On the morning of Pallisard’s Fire, Claudia Gordon quickly accepted that there wasn’t much she could do to save everything under the watch.
She helped manage the Palisades in the Pacific Ocean, once owned by Thomas Mann and Lion Fiuchtwanger. They turned their homes into salons for fellow refugees and warned Americans that what happened in their hometown could happen anywhere.
Today, Feuchtwanger’s homes, Mann House and Villa Aurora, are cultural centers that offer residency programs for writers and artists who incorporate the spirit of their former owners. The fate of the house was out of Gordon’s hands, but it was revealed that the fire in the Palisade would be furious.
She did what she could to save everything else. We coordinated with staff to make sure everyone was evacuated from the house. At Manhouse, someone grabbed Goethe’s complete work and Mann’s handwritten paper. Gordon and others received several paintings and Renaissance-era Prim Scrolls from Villa Aurora, but had to leave behind thousands of unusual books and personal memorabilia.
Back at her own home, Gordon took comfort and strength in the lives of the two men. She particularly thought of Feuchtwanger, who lost her home to the Nazis in Germany and France, and refused to succumb to despair after building a new life in the United States.
“If the worst happens,” Gordon said, “That’s what we have to do.”
Last Friday morning we were standing outside the refined two-storey Thomas Man House. We were accompanied by House Director Oliver Hartman and Program Director Benno Hertz. Inside, a powerful air filter sucked out all the toxic substances left from the fire. This is the only damage caused by the house, built for Mann and his family in 1942, and to be purchased by the German government in 2016 to save it from demolition.
“They’re also the 55-year-old Gordon, who has been Villa Aurora’s director since 2002 and has been the administrative director of both houses,” said: “But now I know how it works, the adrenaline has been carrying you all the way.”
She saw the sparkling white appearance of the Manhouse, which she had to rub off with her hands after the fire. “It was never pretty,” she said with a sad laugh.
This will be a major year for institutions funded by the German government. Mann House had a complete program planned for its name’s 150th birthday. Villa Aurora celebrates the 30th anniversary of its residency program. All events so far have been cancelled, postponed or hosted at other spots in LA
Manhouse hopes to revive his companions in May. Villa Aurora has survived, but is closed indefinitely as they await their own deep cleaning. But the two structures stand at least. Many Mann and Feuchtwanger fellow European refugees’ homes did not make it.
A room inside Thomas Mann’s home, now a cultural center. It survived the Palisade fire, but remains closed as it gets deep clean.
(David Butow / For the Times)
Hertz, who joined Manhaus when he launched his residency program in 2018, said the situation reminded him of Covid’s year.
“We are a young institution,” the 35-year-old’s death said, “But we’ve had a crisis.”
In 2023, I contributed to German books. There, the writer was asked to look back at the Mann House feature. This was asked to look back at the Mann House feature, focusing on a press release hanging near Mann’s bedroom.
Writers like Mike Davis and Joan Didion were justly cited as prophetic voices after the fires of Pallisard and Eton, but we should pay attention to Mann and Fake Twanger, where words are particularly relevant in the upsurge of times around the world.
In his 1938 lecture, “The Future of Democracy,” Mann stated: “Even in America, we feel that democracy is not a guaranteed property, but rather that we have an enemy, and that we are threatened both inside and outside.”
Meanwhile, Feuchtwanger criticized the Nazis in the 1920s, culminating in his wartesaal (“The Waitchroom”) trilogy. This led the Nazis to burn his imprisonment in France under the Vicy regime.
“We have an artistic Thomas Mann,” said author Hartman, who won the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature.
“And for the lion,” continued Hartman, 47.
He led us around Mann’s house as workers were woven around us with extension cords and ladders. Electric tape and spray cans were everywhere. At one point, Gordon walked from the living room from the hallway to a sealed plastic sheet.
We finished studying Mann. Among the remaining books were copies of Sinclair Lewis’ 1935 novel “It Can’t Dappine Here.”
“It’s always dangerous to draw out political similarities between the past and present,” Hertz said. He eventually returned to Europe after the home’s non-American Activities Committee and the FBI began targeting him.
“Being with me means that things can always change,” Gordon added. “The Lion never left America because he was afraid that he would not return him. But he wrote in it about his lack of self-compassion. It was his hope and expectation that exile literature would stand the test of time.”
Outside, 25-year-old Isaac Rosales was watching bronze plaque with man’s face. I asked if he knew who Mann was.
“I think he’s really important,” the Colton resident replied in Spanish. “we [workers] “Who is that guy?”
I gave Rosales a brief overview. Mann emphasized how he raised a community for immigrants from the homes that Rosales was now helping to restore. The Mexican native smiled.
“La has always been a sanctuary to us, right?” he said.
The burnt earth shows how close the Palisade fire has come to Villa Aurora, the former home of famous German author Lion Fiuchtwanger, who has arrived in Los Angeles after fleeing the Nazi regime.
(David Butow / For the Times)
Gordon and I said goodbye to Hartman and Hertz before continuing to Villa Aurora, opposite Pallisard. The whimsicality of fire quickly revealed itself.
From another completely devastated boulevard, a completely devastated apartment stood on the other side of Sunset Boulevard. The fenced village of Parisades, where owner Rick Caruso hired civilian firefighters to protect it, looked eerie and pure white. We passed the checkpoint where the National Guard and LAPD resided. The backhoe was then dropped off from the flatbed truck, which required a 20-minute stop on a narrow hillside road.
The smell of smoke greeted us in 1928 when we entered Villa Aurora, a two-storey mansion built by the Los Angeles Times as a planned neighborhood model home. Ashes covered the guestbook opened on the page with its final signature dated January 6th.
Lion Feuchtwanger and his wife, Marta, moved here in 1943.
“He had to show an affidavit that it was not a burden to the taxpayers, as they had to do today,” Gordon walked through the vast room of Villa Aurora, looking at historic photos. “The Lion was lucky that he was a bestseller at the time.”
Faketwanger is less well-known than Mann, but is considered an important figure in Germany, Gordon said.
Gordon pointed out that by then widow Marta had climbed the roof with a hose to save Villa Aurora during the 1961 Bel Air fire.
“They talk about their ability to maintain strength,” Gordon said. “Faced with a catastrophe.”
Portraits of German writers Thomas Mann, Lion Feuchtwanger and Berthold Brecht hang from Villa Aurora, the home of Pacific Parisades, once owned by Faketwanger.
(David Butow / For the Times)
We headed to our office on the second floor. The office had portraits of Mann, Fagwanger and German exile Bertholdt Brecht, as well as spectacular views of the Pacific Ocean. From the balcony I could see the slope below me burnt down to the Villa Aurora Property Line. The dead eucalyptus tree was still standing. It is cut down and transformed into a work of art by former Villa Aurora Fellows commemorating the disaster of Parisades.
“The house over there is gone,” Gordon said. “The other houses are gone.”
She was quiet.
“We’re closed, but not closed,” she concluded. “We’re still going.”
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