A Visit to the $6.5M Surviving Mansion Amid LA’s Worst Wildfire

Los Angeles, a city renowned for its glamour, hid an enchanting corner where the sense of community echoed in every alley and luxury dwellings fetched around $5 million. However, a recent conflagration ignited divergent dreams for the area’s evolution. I was requested to attend a house tour of a grandiose $6.5 million mansion by Simon Beardmore, a real estate professional, in mid-February.

Upon reaching the destination, I was greeted by a pastel-shaded gigantic house, boasting eight immaculate bathrooms, views overlooking the serene ocean, floors decked out in delicate walnut, and a kitchen designed explicitly for gourmet cooking. Moments later, Beardmore made his entrance, guiding the potential investors, a nuclear family wanting to remain unidentified due to the extravagant price tag and the delicacy surrounding the property’s location.

Perched atop a cliff overlooking the magnificent Pacific Ocean, the house under consideration was one of the scarce dwellings that hadn’t succumbed to the wrath of one of the worst urban wildfires the United States had ever seen, a hapless event that unfolded in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles.

Due to close the sale on Jan. 7, the day a sea of flames infiltrated the community, the couple had replaced their dreams of a new home with the dire reality of the ravaging wildfire. Surveying the neighborhood, our view was punctuated by the skeletal remains of what once were grand homes, now reduced to charred chimneys and an occasional surviving staircase.

In stark contrast, merely across the street stood several lucky houses that were untouched by the catastrophe. The capricious distribution of damage, with some houses turned to cinders while others remained unscathed, was one of the jarring peculiarities of these fires.

In the devastated sections of the Palisades, crew members dressed in protective gear were busy rescuing batteries from the remnants of burnt-out Teslas, and National Guard personnel set up strategic checkpoints using heavy tactical vehicles. A short stroll away, however, a postal van might be observed dutifully delivering mails to the houses that luckily still had physical addresses, accompanied by the calming sound of a gardener tending to a pristine lawn.

With the keys given by Beardmore, we passed the threshold, stepping into the house’s grand foyer. ‘There’s a faint aroma of smoke’, mentioned the husband appreciatively. Upon asking him to share his thoughts, he confessed feeling a certain queasiness. Although the interiors had sustained their familiar appearances, the unsettling aura of a recent disaster was palpable.

With curiosity piqued, the man stooped to inspect a part of the floor that housed a small pile of ash. Following this inspection, he, along with his wife, decided to survey the basement. Beardmore, a native of Australia in his mid-50s, chose to step out into the yard.

Sharing his professional insights, he reckoned that the house indeed called for significant restoration. Primary expenditures would cover remediation of smoke and ash damages, requiring a complete overhaul of the contaminated surfaces, promotional to their replacement.

According to him, the refurbishment would need to go down to the bare framing. ‘The studs must be laid bare and renewed,’ commented Beardmore, pointing out the residual ash percolating into difficult recesses like the ceiling vents and behind the walls.

This scenario was far from unique in the aftermat of the fires that had devastated the Pacific Palisades. In fact, the real estate fraternity in the neighborhood had come up with a new term to describe such properties – they dubbed them ‘smokers.’