The Tamesis
“These auctions are fairly broad-based and experience-based, and we’ve been doing them for a while and they’re successful. We probably raised over $100,000 this time,” Hanazawa said. Hanazawa co-founded the organization in 2011 with Julie Gilhart, Miki Higasa and Tomoko Ogura in response to the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. Since then, they have raised funds for multiple disaster relief efforts. Funds raised for fire recovery will be used to fund schools around the Palisade and Altadena. “We like tangible results, really building something,” Hanazawa said. “We can do everything we can to bridge the gap between emergencies, immediate needs and long-term needs.”
Hanazawa, who lives in the Palisades, recalled the day of the fire. “We are in a wildfire-prone area. Every year, we receive warnings that wildfires may occur, but firefighters often manage to control the fire and then everything is fine. But on January 7, the situation was different.” She was originally scheduled to meet at 11 a.m., but received a photo of the super-backup PCH in advance. “Within 30 minutes, my street was packed with cars. I thought, OK, this is not like a normal wildfire. We need to evacuate.” The next day, Hanazawa went home. Her house ultimately survived, but many of her neighbors’ homes did not. “I saw a lot of houses burning without any firefighters or people. No one was stopping the fire from spreading. I’ve never seen anything like this,” she said.
Walker is now thinking about what it means to lose a “work home,” if not an actual home. “Losing this little treasure that was the footprint and platform for all of our other stores is something that’s hard to fathom,” she said. “But when people lose their homes — 7,000 buildings burned, I think 6,000 of them were homes — it’s hard to feel sorry for yourself. You didn’t lose your home.”
At the time of the fire, Elyse Walker’s two Palisades stores accounted for 45 percent of sales and 48 percent of profits, Walker said. To keep the business going and keep as many salespeople working as possible, Walker is keeping about 80 percent of its orders. Her sales are down only 16-18% this year, and profits are down about 10%. “We were very bold and very lucky,” she said.
It will be a long time before things get back to normal. “Everything disappeared overnight. Your dentist, your restaurant, coffee shop, school, your friend’s home, it all disappeared,” Hanazawa said. “It’s really tearing our community apart.” Many of her neighbors haven’t returned, even those whose homes survived. Some have moved out of the Los Angeles area entirely.
That’s part of the reason why Elyse Walker reopened in Palisades this summer. “Rick [Caruso] He called me and said, “Alice, I know you’re looking around — we’re trying to find a location in Santa Monica or Brentwood to get our team back to where they work — but I have an idea,” Walker recalled. He wants Walker to join him in his rebuilding effort. It was the first time she cried since the fire, she said. “We’ve been building Palisades for 25 years, and now I know what my next 25 years will be.”
