apartment

“Bread of Angels,” Patti Smith’s mesmerizing new memoir, only deepens the mystery of who this iconic artist is and where her singular vision originated. I’ve long been struck by her magnetism on stage, her fearless approach to her craft, and the stark beauty of her words on the page, including the National Book Award-winning “Just Kids.” She has a preternatural belief in her own instincts and a boundless curiosity that, taken together, help explain the extraordinarily rich life and oeuvre she’s constructed. This transcendent — and at times terrifying — account of that evolution enriches that understanding. And yet, Smith’s persona remains veiled — sphinx-like — an ethereal presence whose journey to fame was fueled by her questing spirit and later detoured by tragedy.

Like Jeanette Walls’ classic, “The Glass Castle,” Smith’s saga begins with a hard-scrabble childhood she relates as if narrating a Dickensian fairy tale. In the first four years of her life, her family relocated 11 times, moving in with relatives after evictions, or into rat-infested Philadelphia tenements. Smith’s mother was a waitress who also took in ironing. Her father was a factory worker, a World War II veteran scarred by his experience abroad. They shared their love of poetry, books and classical music with their daughter, who was reading Yeats by kindergarten.

Smith, who was born in 1946, was often bed-ridden as a young girl, afflicted with tuberculosis and scarlet fever, along with all the usual childhood ailments. She writes: “Mine was a Proustian childhood, one of intermittent quarantine and convalescence.” When she contracted Asian flu, the virus paralyzed her with “a vise cluster of migraines.” She credits a boxed set of Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly” recordings her mother bought with tip money for her return to health.

As a 3-year-old, Smith recalls grilling her mother during evening prayers, posing metaphysical questions about Jesus and the soul, immersing herself in Bible study and later joining her mother as a Jehovah’s Witness. She didn’t confine herself to a single religious discipline, though. For example, while still a young child, she saw the movie “Lost Horizons” and became entranced by Tibet and the teachings of Buddhism — “an awareness of the interconnectedness of all things.” While “this seemed beautiful,” she writes, “it nonetheless troubled me.”

There is a romantic quality even to the deprivations Smith chronicles, an effect heightened by what she chooses to highlight or withhold. With little money for toys, she and her siblings entertained themselves using the knobs on a dresser as instruments on a ship, sailing on faraway seas. She and her younger siblings regularly set out with their mother to the nearby railroad tracks, where they harvested leftover lumps of coal to fuel their pot-bellied stove — the apartment’s sole source of heat. Under the floorboards of her closet, Smith conceals “glittering refuse I had scavenged from trash bins, fragments of costume jewelry, rosary beads,” along with a blue toothbrush she’s invested with magical powers.

Their apartment building overlooks a trash-strewn area dubbed “the Patch,” which is bordered by “the Rat House.” There, Smith proclaims herself general of the neighborhood’s Buddy Gang, fearlessly fending off bullies twice her size, while at school, she was viewed as odd by her teachers, “like something out of Hans Christian Andersen.”

Within this urban setting, Smith often paused to marvel at nature. Taking a short cut on the long walk to school, she stumbles on a pond in a wooded area. A snapping turtle emerges and settles a few feet away. “He was massive,” she recalls, “with ancient eyes, surely a king.”

It’s impossible to know if Smith was really this self-possessed and ruminative as a child or if nostalgia has altered her perspective. What’s undeniable, though, is that her extraordinary artist’s eye and soulful nature emerged at an age when the rest of us were still content to simply play in our sandboxes. She recollects fishing Vogue magazines out of trash cans around age 6 and feeling “a deep affinity” with the images on their pages. She’s immersed in Yeats and Irish folk tales while being bored at school reading “Fun With Dick and Jane.” On her first visit to an art museum, viewing Picasso’s work produces an epiphany: She was born to be an artist. A decade later, she boards a bus bound for New York City.

At this point, about a third of the way into the book, we enter the vortex that is Patti Smith’s talent and ambition on fire. The pace of the memoir accelerates. An alchemy infuses each chance encounter. Opportunities abound. Everywhere she turns there are talented photographers, poets, playwrights and musicians encouraging and supporting her. She writes poetry and finds a soulmate in Robert Mapplethorpe. She meets Sam Shepard, who features her poem in a play he’s writing. She meets William Burroughs, performs a reading with Allen Ginsberg. She forms a musical partnership with Lenny Kaye, and begins performing her poetry, with the 19th century French poet Arthur Rimbaud as her spiritual inspiration.

Smith’s story unfolds as a bohemian fairy tale. Luck is with her, bolstered by a fierce conviction in her own bespoke vision. “There was no plan, no design,” she writes of that time, “just an organic upheaval that took me from the written to the spoken word.” Bob Dylan becomes a mentor. Her fame grows enormous with the 1975 release of “Horses” and the international touring that followed, yet she retains the bearing of an ascetic. She writes: “We hadn’t made our record to garner fame and fortune. We made it for the art rats known and unknown, the marginalized, the shunned, the disowned.”

Smith’s rock star trajectory is diverted by her love affair with Fred Sonic Smith, for whom she ditches her career at its height, against the advice of many of those closest to her. But as with every decision she’s ever made, she can’t be dissuaded. In this intimate portion of the book, we receive glimpses of two passionate artists hibernating, in love. They marry, have two children, and cultivate an eccentric version of domestic bliss. But harsh reality intervenes and the losses begin to accumulate. One after the other, Smith loses the men she loves most — Robert, then Fred, then her beloved brother, Todd. These losses haunt the memoir; she grapples with them by returning to the stage with a fierce new hunger.

The book’s final pages reveal Smith continuing to grieve, mourning the loss of other loved ones — her parents, Susan Sontag, Sam Shepard. I wish I could simply reprint those pages here — they moved me deeply. At 78, she reflects on the process of “shedding” — which she describes as one of life’s most difficult tasks. “We plunge back into the abyss we labored to exit and find ourselves within another turn of the wheel,” she writes. “And then having found the fortitude to do so, we begin the excruciating yet exquisite process of letting go.”

“All must fall away,” she concludes. “The precious bits of cloth folded away in a small trunk like an abandoned trousseau, the books of my life, the medals in their cases.” What will she retain? “But I will keep my wedding ring,” she writes, “and my children’s love.”

Haber is a writer, editor and publishing strategist. She was director of Oprah’s Book Club and books editor for O, the Oprah Magazine.

CHICAGO — The music begins low and ominous, with the video showing searchlights skimming along a Chicago apartment building and heavily armed immigration agents storming inside. Guns are drawn. Unmarked cars fill the streets. Agents rappel from a Black Hawk helicopter.

But quickly the soundtrack grows more stirring and the video — edited into a series of dramatic shots and released by the Department of Homeland Security days after the Sept. 30 raid — shows agents leading away shirtless men, their hands zip-tied behind their backs.

Authorities said they were targeting the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, though they also said only two of the 27 immigrants arrested were gang members. They gave few details on the arrests.

But the apartments of dozens of U.S. citizens were targeted, residents said, and at least a half-dozen Americans were held for hours.

The immense show of force signaled a sharp escalation in the White House’s immigration crackdown and amplified tensions in a city already on edge.

“To every criminal illegal alien: Darkness is no longer your ally,” Homeland Security said in a social media post accompanying the video, which racked up more than 6.4 million views. “We will find you.”

