire with his 18-year-old daughter.
“And it was just an exercise in taking a few steps and weeping, and taking a few steps and weeping. And part of it was just incremental loss, wading into the next neighbor and the next and the next. And part of it was gasping at what remained … There’s nothing. It’s just a debris field,” Garland said. “And in the middle of the ash pile, where that house should be, is this beautiful, red brick chimney, standing in the middle of nowhere and at the base of it, this perfect work of art — this fireplace that was just like the day it was made.”
Many of the Arts and Crafts-style homes in Altadena featured tiles made by artist Ernest Batchelder. In fact, Batchelder tiles became the defining characteristic of Altadena and nearby Pasadena homes.
Batchelder moved to the area in the early 1900s and started making handmade, decorated art tile in a backyard kiln behind his bungalow. His small setup allowed him to make only 150 tiles at a time. The tiles are soft, metallic colors in brown and blue hues. Some have detailed scenes depicting majestic trees, peacocks and other animals.
And these tiles survived the Eaton Fire because they’re a product of fire themselves. The flames from the fire acted like a second firing in a kiln. So when Garland walked the neighborhood with his daughter, she turned to him with an observation.
“‘Dad, that’s all they have left,’” Garland recalled his daughter Lucy telling him. “And I said, ‘Lucy, I think that’s all this neighborhood has left.’ And she said, ‘Well, who’s going to save the fireplaces?’”
And the idea to “save the tiles, save the town” was born. By chance, the Garlands found a post on Reddit by a mason who wanted to do the same thing. So they teamed up.
In a single weekend earlier this month, about 50 volunteers canvassed the entire fire disaster zone, cataloging 200 surviving fireplaces with historic tiles in the area, including Batchelder tiles.
The group started contacting owners for permission to bring in masons to remove the tiles and restore them for free so they can be used in rebuilds — bringing a tiny bit of the home’s DNA to live into the future.
Devon Douglas and her mason dad, Cliff, are part of a professional crew that’s been carefully chiseling tile from the rubble. On a recent Sunday, she filled boxes with Claycraft Pottery tiles and stuffed the pockets of her apron with small tiles to add to the stacks.
“It’s so big of a devastation for everybody involved, and it’s just the smallest piece of something that we can do,” Douglas said.
She said the fire was so hot that, in many cases, the flames burned off dirt and grime from the tiles.
“They look new. And it’s almost bigger than just the tile. It’s symbolic [on] its own,” she said.
But this crew of volunteers is working against the clock. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has already started clearing lots with bulldozers, making way for people to rebuild. Garland said they are trying to beat the bulldozers.
To speed up the process, Garland said they are trying to find funding to bring in workers to help. They’ve started a GoFundMe campaign. And they’re looking for volunteers who have expertise in masonry, as well as a longer-term place to store the tiles since rebuilding will take a while.
They hope their work will build Altadena’s future, one tile at a time.
“It’s better than stars aligning because it’s people aligning,” Garland said. “It’s a community aligning around what we can do together.”