The Eames House, one of Los Angeles’ greatest landmarks of Midcentury Modern architecture — closed Monday as part of the evacuation zone of the fast-spreading Getty fire.
The Eames Foundation said all tour appointments for the day have been canceled because of the fire, which broke out near the Getty Center and the 405 Freeway around 1:30 a.m.
The husband-and-wife team Charles and Ray Eames completed the historic home, also known as Case House Study No. 8, in 1949. It was designated a national historic landmark in 2006 and is the subject of a Getty Conservation Institute project. The Eameses used off-the-shelf components to create a thoroughly singular design on 1.4 wooded acres in Pacific Palisades. In a 2008 Times ranking of Southern California’s landmark houses, architectural experts placed the Eames House at No. 4, behind only Rudolph Schindler’s Kings Road House in West Hollywood, Richard Neutra’s Kaufmann House in Palm Springs and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Ennis House in Los Feliz. In 2011, the contents of the Eames House living room were carefully logged, packed up and installed in a recreation of the Eames living room at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
What the LACMA exhibition couldn’t replicate was the idyllic grove of eucalyptus trees that shaded a meadow in front of the Eames House. It’s this same stand of eucalyptus — full of oil and notorious for being combustible — that has made wildfire mitigation a larger concern.
When a small fire broke out in L.A.’s Pacific Palisades neighborhood this month, Eames Foundation Director Lucia Atwood told The Times that fire risk mitigation is a top priority. The nonprofit is seeking donors to accelerate the installation of a water cistern, she said.
“Fire always presents a concern, even when it appears to be distant,” Atwood wrote in an email. “Here in Los Angeles, we have all seen how quickly a fire can spread, especially in windy conditions, but even when it is calm. And with all the growth from last year’s rains, there is a lot of tinder available.”
She added that the foundation is honing its landscape-management plan to address expectations that fire risk will only get worse in the years to come.
“Last year, we closed for a few days due to the November 2018 Woolsey Fire in order to ensure visitor safety as well as to assist in reducing road traffic for first responders,” she wrote. “This week, we were prepared to do the same.”
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Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, L.A. City Councilman Mike Bonin and California Gov. Gavin Newsom look at a home along Tigertail Road in Brentwood burned by the Getty fire. (Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times)
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom, from left, with Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Bonin and L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti tour a home along Tigertail Road in Brentwood on Tuesday that was burned by the Getty fire. The National Weather Service issued a rare “extreme red flag warning” for Southern California through Thursday evening, saying winds could top 80 mph and be the strongest in more than a decade. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
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Traffic on the 405 Freeway flows as flames roar up a steep hillside near the Getty Center in Los Angeles. The Getty fire has forced evacuations and burned more than 600 acres. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
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Firefighters try to save a home from the Getty fire on Tigertail Road in Los Angeles on Monday morning. (Christian Monterrosa/Associated Press)
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A firefighting aircraft drops fire retardant on the Getty fire in Mandeville Canyon near the Brentwood Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles. (Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times)
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A man walks past a burning home during the Getty fire in Los Angeles on Monday morning. (Christian Monterrosa/Associated Press)
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The sun rises over smoke-filled canyons above the Getty Center and a burned home on Tigertail Road as the Getty fire burns in Los Angeles. (Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times)
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Firefighters head out for brush work along Sepulveda Boulevard in the Sepulveda Pass as the Getty fire as it burns in Los Angeles. (Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times)
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Firefighters try to save a home on Tigertail Road during the Getty fire in Los Angeles on Monday morning. (Christian Monterrosa/Associated Press)
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Firefighters work heavy brush along Sepulveda Boulevard in the Sepulveda Pass as the Getty fire burns in Los Angeles. (Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times)
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A firefighter sprays down hot spots on a home along the 12000 block of Sky Lane on Monday in Los Angeles. (Gary Coronado/Los Angeles Times)
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From left, Betsy Landis, 90, and her neighbor Nola Hyland, 79, who both evacuated from their homes at the end of Mandeville Canyon, talk with Rochelle Linnetz inside the Westwood Recreation Center on Sepulveda Boulevard that was turned into an evacuation center. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
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An L.A. firefighter keeps down flames at a burned home in the 1100 block of Tigertail Road in the Brentwood Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles. (Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times)
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Alex Holbrook, a student emergency medical technician at UCLA, talks with Sylvia Snow, 95, inside the Westwood Recreation Center on Sepulveda Boulevard, which was turned into an evacuation center. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
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The sun rises over a smoke-filled canyon above the Getty museum as the Getty fire burns in Los Angeles. (Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times)
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L.A. Fire Department arson team conducts an investigation near a utility pole of a possible area of origin of the Getty fire along the 1700 block of North Sepulveda Boulevard. (Gary Coronado/Los Angeles Times)
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Barn manager Stephanie Nagler leads a horse named Howie Doin to a horse trailer while helping to evacuate around 120 horses from the Sullivan Canyon Equestrian Community near the intersection of Rivera Ranch Road and Sunset Boulevard in Brentwood. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
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A helicopter makes a drop on the Getty fire, which was threatening thousands of homes in Brentwood and other hillside communities on the Westside of Los Angeles on Monday morning. (Gray Coronado/Los Angeles Times)
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Aerial view of homes shrouded in smoke from the Getty fire. (KTLA)
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Barn manager Stephanie Nagler, left, holds a rabbit named Chi Chi while helping to evacuate animals, mostly horses, from the Sullivan Canyon Equestrian Community near the intersection of Riviera Ranch Road and Sunset Boulevard in Brentwood. (Los Angeles Times)
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Firefighters work the Getty fire as it burns homes along Tigertail Road in the Brentwood Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles. (Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times)
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Los Angeles firefighters mop up after a home was destroyed by the Getty fire along Tigertail Road in Los Angeles. (Gary Coronado/Los Angeles Times)
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Firefighters work in heavy brush along Sepulveda Boulevard in the Sepulveda Pass as the Getty fire burns in Los Angeles. (Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times)
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A firefighter watches flames approach the Mandeville Canyon neighborhood during the Getty fire on Monday morning. (Christian Monterrosa/Associated Press)