But Tony Wilson, a third-floor resident born and raised on Chicago’s South Side, sees only horror in what happened.

“It was like we were under attack,” Wilson said days after the raid, speaking through the hole where his door knob used to be. Agents had used a grinder to cut out the deadbolt, and he still couldn’t close the door properly, let alone lock it. So he had barricaded himself inside, blocking the door with furniture.

“I didn’t even hear them knock or nothing,” said Wilson, a 58-year-old U.S. citizen on disability.

Dreams and decay

The raid was executed in the heart of South Shore, an overwhelmingly Black neighborhood on Lake Michigan that has long been a tangle of middle-class dreams, urban decay and gentrification.

It’s a place where teams of drug dealers troll for customers outside ornate lakeside apartment buildings. It has some of the city’s best vegan restaurants but also takeout places where the catfish fillets are ordered through bullet-proof glass.

It has well-paid professors from the University of Chicago but is also where one-third of households scrape by on less than $25,000 a year.

The apartment building where the raid occurred has long been troubled. Five stories tall and built in the 1950s, residents said it was often strewn with garbage, the elevators rarely worked and crime was a constant worry. Things had grown more chaotic after dozens of Venezuelan migrants arrived in the past few years, residents said. While no residents said they felt threatened by the migrants, many described a rise in noise and hallway trash.

Owned by out-of-state investors, the building hasn’t passed an inspection in three years, with problems ranging from missing smoke detectors to the stench of urine to filthy stairways. Repeated calls to a lead investor in the limited liability company that owns the building, a Wisconsin resident named Trinity Flood, were not returned. Attempts to reach representatives through realtors and lawyers were also unsuccessful.

Crime fears spiked in June when a Venezuelan man was shot in the head “execution-style,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement. Another Venezuelan was charged in the death.

Days after the raid, the doors to dozens of the building’s 130 apartments hung open. Nearly all those apartments had been ransacked. Windows were broken, doors smashed, and clothes and diapers littered the floors. In one apartment, a white tuxedo jacket hung in the closet next to a room knee-deep in broken furniture, piles of clothing and plastic bags. In another, water dripping from the ceiling puddled next to a refrigerator lying on its side. Some kitchens swarmed with insects.

Wilson said a trio of men in body armor had zip-tied his hands and forced him outside with dozens of other people, most Latino. After being held for two hours he was told he could leave.

“It was terrible, man,” he said. He’d barely left the apartment in days.

A city under siege?

Chicago, the White House says, is under siege.

Gang members and immigrants in the U.S. illegally swarm the city and crime is rampant, President Trump insists. National Guard soldiers are needed to protect government facilities from raging left-wing protesters.

“Chicago is the worst and most dangerous city in the World,” he posted on Truth Social.

The reality is far less dramatic. Violence is rare at protests, though angry confrontations are increasingly common, particularly outside a federal immigration center in suburban Broadview. And while crime is a serious problem, the city’s murder rate has dropped by roughly half since the 1990s.

Those realities have not stopped the Trump administration.

What started in early September with some arrests in Latino neighborhoods, part of a crackdown dubbed “Operation Midway Blitz,” has surged across Chicago. There are increasing patrols by masked, armed agents; detentions of U.S. citizens and immigrants with legal status; a fatal shooting; a protesting pastor shot in the head with a pepper ball outside the Broadview facility, his arms raised in supplication.

By early October, authorities said more than 1,000 immigrants had been arrested across the area.

The raids have shaken Chicago.

“We have a rogue, reckless group of heavily armed, masked individuals roaming throughout our city,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said after the Sept. 30 raid. “The Trump administration is seeking to destabilize our city and promote chaos.”

To Trump’s critics, the crackdown is a calculated effort to stir anger in a city and state run by some of his most outspoken Democratic opponents. Out-of-control protests would reinforce Trump’s tough-on-crime image, they say, while embarrassing Johnson and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, seen as a possible Democratic presidential contender.

So the South Shore raid, ready-made for social media with its displays of military hardware and agents armed for combat, was seen as wildly out of proportion.

“This was a crazy-looking military response they put together for their reality show,” said LaVonte Stewart, who runs a South Shore sports program to steer young people away from violence. “It’s not like there are roving bands of Venezuelan teenagers out there.”

Officials insist it was no reality show.

The operation, led by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, was based on months of intelligence gathering, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. The building’s landlord told authorities that Venezuelans in about 30 units were squatters and had threatened other tenants, the official said, adding that the building’s size necessitated the show of force. Immigration agencies declined further comment.

Even before the “Midway Blitz,” Trump’s election had whipsawed through Chicago’s Latino communities.

Stewart said Venezuelan children began disappearing from his programs months ago, though it’s often unclear if they moved, returned to Venezuela or are just staying home.

“I had 35 kids in my program from Venezuela,” he said. “Now there’s none.”

A wave of migrant newcomers

The raid echoed through South Shore, pinballing through memories of the surge in violence during the 1990s drug wars as well as economic divides and the sometimes uncomfortable relations between Black residents and the wave of more than 50,000 immigrants, most Latino, who began arriving in 2022, often bused from southern border states.

Chicago spent more than $300 million on housing and other services for the immigrants, fueling widespread resentment in South Shore and other Black neighborhoods where the newcomers were settled.

“They felt like these new arrivals received better treatment than people who were already part of the community,” said Kenneth Phelps, pastor at the Concord Missionary Baptist Church in Woodlawn, a largely Black neighborhood.

It didn’t matter that many migrants were crowded into small apartments, and most simply wanted to work. The message to residents, he said, was that the newcomers mattered more than they did.

Phelps tried to fight that perception, creating programs to help new arrivals and inviting them to his church. But that stirred more anger, including in his own congregation.

“I even had people leave the church,” he said.

In South Shore it’s easy to hear the bitterness, even though the neighborhood’s remaining migrants are a nearly invisible presence.

“They took everyone’s jobs!” said Rita Lopez, who manages neighborhood apartment buildings and recently stopped by the scene of the raid.

“The government gave all the money to them — and not to the Chicagoans,” she said.

Changing demographics and generations of suspicion

Over more than a century, South Shore has drawn waves of Irish, Jewish and then Black arrivals for its lakeside location, affordable bungalows and early 20th-century apartment buildings.

Each wave viewed the next with suspicion, in many ways mirroring how Black South Shore residents saw the migrant influx.

Former first lady Michelle Obama’s parents moved to South Shore when it was still mostly white, and she watched it change. A neighborhood that was 96% white in 1950 was 96% Black by 1980.

“We were doing everything we were supposed to do — and better,” she said in 2019. “But when we moved in, white families moved out.”

But suspicion also came from South Shore’s Black middle-class, which watched nervously as many housing projects began closing in the 1990s, creating an influx of poorer residents.

“This has always been a complex community,” Stewart said of those years.

“You can live on a block here that’s super-clean, with really nice houses, then go one block away and there’s broken glass, trash everywhere and shootings,” he said. “It’s the weirdest thing and it’s been this way for 30 years.”

Sullivan writes for the Associated Press. AP reporters Aisha I. Jefferson in Chicago, Elliot Spagat in San Diego and Claudia Lauer in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

PARADISE, Calif. — When Jen Goodlin visited Paradise six months after the 2018 Camp fire, she thought she was saying goodbye.

