The deadly Palisades Fire nearly destroyed landmark Getty Villa. Now it's about to reopen.
LOS ANGELES – Once in the crosshairs of the deadly Palisades Fire, the famed Getty Villa Museum in the tony coastal hills of Los Angeles has a reopening date.
The villa has been closed since Jan. 7, when the fast-moving Palisades Fire came much too close for comfort. The blaze destroyed thousands of structures in the area, killed 12 people and went on to burn for nearly a month, but amazingly, the villa was spared.
“It is with the utmost gratitude and appreciation for Getty staff, first responders, and other agencies that we can announce the reopening of the Villa to the public,” Katherine Fleming, president and CEO of the J. Paul Getty Trust, said in a May 19 announcement.
The villa is set to reopen on Friday, June 27. It will have a limited schedule − Friday through Monday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. − to limit traffic on the fire-battered Pacific Coast Highway – the only open route to the museum.
Reservations for the museum are limited to 500 per day and parking will cost $25.
How close did the Palisades Fire come to the Getty Villa
Aerial footage and images shared on social media the morning of Jan. 7 showed smoke approaching the Getty Villa as the fire moved through the area. Some trees and vegetation on the villa site burned, according to the museum.
Fleming said at the time that additional fire prevention measures, including on-site water storage and irrigation, were immediately deployed throughout the grounds.
Museum galleries and library archives were sealed off from the smoke by "state-of-the-art air-handling systems," and double-walled construction also provided "significant protection" for the collections, according to Fleming.
The museum said Tuesday that it has undergone an extensive cleanup and removed more than 1,300 fire-damaged trees.
"The site may look different to visitors, with less vegetation and some burn damage to the outer grounds," the announcement read.
What is the Getty Villa?
The Getty Villa is an educational center and art museum located the coastal Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles.
Opened in 1974 by billionaire oilman J. Paul Getty, the museum honors the arts and cultures of various classic civilizations from the ancient Greeks to the Romans.
The museum will reopen with the exhibition "The Kingdom of Pylos: Warrior-Princes of Ancient Greece" on view through January 2026.
The exhibition will showcase over 230 works of art and artifacts from Messenia, an epicenter of the Mycenaean civilization that flourished in Late Bronze Age Greece – according to the announcement. It is the first major display in North America focused on Mycenaeans, the museum said.
The exhibition on view in January, "Ancient Thrace and the Classical World: Treasures from Bulgaria, Romania, and Greece," closed permanently due to the fire. A video tour of the exhibition was posted by the museum in April.
Contributing: Thao Nguyen, Anthony Robledo – Paste BN