The Grassroots Race to Save Altadena’s Historic Batchelder Tiles—Before the Bulldozers Move In

After the Eaton Fire devastated the Altadena neighborhood in Southern California, local resident Eric Garland took a walk and noticed all the fireplaces that remained standing amid the rubble. Many of them were decorated with tiles by artist Ernest Batchelder, a leader in the American Arts and Crafts movement who had made Pasadena his home. Inspired to preserve this part of the town’s architectural history, Garland and a group of volunteers formed Save The Tiles, an effort to salvage these historic tiles and store them until homeowners are ready to reclaim them. To date, the group has saved Batchelder tiles from more than 50 properties.

Before the fires, the Pasadena Museum of History’s Batchelder Tile Registry included just eight homes in Altadena. But after Garland, a tech investor by trade, left his walk with his daughter, he called a few neighborhood friends he knew were preservation-minded and within days put together a group to perhaps tackle the issue of the tiles. They met that weekend in a parking lot and, surprisingly, dozens more volunteers showed up to help, and the group completed what was essentially an architectural survey of the burn zone, walking every street and noting every possibly Batchelder-style fireplace still standing. 

They came away with a list of over 200 structures, and, armed with an online address database, set about finding the homeowners. With help from a local mason, Cliff Douglas, they were able to offer those contacted a free service: Professional tile retrieval and storage, conducted quickly, before the Army Corps Of Engineers rolled through to remove debris and level each lot. While lots were slow to be cleared immediately after the fire, the Corps now says the goal is to have 80 to 100 lot-clearing crews operating seven days a week throughout Altadena, often giving residents just 72 hours notice before their debris is removed.