A town native, Goodlin was living in Colorado with her husband and four children. She wanted to witness the devastation that wiped out 10,700 homes, including the small white cottage where she grew up, and turned the dense forest of her youth into a bleak landscape. But once she arrived, she was surprised at her reaction. She could envision so much more than the burned trees and abandoned businesses around her.

Here, she saw, her family could live on a big piece of land as they’d always wanted. Her husband thought she was crazy, but they ran the numbers, bought a 1.2-acre vacant lot and put a trailer on the property. A few years later, they moved into a new, four-bedroom house.

“It took the fire to bring me home,” said Goodlin, 43, who now runs a local wildfire recovery nonprofit.

Jen Goodlin, executive director of the Rebuild Paradise Foundation, in Paradise, Calif., in June 2024.

(Nic Coury / Associated Press)

Young families like Goodlin’s are coming to Paradise, shifting the town’s demographics away from the retirees who once lived there. Attracted by cheap land — lots cost less than a mid-range car— newcomers can build a larger home on larger parcels for less than buying a house in Chico, a city of 100,000 people 15 miles away.

Though Paradise’s current population is less than half of what it was, the local Little League already has more kids than before the fire.

Nearly a decade of megafire in California has brought profound changes to recovering communities. Paradise has become younger. Some rebuilt areas have become wealthier. Renters and people on fixed incomes have found themselves pushed to more urban locales. Both devastated neighborhoods and fire survivors face an unpredictable future that, given the recent intensity of wildfires in California, many more areas will have to face.

Reminders of fire are inescapable in Paradise, from the roadside signposts that designate evacuation routes to the alarm that blares at noon on the 15th of every month, a test of the system that will tell everyone if they need to flee once again. At the same time, the activity in the town belies the desolation implied by building data that show only 30% of destroyed homes have been replaced. Dog walkers and parents with small children play in refurbished parks. At lunchtime, construction workers in reflective vests gather around taco trucks.

A deer treks over an empty lot as homes continue to be built throughout Paradise years after the Camp fire.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Local boosters tout that for every year after the fire, Paradise has been one of the fastest-growing communities in California. Another half-dozen homes are being rebuilt each month, according to a Times data analysis.

But as shown in Paradise, the statistics tell only part of the story. The Times found that of the nearly 22,500 homes lost in the Camp fire and California’s four other most destructive wildfires from 2017 to 2020, just 8,400, or 38%, have been rebuilt.

Given the time that has already passed, it’s unlikely that some places — the forests below the northern Sierra Nevada, parts of the Santa Monica Mountains, pieces of old Shasta County mining towns — ever will have the same number of homes as before. In Paradise, it’s essentially guaranteed. Many returning homeowners purchased their neighbors’ burned out lots to build a larger house or simply expand the size of their property.

Instead of simply repopulating these areas, there has been a subtle shift toward living in more urban communities, especially for renters or homeowners who couldn’t afford to rebuild. In Butte County, disaster relief dollars from both the Camp fire and North Complex fire, which destroyed 1,500 homes in even more rural areas two years later, have been funneled toward affordable housing projects largely in Chico and smaller nearby cities untouched by the blazes. Not one such development has been proposed in the North Complex burn scar.

The rationale is straightforward: More people can be housed more safely and sustainably in cities than in mountainous, fire-prone tracts with little public infrastructure. The urban developments also provide access to grocery stores, public transit and other amenities that give them a higher chance of winning state financing competitions and being completed.

Local officials welcome the investments but feel uneasy about what’s happening. Katie Simmons, deputy chief administrative officer overseeing recovery efforts for Butte County, said many rural fire survivors don’t want to move to the city. She called the new developments “displacement housing” that doesn’t address the needs of those in remote areas who continue to “flounder in disaster-caused homelessness.”

As time wears on, fewer and fewer people find themselves in positions to return, sometimes despite extraordinary efforts to allow them to do so.

Palm trees rising over the vacant lot in November 2020 where Journey’s End Trailer Park once stood in Santa Rosa.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

In Santa Rosa, the 2017 Tubbs fire wiped out Journey’s End, a 162-space mobile home park next to a hospital and the 101 Freeway. A partnership between the landowner, the city and for- and nonprofit developers led to plans for more than 400 apartments on the site, including full replacement of 162 units for low-income seniors.

But it wasn’t until summer 2023 that the first apartments opened. Journey’s End residents, so long as they qualified under the age and income restrictions, could return if they wanted.

Few did. About three dozen expressed interest, 12 initially moved in, six of whom remain.

A lot of her former neighbors from the mobile home park died waiting, said Pat Crisco, 75, one of the Journey’s End residents who came back. Others didn’t want to live in apartments. More had settled elsewhere and didn’t want to uproot themselves again, she said.

Pat Crisco is a former resident of the Journey’s End mobile home park that burned in the Tubbs fire. Crisco is now living in the affordable housing apartment development that was built on the site.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

The stray cats Crisco used to feed at Journey’s End are gone and when the hot wind blows outside her apartment building she gets the “heebie jeebies.” But she feels great about her decision to return. The location is close to the bus, her doctors and grocery stores.

“This is brand spanking new,” Crisco said. “And everything is very convenient.”

Research shows that communities that rebuild more fully tend to end up wealthier than they used to be. Homeowners who come back are the ones able to afford to navigate the process, and brand-new houses in established areas attract outsiders.

Before the Tubbs fire, Santa Rosa’s Coffey Park subdivision was middle-class, with its tract homes routinely going for around $500,000. Nearly all the 1,300 houses lost have been rebuilt. Residents were astounded recently when they began selling at more than $1 million.

Jeff Okrepkie, 46, a Coffey Park renter who used his insurance payout as a down payment for a new home on his old street, said it’s undeniable that the neighborhood is more upscale now, with amenities hard to find elsewhere.

“This is the cliche, Americana, suburban single-family-detached homes,” Okrepkie said. “It’s 1980s-style lots, 1980s-style streets with 2020s-style houses.”

Jeff Okrepkie outside his rebuilt home, second from left, in the Coffey Park neighborhood of Santa Rosa.

(Eric Risberg / Associated Press)

What’s happening in Paradise and Santa Rosa provide continually evolving answers to weighty questions: When has a community recovered? And what does recovery even mean?

In 2019, Paradise received a $270-million settlement from Pacific Gas & Electric, whose power lines caused the Camp fire. The town is using the money to backfill lost tax revenue. But it won’t last forever.

That’s why local leaders are pushing for a new sewer system as part of an expanded town center to attract restaurants and business that would make more young families want to live there. The lack of one limited the commercial district in the past.

For Paradise officials, recovery is when the community can sustain itself once again.

“It looks like it’s going to serve us for 25 years,” said Colette Curtis, the town’s recovery and economic development director, of the PG&E settlement.

Some residents of communities reshaped by fire have found themselves both drawn and repelled by the place they call home.

Roger and Lindy Brown lived in Paradise with their daughter before the fire and their home burned. Their daughter went to Chico State, and Roger and Lindy moved to Oregon. Roger and Lindy moved back to a rebuilt home near their old one a couple of years ago.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Roger and Lindy Brown had lived in Paradise for 12 years when the Camp fire struck. After the blaze, the Browns rented an apartment in Chico so their daughter could finish her last year at Paradise High School, which held classes in a mall and then a warehouse in Chico.

