In a sea of fire-leveled homes, some that stood from the 1920s until January 2025, tall chimneys stand out, having survived the flames of the Palisades fire.
The only vertical thing in sight, many chimneys are the sole reminder of the architectural style of the homes that once stood – the only representation of the heart of the families that inhabited the coastal town, many for generations.
Evan Curtis Charles Hall recently stood next to one surviving chimney on El Medio Avenue, the cinder block structure extending into the sky. Mikael Alinger flew a drone overhead.
Hall, a museum director and artist, and Alinger, who works in construction and preservation, came to the home to assess the structural integrity of the chimney, which once warmed a home built by famed modernist architect Ray Kappe.
They hope to preserve it to include in Project Chimney.
The brainchild of Hall, a project within House Museum, the preservation nonprofit he founded, Project Chimney seeks to save seven chimneys designed by significant architects or ones from the homes of notable Palisades residents.
Ultimately, they want to situate them on a piece of public land, forming a space that is part art installation, part post-fire community space.
“ The work is envisioned as a place of reflection and a place, where the voices or the figures from the past can speak and communicate to the folks that visit and stand in the presence of the memorial,” Hall said. “In some writing I did about this project, I described the chimneys as being like elders from the community that are permanently placed within the community to talk about the architectural heritage, talk about the homes that were lost, talk about the families that sat in front of the fireplaces and chatted over tea and coffee.”
Alinger took footage of the chimney on his drone to use later to calculate the weight of the chimney, arrange a crane with the correct weight capacity and determine if the chimney can be moved in one piece.
He and Hall are working against the clock.
With many sites set to be cleared by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, they need to move chimneys before they are destroyed. Chimneys on properties that are being privately cleared have a bit more time. At least 10 of the chimneys Hall had initially identified as potential inclusions have already been lost.
Hall has identified 55 possible chimneys to fill the seven spots in the envisioned installation, which will be part memorial–part learning space and overall an homage to the homes that were lost and the lives lived and families raised within them.
On April 15, he visited many of the sites, assessing the chimneys with Alinger, taking photos and taking in the details of each structure, envisioning how it may end up standing in the final form of Project Chimney. Hall is in the process of securing a space on public land for the installation.
He is in discussions with city and county officials to find a place in the Palisades to permanently hold the homage to the coastal enclave’s people and architecture.
“ It will reference other megalithic and monolithic structures and arrangements like Stonehenge,” Hall said. ”One of the most compelling things about these chimneys and these fireplaces is their presence, their volume, their weight, their mass, and standing in the presence of a one story chimney, but sometimes a two or a three story chimney is. It’s a surreal and kind of sublime experience for a viewer.
The house on El Medio Avenue was designed by California architect Ray Kappe in 1959. Kappe founded the architectural program at Cal Poly Pomona and the Southern California Institute of Architecture and was an important figure in modern architecture in California. Kappe worked with the Erdley family on the El Medio home, who still own the property today.
The chimney is made of cinder blocks, a material Kappe also used in other properties he built in the Palisades. His work frequently featured a mixing of materials, with notable properties heavily featuring cinder blocks, glass and wood in designs that complimented the surrounding landscapes. Kappe designed many homes in the area, including his own, the Kappe Residence on Brooktree Road, a modern/mid-century modern home on a hillside.
Alongside Kappe’s Erdley Residence and Keeler house, homes designed by other prominent architects, including Richard Neutra and Frank Lloyd Wright Jr., were lost to the blaze.
Through Project Chimney, the chimneys of these homes, which often encapsulate the larger themes of each architect’s style and the visual essence of the lost home in the form of a hearth, will be able to represent the pre-fire architectural history that was otherwise lost in its physical form.
Many anticipate the architectural landscape of the Palisades shifting dramatically as people rebuild the thousands of homes lost, the project will preserve the past.
Seeing the chimney of a home “helps you visualize and feel the tactile and tangible elements of people’s homes and lives and how they’ve been so dramatically altered in the last few months, and that that is something that people can return to over time,” said Lindsay Mulcahy, of the LA Conservancy, which is working with House Museum to support the project.
“One thing that I’ve noticed in the wake of the fires is how much people are talking about and really mourning the historic places that have been lost,” Mulcahy said. “And I think it’s a real testament to the value that historic places hold and our memory and our identity and how we connect to one another, and we really hope and intend that those sites and buildings can continue to be places that people connect to one another, that they relate to their community.”
For Brigitte Grice, a born-and-raised Palisadian who is part of the Pacific Palisades Preservation Coalition that’s working to support Project Chimney, the preservation of the architectural and aesthetic culture of the area is imperative. For her, the project’s mission to preserve that history alongside the symbolism of chimneys being so central to a home, combined in a manner she says is moving, especially in the face of so much change and uncertainty following the fire.
“ I think when you think about a chimney and you think about the history of it, it goes back to this idea of the hearth. And I think the hearth has always been this place for storytelling, for gathering, for community, whether it’s in a personal home or if it’s outside as a campfire setting,” Grice said. “So I really think with Project Chimney, I think the physical space is an important element, having things in the physical, especially in a digital world.”
Hall aims to center the families who lost their homes as he undertakes this project. He has been touched by the families that want to donate their chimneys, often the only thing they have left of their home, to the project.
He has been getting positive reactions from the community, appreciating his zeal for preservation and the ultimate goal of a permanent public work to honor all that was lost in the fire. This positive interest was exemplified as a group struck up a discussion with Hall on El Medio Avenue.
Jonathan Weisberg listened to Hall describing Project Chimney and invited him across the street to the ruins of his childhood home, lost to the fire, to take a look at the chimney. He said it was built from rocks from a Rancho Palos Verdes quarry and inlaid with shells.
Hall examined the chimney, getting close to the shells and snapping photos, as Weisberg told the story of his parents, both 85, who own the home. They won’t be rebuilding, The chimney now is the only physical representation of the home with the ocean view his family lived in for decades.
“Good luck, you’re doing a good thing,” Weisberg said as he bid Hall goodbye.
