'A labor of love': Old-school hat shop destroyed in Eaton Fire goes beyond material loss

Show Caption

LOS ANGELES − It took Cody Wellema up to 10 hours to make a hat.

The roughly 50-step process sounds like a craft from another century: Wellema wrangled rare American felt over old wooden blocks, used tools that were over 100 years old, hand-sewed the lining and finished his hats with vintage ribbon.

"One reason or another, I chose many years ago that I really wanted to do all this by hand," Wellema told Paste BN. "I don't know, maybe I shot myself in the foot some time ago, but nonetheless, that's what we do."

But now, Wellema's livelihood − the Wellema Hat Company − is gone, a victim of the Los Angeles region's recent catastrophic wildfires that have destroyed over 11,000 homes and businesses, killed at least 28 and burned over 46,000 acres. Many of the blazes still aren't under control.

"Ninety-nine percent of what was in the shop is ash," Shelby Wellema, Cody's wife, said.

The shop was on the bucolic Mariposa Street in Altadena, decimated when the Eaton Fire ripped through and incinerated thousands of homes.

The Wellemas were among those forced to evacuate their Pasadena home, which is just minutes from the hat shop. They consider themselves lucky that their house was spared but are mourning the loss of their hat shop and all the treasures in it.

The Wellemas were able to make it to the store the night the fire broke out but were only able to retrieve a few cherished items, including Navajo rugs and a 19th century sombrero.

"We never thought the fire would come to the shop because there are hundreds, hundreds of homes before it got to us," Shelby said. "We went and saw the shop at 10 p.m. that night and by 10 a.m. the next morning, probably sometime earlier, it was completely gone. Less than 12 hours, the entire community from that point on was gone and it's just unfathomable."

High-end hat shop community landmark

About nine years ago, Wellema moved his hat shop from Santa Barbara to Altadena and built it to be "an extension of myself."

"Our kids were growing up in our store. That was the biggest thing for us, and for me, it's just so special that nobody really gets to understand or experience in today's world, with how fast it is and how kind of money hungry everyone is," Wellema said. "We didn't have a lot as far as money, but we had a very rich life because our kids were growing up at our store."

Customer Peter Zottolo told Paste BN that the reflection of Wellema's personality was a key part of what made the store special.

"It was a very family-friendly shop. People would stop by just to say hi and hang out because Cody is just such a nice guy and he can chat with you while he's working," Zottolo said. "Whenever I would drive through, I always made a point to stop by and just chat with him a little bit and see what he's up to."

Carey Jones, an Altadena resident who lost his home in the fire, told Paste BN that he intended to go into Wellema's hat store just days before the fire erupted.

"I went to the hardware store and I looked in there and I said, 'Oh, that's right, I meant to go in there to see if he has styles that I like,'" Jones said. "I just, you know, I never did, which now I wish I did. That's what made Altadena unique, stores like that and people like that."

Business loss will reverberate

Derek Guy, a menswear writer at large, told Paste BN that the potential shuttering of Wellema Hat Company after the fire would cause a ripple effect for those who provide supplies to hatters.

"As the hat business has kind of seen a general decline, these suppliers are also seeing a general decline, and as fewer crafts people buy from them, that just puts their business at risk," Guy said. "It just (creates) a general decline in the industry for that web of production."

John Gasper, associate teaching professor of economics at Carnegie Mellon University, told Paste BN that Wellema's shop is a harbinger of the economic damage that will arise as the ashes settle.

"When you think about a small business, it's, by definition, much smaller," Gasper said. "Realize that this event that's happening in Los Angeles affects many small businesses. Multiply that by the number of businesses that are changing ... it scales up to be a big impact"

Gasper said that if the store does not return it would have effects on the economy in the immediate area, though noted it would be hard to measure.

"If a certain star goes there, maybe I might run into them, or maybe I see my friends that hang out at the hardware store, right? So those are kinds of things that we often refer to as network effects," Gasper said.

Guy noted that artisans like Wellema provide more than just a product.

"We value handmade goods, not because they're perfectly made, but we value them because they're humanly imperfect," Guy said. "Philosophers like Voltaire believe that if we could accept and value these qualities and crafts, we could also learn something about life itself: that even as we try to strive for perfection, that we will fall but short along the way ... the acceptance that there is some kind of failing, is in itself, a beautiful human quality that allows us to have greater appreciation for what life means."

Get weather and fire alerts via text: Sign up to get current wildfire updates by location

Wellema unsure if hat business will return

The Wellemas told Paste BN that though Cody knows he wants hats to continue to be a part of his life, they are unsure if he will continue the business as it was.

"This was a labor of love," Cody said. "We didn't make a lot of money with this, but we had such a rich life doing it and what it allowed us and how to live our life and I don't know what that looks like going forward."

He said that many of the tools lost in the fire would be difficult, if not impossible, to replace.

"Even if somebody cut me a check for 200 grand tomorrow, I can't just go to Costco tomorrow and buy everything that I once had," Wellema said. "All my tools were 100 years old. It took years of collecting and sourcing and relationships and knowing people to build all these things and to acquire these tools, to make the hats that I made."

Shelby added that part of what made the decision difficult was the loss of the community around the store.

"Not only is the shop no longer there, but a lot of that community is displaced and no longer there," she said. "Even if we want to go back and recreate this, it's never going to look the same. And then that's the heartbreaking part."