Roger, 60, worked in heating and air conditioning and had to return to the town often. He couldn’t take seeing the burned-out trees, cars and homes. The couple took their insurance money and moved to a small town in Oregon. From a distance, the upkeep on their vacant lot proved to be too much so they sold that too.

But Paradise pulled at them, especially Lindy, 66. Their daughter never left, attending Chico State, where she recently graduated. Some of their friends had rebuilt. To her, Oregon felt lonely. Paradise, she said, was their community.

Tom and Diane Boatright built back their home in the second-fastest time after the Camp fire using a modular homebuilding company.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Last year, Roger and Lindy bought a house in Paradise, a newly built, blue, two-bedroom with a white picket fence. The home had all they wanted. Solar power. A large lot. Apple, cherry and peach trees in the back. And they were overwhelmed with the thought of starting from scratch.

They’ve kept a Little Free Library on their lawn stocked with books. In the spring, they traded their extra peaches for eggs from their neighbor’s chickens.

On a recent weekday afternoon, Roger and Lindy stood in their frontyard admiring the finishing touches on their only major construction project. They were replacing some of the landscaping with gravel, a decision that made their home more fire-resistant and cut their insurance costs in half.

Roger still felt unsure about returning. Before the fire, he would go to breakfast with the town’s classic car club every Saturday. The 1971 Chevy Nova Roger had restored was lost in the blaze and the car club was no more.

“It’s never going to be the Paradise it was,” Roger said to Lindy.

His wife turned to him. “It doesn’t have to be,” she said.

Seventy percent of the 20 most destructive wildfires in state history have occurred since fall 2017, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

To understand the pace and extent of rebuilding in the most significant of these fires, The Times relied on data from state and local governments.

The Times obtained data in February from the Cal Fire Damage Inspection Database, known as DINS, which documents buildings burned in wildfires. We filtered for residential structures — single-residence, multiple-residence and mixed-use commercial/residential — that were destroyed.

We limited our reporting to fires that destroyed 1,000 or more residential structures during this period — aside from January’s Palisades and Eaton fires in Los Angeles County. There were five: Tubbs (2017), Carr (2018), Camp (2018), Woolsey (2018) and North Complex (2020).

The Times analysis showed 22,438 residential structures burned in the five fires. About 75% were single-family homes, 23% were mobile homes and fewer than 2% were apartment, condominium or other multifamily buildings. Because of data limitations, a multifamily building was counted as one residential structure no matter how many units it had. In its reporting, The Times used “residential structure” and “home” interchangeably.

The fires destroyed homes across 16 local jurisdictions. To determine when and how many homes were rebuilt, The Times in March and April collected certificate of occupancy data from building departments in each community. Additionally, The Times accessed data from the California Department of Housing and Community Development, which regulates mobile home parks.

Using GIS software, The Times plotted coordinates in the Cal Fire data to match each destroyed structure to the city or county responsible for issuing a permit to rebuild it. From there, The Times merged assessor parcel numbers of destroyed homes from the Cal Fire data with those of rebuilt homes from local and state building data obtained from each jurisdiction. Finally, The Times summarized certificates of occupancy issued by day to plot the reconstruction timeline for each fire. For uniformity, the results are limited to homes approved prior to April 1.

The Times deviated from its methodology for a specific situation. The Tubbs fire destroyed a 162-lot mobile home park in Santa Rosa. Two apartment buildings for low-income senior citizens together comprising 132 units have been built on the site. Given that the Times analysis designated 162 mobile homes as destroyed, the analysis was adjusted to count the 132 replacement apartment units.

Overall, the analysis concluded that 8,420 homes have been rebuilt, 38% of those destroyed in the five fires.

The Times results could differ from reports published by some jurisdictions for two reasons: Local jurisdictions may have conducted more rigorous inventories of destroyed buildings than detailed in the Cal Fire DINS data and their rebuilding numbers can be continuously updated.

Architect Simon Ha was trying to squeeze an apartment building onto a 6,400-square foot lot in Hollywood.

The city of Los Angeles requires two stairways for such buildings, which limited the configurations Ha could use. After racking his brain, he finally came up with a solution.

“It was like designing a Swiss watch,” he said of the 2023 project.

Now, the L.A. City Council is on the brink of allowing just one stairway for buildings of up to six stories, making it easier and cheaper to build on smaller lots — but raising concerns about escape routes in a fire or earthquake.

Councilmember Nithya Raman, who introduced the single stairway proposal with Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, said she wants to speed up development to address the city’s housing crisis and to encourage the construction of apartments big enough for families. And she believes safety needn’t be sacrificed.

“We’re trying to say, ‘How can we build more safely — and build more overall?’” Raman said in an interview.

Los Angeles Councilmember Nithya Raman.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Until recently, New York, Seattle and Honolulu were among the few American cities that allowed single stairways in buildings of up to six stories. Since 2022, amid a nationwide affordable housing crunch, at least 16 cities and states have proposed or enacted single stairway regulations, according to a Pew Charitable Trusts study released in February.

The double stairway rule, in place in California since 1981, makes it harder to build apartments with more than two bedrooms, urban planners and architects said.

Apartments typically have to be laid out along a long hallway, with windows on only one side of each unit, resulting in less light and ventilation, said Stephen Smith, who is executive director of the Center for Building in North America and one of the single stairway’s biggest advocates.

“For small lots in particular, the second stairway can eat up a huge amount of the building’s footprint,” he said.

A single stair layout without a long hallway could mean more room for larger units

Based on design by Simon Ha

Gabrielle LaMarr LeMee LOS ANGELES TIMES

Under state law, L.A. can reduce the number of stairways it requires, as long as it implements other restrictions, such as high-end sprinkler systems. Raman and Yaroslavsky’s proposal for single stairway buildings would limit the number of units per floor to four.

But proponents of double stairways say they are a key safety measure, giving residents two options for fleeing a fire, along with a separate route for firefighters.

Frank Lima, a Los Angeles firefighter and general secretary-treasurer of the International Assn. of Fire Fighters, or IAFF, said the stairways are a life-and-death issue.

“[A single stairway] forces building occupants to go down a stairwell while firefighters go up a stairwell,” Lima said. “That delays fire attack, delays people getting out of a building — when seconds count.”

“When you try to cut corners to save money or make more units, it shouldn’t be at the price of children that die,” Lima said.

The IAFF, which represents firefighters and emergency medical technicians across the U.S. and Canada, has strongly opposed single stairway proposals — “I’d rather call it ‘only one way out,’” Lima said.

On Aug. 20, the City Council voted 13 to 1 to request that city staffers draft a single stairway ordinance.

In a memo to the council, City Planning Director Vincent Bertoni wrote that the single stairway proposal could make a “substantial contribution” to the city’s housing supply.

“The result is that family-sized units — a much needed segment of Los Angeles’ housing stock — are not being produced at the scale required to meet existing and projected needs,” he wrote of the double stairway requirement.

About 14% of rental units in the city are three or more bedrooms, according to the Planning Department.

Zachary Pitts, the Los Angeles director of YIMBY Action, which advocates for more affordable housing, said he had a hard time finding a three-bedroom apartment in downtown Los Angeles.

There were plenty of studios, one-bedrooms and two-bedrooms, but places big enough for his family of four cost a small fortune.

“We ended up buying a single-family home, since a mortgage was lower than the prices we were being quoted,” Pitts said.

