SOURCE :- THE AGE NEWS
By Susie Coen
It was the setting for Faye Dunaway’s famous post-Oscars poolside shoot, the inspiration behind The Eagles’ classic song Hotel California, as well as the place where Elizabeth Taylor honeymooned six times.
But now the salmon pink hotel has taken on a very different role. It has been transformed into a temporary evacuation station for the city’s most affluent refugees.
The Beverly Hills Hotel is known locally as “The Pink Palace” and was the inspiration behind The Eagles’ classic song Hotel California.Credit: Getty Images
The record-breaking fires raging through Los Angeles have forced 130,000 people to evacuate their homes. The official death toll is currently 24 and the fires have caused an estimated $220 billion of damage.
Many of those ordered to evacuate lived in the upscale Pacific Palisades neighbourhood. Celebrities including Paris Hilton, Billy Crystal and Adam Brody have reportedly lost their homes.
While many of those forced to evacuate sought shelter at the homes of relatives or public shelters, those who can afford it have flocked to the $US1000-a-night ($1628), five-star Beverly Hills Hotel.
Dog bags and laundry baskets replaced designer suitcases on the luggage carts lining the entrance to the hotel’s lobby on Thursday, as guests dressed in tracksuits walked their pets in circles around the hotel, known to locals as The Pink Palace.
Faye Dunaway sits by the pool at the Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles, the morning after she won the Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her part in Sidney Lumet’s satirical film Network. Credit: Terry O’Neill / Iconic Images
Among those who escaped to the hotel hideaway was actress Jamie Lee Curtis, who emerged from the labyrinth of exclusive bungalows wearing all black, with her fluffy white dog.
The night before, the Oscar-winning actress, 66, had fought back tears as she described the devastation being caused by the Pacific Palisades fire, which had torn through her neighbourhood.
Lee Curtis’s home is thought to be intact. She and her family pledged $US1 million to help those impacted by the blaze.
Acclaimed Hollywood executive Erik Feig, the former co-president of Lionsgate Motion Picture Group, was also among those who had flocked to the hotel.
The pool at Beverly Hills Hotel.
Feig, his wife Susanna, their children Ellie, 20, and Alex, 15 and their three dogs decamped to the Beverly Hills Hotel after seeing smoke billowing near their Pacific Palisades home.
They grabbed their passports, birth certificates, a bag of photographs and some dog food before bundling into the car to escape the blaze.
Feig, who helped create the Oscar-winning films La La Land, The Hurt Locker and the Hunger Games series, was glued to their residence’s security cameras that night to check if their home was safe.
They could see a flicker of fire in the background but they were unaware if it had survived the night after the power cut out at around midnight.
Still unsure if his house had survived, Feig visited the property on Wednesday. While nearby houses had been burnt to a crisp, his sprawling white mansion was still intact.
“It kind of feels apocalyptic … it’s such a beautiful neighbourhood,” he told London’s Telegraph, still in his workout clothes after visiting the hotel gym.
“I’ve lived there for about 11 years and as soon as I crest the hill and see that view of the hills, honestly, even after 11 years, there’s like a little stop in my heart. I’m just like, ‘wow. I cannot believe I live here. This is so beautiful’.
“It’s a real kind of pinch me moment and so you see this now, and it’s destruction, I mean, just clouds of smoke all over the place.”
A destroyed Bank of America branch on Sunset Boulevard in the aftermath of the Palisades fire. Credit: AP
Feig’s seven-bedroom home, which is on the same road as actress Kate Hudson’s and is thought to be worth $US9 million, is still standing. But just a few doors down, the ashes of one destroyed home were still burning, the only things left standing a washing machine and the fireplace.
Their friends who live five doors down, who were also staying at the hotel, lost their entire home. Feig said he knew of 57 families who had lost their homes.
Grabbing a duffel bag on the night they fled, Feig called his family and told them he could bring five of their favourite, sentimental things. He gathered baseball cards, a signed jumper and the family’s wedding album.
“But then you’re looking at everything else, what can you carry? You know, there’s so much. I just loaded up a bag with as much as I could.”
Homes along Pacific Coast Highway were burnt out while a few still stand after the Palisades fire.Credit: AP
He then returned to get more dog food and shred some chicken for one “finicky dog” that will eat only dog food mixed with human food.
The family has been trying to comfort their friends who have lost everything.
While the Feigs’ home survived, those who had lost their homes returned to the rubble in a bid to salvage mementos from the ashes.
Brendan Ward, 27, walked several miles from Santa Monica to his family home in the Palisades only to find the house his grandfather built in the 1970s destroyed.
“My parents watched on our security cameras as the entire house went up. There was a small bit of hope coming back that maybe it was just partial, it wasn’t completely destroyed, but out of 15 homes on our street, there were only three left standing”, he told the Telegraph.
The only thing he was able to rescue was some pieces of broken pottery from one of his mother’s favourite pots.
“My dad went to Palisades Elementary, right here,“ said Ward as he gestured at a burnt-out building in front of us.
Clutching a torch and wearing a mask to protect himself from the thick, black smoke, he said: “That is now burnt to the ground. He went to Pali High, like I did.”
Intact and destroyed homes from the Palisades fire sit on a hillside in Malibu. Credit: AP
“It’s devastating, and the destruction is unbelievable. But I still don’t think any of us have really processed the fact that our childhood home, the place that we made so many memories, the place that we lived for most of our lives, doesn’t exist.”
Ben Cooke, 47, and Peter Harris, 41, were also able to salvage only a few pieces of broken crockery from their mother-in-law’s home.
The pair had walked to the property to see if anything was left, but they were met with a blackened, smouldering husk; the remnants still crackling.
“We heard it was bad, but seeing it, you can’t even describe it. Everything is gone”, said Cooke, who works in public relations.
“You expect to see pieces of things you recognise, but the heat was so strong that the dishware was shattered. You could just see pieces of the design that might be on the dish. We grabbed a couple of pieces, but, yeah, there’s nothing.”
Since it opened in 1912, the Beverly Hills Hotel has been a refuge for the rich and famous, but never like this before, as many of its current guests have fled for their lives.
It’s not the only LA landmark that looks remarkably different amid the worst fires on record. Bulldozers are driving down a deserted Sunset Boulevard, clearing abandoned cars. The Dolby Theatre, where next week’s Oscar nominations have been postponed, has been evacuated. The city’s museums are shuttered.
A blaze that broke out on Thursday night is now perilously close to the Walk of Fame and the Hollywood sign.
The destruction from the wildfires is so catastrophic it may mark the end of an era for Los Angeles.
The Telegraph, London
