Museum dedicated to Hollywood star Will Rogers destroyed in LA wildfires
January 9, 2025 | In the PressFrom Museums Journals (https://www.museumsassociation.org/museums-journal/news/2025/01/museum-dedicated-to-hollywood-star-will-rogers-destroyed-in-la-wildfires/#)
A historic ranch museum that once belonged to the early Hollywood movie star Will Rogers has been destroyed in the Los Angeles wildfires.
The 1920s building burned down in the devastating blaze that ripped through the Pacific Palisades area on the west side of the city this week, the LA Times reports.
The actor was one of the most popular stars of the 1920s and thirties before his untimely death in a plane crash in 1935. The 31-room home was donated to the state of California upon his wife’s death in 1944 and became a memorial museum and park.
A statement from the actor’s great-granddaughter, Jennifer Rogers-Etcheverry, said: “The Rogers family is devastated by the loss of the California ranch and the overwhelming loss of the community. Our hearts go out to all those [neighbours] who have lost their homes.”
The fire, fuelled by wind gusts of up to 80 miles per hour, also destroyed parts of Topanga State Park, including the historic Topanga Ranch Motel once owned by William Randolph Hearst.
“California State Parks mourns the loss of these treasured natural and cultural resources, and our hearts go out to everyone impacted by the devastating fires in the Los Angeles area,” said State Parks director Armando Quintero.
“Since yesterday afternoon, we are directing all available resources into the emergency response effort and working to secure and protect as much as we can at affected nearby state parks. We are deeply grateful to our parks staff and all partner agencies for their swift actions. Our top priority remains the safety of the public, our employees and the responders bravely battling the fires.”
A number of other LA cultural treasures were threatened by the wildfires, which are ongoing and have spread across the city due to strong winds. Five fatalities have been reported so far, with that figure expected to rise.
The fire burned vegetation in the grounds of the Getty Villa Museum, but the building and collections are safe Wikimedia Commons
On Tuesday 7 January, the blaze reached the grounds of the Getty Villa Museum in Pacific Palisades, which houses an internationally significant collection of Greek and Roman antiquities in a building modelled on the Villa de Papiri in Herculaneum.
The museum has since confirmed that staff and collections are safe, but the villa will remain closed indefinitely. The institution, which is operated by the J Paul Getty Trust, said it had implemented significant “fire mitigation efforts” in recent years, including brush clearance, onsite water storage, irrigation throughout the grounds and a state-of-the art air handling system. The trust’s other site, the Getty Centre, which is 10 miles away from the villa, was threatened by wildfires in 2019.
The Thomas Mann House and Villa Aurora, two neighbouring 1940s villas that now operate as a museum, may have suffered damage in the fire. The Villa Aurora was built to house German and Jewish refugees during World War II, while the Thomas Mann House belonged to Nobel Prize laureate Thoman Mann, who fled Germany in 1939 due to his opposition to the Nazis.
In a statement on Wednesday 8 January, the museum said both structures were safe but that “the impact of the fires on our two houses will only become fully visible in the coming days”. The museum warned that “the situation in the immediate vicinity of Villa Aurora is especially dire and we must expect the worst”.
Some cultural sites have confirmed they are safe following concerns about their survival. The Eames House, an architectural gem built in 1949 by designer Charles Eames, has not been damaged by the blaze so far, a statement from the Eames Foundation said on Wednesday. Staff removed some objects from the house before evacuating on Tuesday.
The Norton Simon Museum, which houses European art and sculpture collections, is also in the evacuation zone but a statement from the museum confirmed that the building and collections are safe.
As of today (Thursday 9 January), thousands of people are currently being evacuated from areas including the Hollywood Hills and Hollywood Boulevard as the blaze continues to spread.
The boulevard is home to a number of cultural institutions, including the Hollywood Museum, which houses the most extensive collection of Hollywood movie memorabilia in the world and is located in the historic Max Factor building. The museum has not yet made a statement on social media.
The disaster has led to the closure of many cultural sites across the city outside of fire-affected areas, including the Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, Hammer Museum, MOCA Grand Avenue and MOCA Geffen, and the Getty Centre.
This article was informed by reporting in LA Times, ArtNet and USA Today