Ha, the architect, said that ditching the double stairway requirement could enable developers to produce “East Coast-style” townhouses like those in New York — a contrast to the “podium-style” buildings now going up in L.A., which generally take up a half or whole block.

Ha has designed buildings from San Francisco to San Diego, though most of his work is in Los Angeles, where he is the architect of many micro-apartment complexes, which contain only studios.

Small parcels of 7,500 square feet or less, where a single stairway would make apartments easier to build, often sit empty for long periods, creating “missing teeth” in the city’s layout, Ha said.

Simon Ha stands inside one of two stairways at the Hollywood Premiere Apartments. Architects such as Ha are in support of single stairway reform that would make it easier and cheaper to develop on small lots.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

The Los Angeles Fire Department declined to comment on the single stairway proposal, saying it is under review by the city fire marshal. The councilmembers behind the proposal say the department has been consulted every step of the way.

Raman said she sees “no reduction in fire safety.”

“New fire safety standards in our building code have made it so new buildings are much safer overall,” she said.

Architect Simon Ha shows the two stairways at the Hollywood Premiere Apartments.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

The Pew Charitable Trusts study, co-written and researched by Smith of the Center for Building in North America, found that in New York, the rate of fire deaths in single stairway buildings was the same as in other residential buildings.

“This [double stairway] code originates from when people were cooking with open flames, when there were no sprinklers or fire alarms,” Smith said.

City Councilmember Adrin Nazarian voted yes on the Aug. 20 motion to draft a single stairway ordinance, though he had previously expressed reservations about earthquake safety.

Seattle has single stairways but “less than one-tenth the number of seismic activity we have in our region,” he said during a council meeting.

Councilmember Traci Park was the lone no vote.

“Generally in life, when you have more exits and evacuation routes, things are generally more safe,” she said.

We asked L.A. Times readers: “Thinking ahead to 2050, how might you reconfigure the city so it is a sustainable home for everyone?” Here is a sampling of their comments:

Use the Chicago riverfront, apartments, architecture, etc., as your example. We could have a thriving green space with the L.A. River, bike paths, community parks, gardens, etc.

Los Angeles knows how to weather a crisis — or two or three. Angelenos are tapping into that resilience, striving to build a city for everyone.

Go international and use Florence or Tokyo as your examples. Enact beautiful single-stair buildings, public art, clean sidewalks and streets that are protected in the city budget, and reliable automatic trains that run every four minutes so people don’t feel trapped by their cars.

Our legislators must enact public policy and change their cities for the better. Instead, the L.A. City Council allows a literal dirt space behind City Hall to be used for random events instead of new housing or a shared, protected public park.

— Rachel Smith

I would put an emphasis on clean air in every public space. Whether the concern is viruses or wildfire smoke or anything else, no public space should have poor air quality. We need to be monitoring air quality levels in all public spaces and putting in appropriate air filtration.

The Pacific Palisades house is clad in fiber cement. The roof is made of fireproof TPO (thermoplastic polyolefin), the deck is made with specially treated wood for fire resistance and a fire suppression system in the back of the house sprayed fire retardant onto the vegetation.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

— Annette Majerowicz

I do not live there, but hope to retire there. I want walkable areas with maintained sidewalks and shade.

— Cindy Riachi

The time has finally come for Los Angeles to build up in earnest. The urban sprawl that has come to define the city has now become one of its biggest threats. One estimate is that in the United States, one in four new homes are built in areas prone to wildfires and an estimated 95% of wildfires in California are “man-made.” This existential question has largely been unaddressed in the past 25 years, especially as the region has stuck to its formula of growing communities further outwards.

Now we find a region that has begun to stagnate as fires continue to pound on its doors and its residents are questioning their future and safety there, all the while fighting rising prices.

There is much opportunity that comes with building up, the ability to reshape the city, bring forth high density, sustainable, residential buildings that can alleviate the housing crisis and even reduce traffic as some studies have shown. An emphasis on land management and parks can open up city spaces while protecting it from the threat of wildfires.

— Matthew Perez

For the love of God, can we just get some bike lanes?

— Evan Gillespie

Landscaping? Yes, but make sure it’s drought-tolerant and geographically appropriate.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

To transform Los Angeles into a sustainable and equitable city by 2050, we need a holistic approach that addresses climate challenges while fostering community well-being. My vision is rooted in architecture, landscaping, neighborhood planning and inclusive design practices.

Resilient Architecture and Housing: Buildings must be designed to withstand the increasing threat of wildfires and other climate-related events. This means using fire-resistant materials, integrating green roofs for natural cooling and air quality, and designing adaptable, modular structures that can be quickly reconfigured or relocated if needed. Housing should be dense but human-scaled, with flexible spaces that accommodate changing family structures and community needs.

Sustainable Landscaping and Urban Ecology: Landscaping in 2050 Los Angeles will move away from water-intensive practices, embracing native, drought-tolerant plants that support local biodiversity. Urban forests will play a crucial role in reducing heat islands, while community gardens and urban farms will become integral to neighborhood identity, providing both food security and green space.

Connected and Climate-Conscious Neighborhoods: To minimize car dependency, neighborhoods will be designed as walkable, bike-friendly hubs that mix housing, workspaces, and recreational areas. Public transportation will be integrated seamlessly into these communities, encouraging active mobility and reducing emissions. We will rethink zoning to allow for more live-work spaces, eliminating long commutes and fostering local economies.

Community-Centered Planning: Planning will be community-driven, prioritizing equity by involving residents in decision-making processes. Each neighborhood will develop its own identity and purpose — some focusing on water management and treatment, others on urban agriculture or community energy production. This localized approach will build social cohesion while addressing specific climate challenges.

Welcoming and Inclusive Urban Fabric: By 2050, Los Angeles will embrace its diverse population by valuing skills and contributions from all residents, including immigrants. Adapted housing and support systems will ensure no one lives on the streets, and public spaces will be accessible and inclusive

Could AI robots pick up all our trash in the future?

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

— Ena (Ana) Yanchapaxi

Stop catering to developers, large corporations and monopolies. We need to prioritize citizens and businesses so people can stay locally.

— Josh Walters

*Use AI Robots to pick up and organize all trash 24/7.

*Double-decker light rail on the 10 and 405, 105, 101, 5. Put light rail on every major east to west artery.

*Close all oil refineries

*Move the airport outside the city.

*Make coastal areas into massive wetland / chaparral ecosystems.

*Return Altadena and Pacific Palisades into a chaparral ecosystem.

*Expand sidewalks / pedestrian access; create plazas to increase walkability.

*Reduce water imports to help the rest of California and make it more resistant to climate change.

*Create more freeway overpasses for wildlife.

*Replace gas stations with state-run electric charging stations

*Fruit trees throughout the city

*Dense communal living options.

Plant more fruit trees? Why not?

(Jeanette Marantos / Los Angeles Times)

— Matt Ceran

Repeal and phase out Prop. 13, and rezone most of the city so we can build multi-family housing, more walkable communities. Just build more housing and see how a majority of the city’s problems will diminish or disappear altogether. Oh, and plant more trees. I think it’s a tragedy that the city with the most incredible weather in the world was made so un-walkable.

