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Home > Sangre Celestial > Modernist masterpiece nearly burned down in Palisades Fire
Podcast: Sangre Celestial
Episode:

Modernist masterpiece nearly burned down in Palisades Fire
Category: Arts
Duration: 00:00:00
Publish Date: 2025-09-04 19:00:00
Description: The Eames House is a quintessential example of mid-century modernist architecture that’s hidden in a meadow above the ocean in the Pacific Palisades. From the outside, it looks like a Mondrian painting. A mostly glass exterior is sliced by lines of black steel into squares and rectangles of varying sizes. Some pop orange, yellow, and blue. The house was built more than 75 years ago as part of the Case Study program , which commissioned architects to design affordable, modernist homes for World War II veterans. They were assembled from pre-fabricated parts and industrial materials. The program introduced Americans to the mid-century modern design principles that were catching on at the time in Southern California, such as buildings should be integrated with the nature around them and create a flow between indoor and outdoor spaces. Architect Charles Eames and his wife, Ray Eames, who was trained as a painter, designed their home with help from Eero Saarinen. Earlier this year, the house nearly burned down due to the Palisades Fire. It somehow survived, and underwent smoke remediation and other repairs. It reopened in late July to visitors. Charles and Ray Eames balancing on the steel framing of the Eames House in Pacific Palisades, California, 1949. © 2025 Eames Office, LLC. All rights reserved. Eames Demetrios, one of Charles and Ray Eames’ grandchildren, now chairs the foundation that bears his grandparents’ name. He tells KCRW that they pared down their original design to better harmonize it with the surrounding meadow. “When you're standing in the meadow looking at the house … you're standing on the very thing they chose to protect. And they chose to let taking care of this meadow, not putting a building in it, drive the whole decision-making process. Everything flowed from it. It's totally a man-made object, totally a human-colored object. And yet it somehow fits, seems totally at peace with nature. You could say nature doesn't do these rectangles and boxes and stuff like that, but they feel at home here.” Eames Demetrios, Lucia Dewey Atwood, and Adrienne Luce outside the studio, as photographed by Chris Mottalini, 2025. © 2025 Eames Office, LLC. All rights reserved. Looking back on January, Demetrios says the Palisades Fire was about 150 feet away from the structure, at the corner of Corona del Mar and Chautauqua Blvd., according to the Watch Duty app. “When you go up Chautauqua for the first couple of blocks, it looks relatively untouched. And then you come around the corner and there's just total devastation.” He says that firefighting helicopters’ water drops saved the structure. Plus, “we put fire retardant on everything. We had come out to remove key items. And we had removed about 100 trees from the property.” Had the house been destroyed, Demetrios says his grandparents would’ve been deeply sad to lose all the totems — objects that evoke meaning — that they filled their space with. They collected over 30,000 beloved totems from around the world, like paper Noguchi lamps, Native American woven baskets, a black wooden bird from the Appalachian mountains, and seashells. The living room of the Eames House, as photographed by Chris Mottalini, 2025. © 2025 Eames Office, LLC. All rights reserved. Now in the wake of the fire, the Eames Foundation has opened the studio next to the house for the first time, and will be hosting community events there. They’re planning to offer free admission to first responders and Palisades and Altadena residents. Plus, they’re helping launch a program called Case Study: Adapt , which enlists leading architects in LA to design modest, inventive houses for families who lost their homes in the fires. The houses will be climate-resilient and surrounded by fire-safe landscaping.
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