— Michele Medina

Los Angeles needs to rethink its car-first history first and foremost if we are ever going to make inroads toward a more sustainable future. Fighting constantly for better public transit is the easy answer as we see Metro working in new projects, but there also has to be a hyper-local push toward smart density, advocating for more walkable neighborhoods, fewer single-family housing developments, and completely redesigning towns and cities so folks can access what they need without needing to drive everywhere.

— Charles Vignola

I think Los Angeles needs to make more space for people and nature, and less for cars. Tons of apartments everywhere, bike and bus lanes, trains, and parks. A lot of that is hard, small work you see on a neighborhood scale, but there’s one big project I’d like to see: burying the 101 and building a linear park in the Cahuenga Pass. This would give more people access to a giant park, reduce car pollution, and provide safe passage for mountain lions to cross into Griffith Park. The views of the valley and the basin would be spectacular, and it would be a refuge, a reconstruction of the ancient Tongva walking path.

— Jonathan Eby

Reality TV star Duane “Dog the Bounty Hunter” Chapman and his family are mourning the recent loss of one of their own.

Anthony, the reality TV star’s teenage step-grandson died on Saturday evening after he was allegedly accidentally shot by his father, Gregory Zecca — Chapman’s stepson — in Naples, Fla., The Times has confirmed. He was 13.

A spokesperson for the Collier County Sheriff’s Office told The Times on Monday that it is investigating the alleged shooting. Officers received a call about a shooting incident at an apartment on Sumter Grove Way in southern Florida at around 8:08 p.m., the spokesperson said, adding “this was an isolated incident.” No arrest has been made in connection to the incident, People reported.

According to the incident report reviewed by The Times on Monday, parts of it redacted, the responding officer heard screaming on the dispatch call. First responders arrived at the apartment and the victim — whose name was not revealed — was pronounced dead before 8:30 p.m.

In a statement shared to TMZ, which first reported on the alleged shooting, Chapman and his wife, Francie Chapman, confirmed Anthony’s death.

“We are grieving as a family over this incomprehensible tragic accident and we grieve the loss of our beloved grandson, Anthony,” the statement said. The couple also requested privacy as they grieved their loved one.

The Times did not hear back immediately from the 72-year-old reality star or his wife on Monday.

Chapman, best known for his long-running A&E reality TV show “Dog the Bounty Hunter,” married Francie Chapman (née Frane) two years after wife Beth Chapman died in 2021 following a battle with cancer.

He has been married six times and has a total of 13 children from those marriages. Zecca, 38, is Francie Chapman’s son from a previous relationship.

Gymnast and social media influencer Olivia Dunne was all set to buy her first home. And it wasn’t just any home.

Dunne had a contract in place to buy a $1.6-million apartment that was once owned by baseball great Babe Ruth on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

But it ended up not being a Dunne deal.

The recent Louisiana State graduate known to her fans as “Livvy” won’t be moving into the former digs of the player known to fans as “the Bambino,” because the building’s co-op board rejected her application.

In a video posted to TikTok on Tuesday, Dunne told her 8 million followers that she is “so upset” after coming so close to residing in the same seventh-floor apartment where the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox legend is said to have lived from 1929 to 1940.

“It was Babe Ruth’s apartment,” said Dunne, who grew up less than an hour away in Hillside, N.J. “So naturally, like, I’m telling everybody. I’m excited. I was gonna buy it and I was gonna pay with cash, like I wanted this apartment bad.”

The 2025 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover model said her real estate agent “was so confident” the deal would go through that she brought boyfriend Paul Skenes, the Pittsburgh Pirates’ All-Star pitcher and 2024 National League rookie of the year, to see the place.

“I got an interior designer because I didn’t want to bring my college furniture to Babe Ruth’s apartment — that would be like, criminal,” Dunne said. “Then the week that I’m supposed to get my keys to my brand new apartment, I get a call. The co-op board denied me.”

The listing agent confirmed to The Times that Dunne had made an offer on the property that was accepted by the seller and, as the final step in the process, turned in an application for the purchase for the co-op board’s approval. The board rejected that application about three weeks ago, the agent said.

No explanation was given for the rejection, although Dunne has her theories.

“For all I know, they could have been Alabama fans and I went to LSU,” she joked. “I have no clue. Maybe they didn’t want a public figure living there. But I was literally supposed to get the keys, and that week they denied me.”

She added: “Long story short, don’t try to live in a co-op. You might get denied and you won’t get Babe Ruth’s apartment.”

I didn’t think my level of loathing for the Max sequel to HBO’s “Sex and the City” could get any higher, and just like that, along came Season 3.

You see what I did there? Like every single person who has written about “And Just Like That…,” I have used the title in a naked and half-assed attempt to be clever.

Which honestly could also be the title of the series.

We’re midway through the third — and one can only hope final — season, and I am hoarse from screaming at watching these beloved characters behave as if they had done some sort of “Freaky Friday” switch with 13-year-olds.

Which is actually an insult to most 13-year-olds.

In the course of the barely-recognizable-as-human events that make up this latest episode, Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) prolonged her inexplicable bout of homelessness by acting shocked — shocked! — that Seema (Sarita Choudhury), having found her a dream house, would expect her to make a bid over asking price; Lisa (Nicole Ari Parker) dealt with the grief over her father’s death by whining about the amazing send-off orchestrated by his friend Lucille (Jenifer Lewis) despite it including a performance by … Jenifer Lewis; and Charlotte (Kristin Davis) continued to behave as if it were perfectly normal for her husband Harry (Evan Handler) to keep his prostate cancer diagnosis secret from everyone including their children, who would no doubt handle it better than Charlotte.

All of which paled in comparison to the latest installment in the emotional horror show that is the second-time-around courtship of Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) and Aidan (John Corbett), which has been under threat since it was revealed in Season 2 that Aidan’s 15-year-old son Wyatt (Logan Souza) has some issues, including a recent ADHD diagnosis. Events lead Aidan to impulsively announce that he and Carrie will have to put their relationship on hold until Wyatt turns 20 (when, as everyone knows, parental responsibilities officially end).

Aidan puts his relationship with Carrie on hold because of issues related to his teenage son, Wyatt (Logan Souza).

(Craig Blankenhorn / Max)

Not surprisingly, this plan does not work out, and in this episode, Aidan celebrates the fact that Wyatt is attending a week-long wilderness camp (um, what?) by showing up at Carrie’s apartment, where he immediately breaks a window by throwing a pebble at it. You know, like he used to in the old days before Carrie had a jillion-dollar apartment with 19th century windows that, as she says, “survived the Mexican War, the Civil War, the Draft Riots of ‘63” (memo to Carrie — New York saw no action in the Mexican War).

After going to obsessive lengths to replace the glass, Aidan then confesses that he and his ex Kathy (Rosemarie DeWitt) had to force Wyatt onto the plane (how they managed to be at the gate as unticketed passengers to do this remains a mystery), an event so upsetting that Aidan and Kathy were forced to comfort each other with sex.

For one brief and shining moment, I waited for Carrie to call time of death on one of the unhealthiest relationships this particular universe has seen (and that’s saying something). Instead, and impossibly, she said she understood.

Apparently love means ignoring every sign God could think to send you. Not only did Aidan have sex with his ex, he forced his unmedicated, unsupervised 15-year-old with ADHD onto a plane headed to the Grand Tetons. (Whether the poor kid made it to camp or is currently having a meltdown in the Jackson Hole airport is never mentioned.)

But then Carrie, and the series, has continued to treat Wyatt’s condition, and his father’s obvious irritated denial of its realities, as simply a logistical obstacle in her fairy tale love story. This would barely make sense if Carrie were still in her 30s, and it makes absolutely none for a woman of her age.

I begrudge no one the desire to reboot a groundbreaking series, and two years ago, the prospect of seeing these iconic 30-somethings as mid-to-late 50-somethings was certainly appealing to one who shares their mature demographic. If only Michael Patrick King, the force behind “And Just Like That…,” allowed any of them to have matured. I don’t mean physically — stars Parker, Nixon, Davis and Kim Cattrall (briefly glimpsed at the end of Season 2) — are fit and lovely and obviously older. I mean emotionally, spiritually and psychologically.

“And Just Like That…” has had two and a half seasons to make these women seem like actual people who might exist, if not in real life, then at least the “Sex and the City” universe (remember the opening credits, when Carrie gets splashed by a bus? Hyperrealism compared to the eat-off-the-sidewalks vision of “And Just Like That…’s” New York.)

Instead, the series seems determined to prove that age is just a number by forcing its leads, now including Choudhury and Parker, to act as if 50 is the new (and very stupid) 30.

I get that Miranda is coming to grips with her newly discovered queerness, but surely a successful, Harvard-educated lawyer who has survived a divorce and raised a teenage son would have a bit more confidence and self-awareness in love, real estate and basic guest etiquette — after moving in briefly with Carrie, she eats the last yogurt!

Charlotte has always been an original Disney princess, all wide eyes and faith in the restorative nature of small animals and florals, but at 55, her high-strung reaction to her husband’s prostate cancer (caught early, easily treatable) is helpful to no one. And don’t get me about her little foot-stamping approach to motherhood or how she speaks about her dog.

Aidan’s shocking confession did little to derail Carrie or their relationship.

(Craig Blankenhorn / Max)

As for Carrie, well, it’s one thing to be a relentlessly hopeful romantic addicted to tulle, stilettos and problematic men in your 30s, but Carrie’s pushing 60 now, so when she agreed, with no demur, to Aidan’s absurd five-year plan, I wondered if she had simply gone mad.

Watching as she subsequently rattled around her huge, empty (if incredibly luxe) apartment wearing a see-through, Ophelia-like dress stuffed with roses or traipsed through Central Park wearing a hat the size of a hot-air balloon only exacerbated my fears. Dressing like Marie Antoinette to attend a luncheon at Tiffany’s isn’t sassy fashion sense — it’s a cry for help.

She most certainly needs help. The reunion with Aidan seemed too good to be true, and thus it is proving to be. Even a 30-something Carrie would have known that being in a relationship with a father means being in a relationship with his children. But the notion that she must be kept separate from Wyatt is not just unsustainable — it’s insulting.

What, she’s never experienced, met or even read about children with ADHD or post-divorce trauma? Or is she such a delicate flower that she can’t handle being around a teenager with anger management issues? She lives in New York, for heaven’s sake, the city that invented anger management issues.

Frankly, Aidan’s behavior is far more concerning than Wyatt’s, a flag so big and red that Carrie could make a stunning sheath dress out of it.

Which she appears to be doing, instead of, you know, acting like the grown-ass rich widow she is and calling Aidan out on his bull.

“And Just Like That…” purports to celebrate the mid-life do-over, just as it purports to show that women in their 50s are just as vibrant, complicated and fun as women in their 30s. Both are admirable goals, neither of which the series achieves. Even with its title — ”And Just Like That…” — this series seems determined to erase everything that might have made the older versions of these characters interesting and resonant.

Like the ability to buy a house or say the word “cancer” or get out of an unhealthy romantic relationship before it spits right in your eye.

After living in her two-bedroom apartment in Los Feliz for more than a decade, Debra Weiss encountered a problem experienced by many renters in Los Angeles: She was evicted.

“I moved into the apartment in 2014, and four years later, my landlord sold it to a wealthy family who bought it at a loss,” said Weiss, 69, who works as a textile artist. “They knew they couldn’t evict us due to rent control.”

In this series, we spotlight L.A. rentals with style. From perfect gallery walls to temporary decor hacks, these renters get creative, even in small spaces. And Angelenos need the inspiration: Most are renters.

When the landlords put the three-unit complex on the market in 2022, however, they offered Weiss $50,000 to move out — far more than the amount required by law — to make the building easier for them to sell. She declined, concerned it would affect her Social Security benefits, as there is a limit to how much one can earn and still receive full benefits.

Then, last February, the three tenants received eviction notices under the Ellis Act, which allows landlords to evict renters from rent-controlled apartments if the building is being torn down or removed from the rental market. It’s currently for sale for $3.2 million.

As a senior, Weiss was entitled to a full year’s notice because she had lived in her unit for more than a year. Still, she knew she would eventually have to move out of the comfortable 1,200-square-foot duplex, for which she paid $2,670 a month in rent.

Artist Debra Weiss stands in her dining room where she often works as a fiber artist.

When she began looking for another apartment in the area, Weiss quickly learned that she could no longer afford to live in Los Feliz. “The apartments were so much more expensive than what I was used to paying, and they had no parking or a washer and dryer,” she said. (Weiss was paid $24,650 in relocation assistance, which was taxed, due to her age and the length of time she lived in her Los Feliz apartment.)

She also visited some small studios and considered purchasing a TIC, or Tenancy in Common, where buyers purchase a share in a corporation that owns a building. However, to secure a loan, she’d need someone to co-sign. “Even though they are cute, they are tiny and not necessarily in the best neighborhoods,” she said. Another option, a Craftsman apartment near USC, wasn’t in a good walking neighborhood, something that was important to Weiss. It was also dark and hundreds of dollars more a month than her previous apartment. “I’m almost 70 years old and I need light to work,” she added.

Handknitted sculptures, embroidered weavings and a tufted rug adorn the guest room.

When her son-in-law spotted a charming two-bedroom apartment near the Los Angeles County Museum of Art for $2,950 a month on Zillow, Weiss decided to check it out.

“My initial reaction was, ‘I want this,’ ” Weiss said of the fourplex.

The rental had high ceilings, oak floors, ample sunlight, an appealing fireplace, a garage and a washer and dryer. A newly redone modern kitchen felt out of character for the 1930s building, but that didn’t bother Weiss. “The kitchen is a blank canvas,” she said of the all-white cabinets and countertops. “The white background makes all of my stuff stand out,” including ceramics by Mt. Washington Pottery and Altadena artist Linda Hsiao.

Weiss knits a sweater for her granddaughter with yarn she purchased in Japan.

Concerned that the landlord wouldn’t want to rent to her because of her age, she was pleasantly surprised when she got the apartment. “The light is amazing,” Weiss said. “I was initially worried about some of the modern touches like the overhead lighting, but it floods the room with bright light that allows me to work at night.”

Nearly a year after moving in, Weiss has filled the apartment with her stitched collages, quilts and the artworks of others, many of which she described as “trades.” “I like color and pattern and objects,” she said as she pointed out some Japanese ceramics on her buffet and a dress that she crocheted with scraps of fabric, yarn and metal.

In the guest room, a wall hanging composed of three separate weavings in a gingham check pattern is embroidered with a series of characters she based on her 5-year-old granddaughter’s drawings. “It’s about people coming together in chaos and supporting each other,” Weiss said. “I like the pattern; it reminds me of eating together on picnic tables.”

“I like objects,” Weiss said of the many treasures and collections of things that are featured throughout her rental.

On the opposite wall of the guest room above her sewing machine, a series of metal sculptures she knitted with copper and silver hangs alongside cloth dolls and purses. In the corner, a cowl made of macrame, textiles and yarn adorns a mannequin. There’s also a colorful latch hook rug that she made with acrylic yarn that looks more like artwork than a functional accessory.

In her bedroom, a coverlet that Weiss assembled from vintage quilts adorns the bed.

The long hallway ends at the laundry room and is lined with her colorful quilts, some of which are mounted on Homasote board, along with weavings and stitched works, which, like her cooking, are improvisational.

“I work without planning and respond to the materials and see what it becomes,” she said. “I start knitting and see where it goes. I get excited about the material, and then I go for it. “

The hallway in Weiss’s apartment is lined with her artworks.

Much of the wood furniture in her apartment was made by her father, who died 13 years ago.

“I’ve had this since my kids were little, and you can see all the markings,” she said of the hutch in the corner of her dining room. “My dad made it 40 years ago for the Van Nuys house I grew up in.”

It is here, at the dining room table that her father made, that she works, hosts workshops and teaches lessons in fiber art, collage and stitching. Later this year, she hopes to host a sale of her work at a holiday open house in her apartment.

Weiss is an expert in mixing texture, pattern and color in her Mid-Wilshire apartment.

The mixing of colorful Persian rugs, textiles, natural materials, chunky wood pieces and intricately knitted metal sculptures creates a warm balance throughout her apartment.

Bursting with color and pattern, the rooms offer a sense of calm that Weiss appreciates as a woman who raised three daughters alone and has had to pivot during major life changes. Over the years, she has run a clothing company, Rebe, which closed in 2019 due to economic uncertainty, declared bankruptcy and sold her Woodland Hills house. Most recently, she was forced to weather the eviction process.

“I’ve always been an entrepreneur,” said Weiss, who works six to eight hours a day at home and sells her artwork and sewing patterns on her Specks and Keepings website and at L.A. Homefarm in Glassell Park. “I’ll always figure out a way to make money by selling the things that I make.”

Even though the process of having to move was stressful, Weiss is happy with her new home and neighborhood. “I take the Metro bus everywhere and hardly ever drive,” she said. “I go to the Hollywood Farmer’s Market on Sundays. Kaiser is nearby and I can walk to LACMA. Everything worked out perfectly.”

Weiss pulls out a drawer of her flat files cabinet filled with her artwork.

If you’re looking for a staycation idea, we’ve found a charming two-bedroom apartment near Whitby in North Yorkshire with loads of five star reviews and availability in summer

British breaks are always a popular type of holiday, and if you’re considering visiting the Yorkshire coast on your UK staycation this summer, we’ve found a beautiful two-person holiday apartment available to rent that comes highly recommended by previous guests.

Brambles Apartment, available to book via Sykes Cottages, is a cosy and comfy first-floor holiday rental in Sneatonthorpe near Ruswarp in the North York Moors National Park, around 10 minutes from the popular seaside town of Whitby. With light and airy ‘country chic’ decor, it features an open-plan kitchen and living space, a smart TV and a small shared garden, with one previous guest calling it “a great base for exploring Whitby and the surrounding area”.

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In fact, Brambles Apartment only has five star reviews on the Sykes website, with visitors praising the hosts, the high standard of the property, and the “excellent views”:

“First class apartment, clean, comfortable lovely views from the windows and in a peaceful location,” one of the reviews is titled. “A very enjoyable week, would definitely recommend Brambles apartment,” the writer adds.

“Lovely stay in a great and comfortable apartment with beautiful views,” another guest agrees.

“So cosy, peaceful, clean and comfy, and a great base for exploring Whitby and the surrounding area,” a third review reads. “One of the nicest we’ve stayed in, and we would not hesitate to book again next time we visit! A definite recommend!”

The description on the Sykes website explains that Whitby Abbey, Whitby Harbour and the Captain Cook Memorial Museum are all within easy reach, as are Whitby Beach and Robin’s Hood Bay Beach, as well as the picturesque North York Moors National Park.

If you’re tempted, you’ll be happy to hear that Brambles Apartment still has lots of availability over the coming months, including during the school holidays. According to the Sykes website, a seven-night stay from 18-25 July costs from £677 (down from £981), while a long weekend in August, from 15-18, also costs from £677, down from £1,114).

It’s worth noting that Brambles Apartment doesn’t accept pets, so if you’re looking for somewhere to stay with a dog, you might want to check out other nearby Sykes Cottages properties such as Lythe Cottage or Jet Cottage.

Holiday Cottages is another site to browse for inspiration, which features charming Whitby properties including Sandy Shores, Lavender House and Dean Cottage.

And if you fancy something a little different, how about staying in Whitby Lighthouse? Guests can book one of two rental properties in the lighthouse – Galatea and Vanguard – through Rural Retreats.

Alternatively if, like Coleen Rooney and her family, you enjoy a caravan holiday, Parkdean has resorts across the UK, including Carmarthen, Lincolnshire and Northumberland.

Don’t want to drive to your holiday hotspot this summer? Find the cheapest train tickets through Trainline, where customers can save 61% on average when they book them in advance.

Holidaymakers have heaped praise on an award-winning apartment with ‘stunning sea views’

UK tourists seeking a coastal getaway love escaping it all in Weymouth. Found in Dorset, the picturesque town boasts a charming harbour and golden sands. It’s no surprise that it’s a popular destination for families.

Holidaymakers looking for accommodation love Wessex View, an award-winning apartment listed on Sykes Holiday Cottages. It was the gold winner of ‘Best for Beaches’ in the Sykes Gems 2023 Awards. The well-reviewed property has received lots of praise for its “perfect location” and “fantastic sea views.”

However, while it is in “a prime position on the esplanade”, guests said it’s on “a very busy road,” with some reviewers commenting on “traffic noise.” Another option for visitors could be Lavender House Weymouth, a five-bedroom house found on Booking.com.

There’s also The Yellow One, an apartment that accommodates two guests, found on holidaycottages.co.uk, and Outlook Lodge, which sleeps four guests, found on Dream Cottages.

Wessex View sleeps four guests and offers off-road parking for one car. However, pets are not allowed at the property. The accommodation listing says: “Experience stunning sea views from this beautifully presented ground-floor apartment, Wessex View, located in the popular seaside resort of Weymouth in Dorset. It enjoys a prime position on the esplanade, just a few moments from the golden, sandy beach.

“The accommodation lies all on one level, aside from some steps leading down into the twin bedroom, and is suited best to a family of four or perhaps a couples break.” While there’s only limited availability for this summer, you could book four nights from May 31 for £630, three nights from September 6 for £636, or seven nights from September 27 for £630.

Reviewers loved the views from the apartment, though some raised issues with the accommodation. A guest praised: “Beautiful flat. Enjoyed watching the sunrise every morning from the big windows with an uninterrupted view of the sea. Beds were also comfortable. Plenty of toys and board games available to keep the kids happy.”

Someone else wrote: “Absolutely lovely apartment. It was so thoughtfully furnished and such a breath of fresh air to have so many items that are suitable for families. Perfect location for the beach and for looking out to sea over a morning coffee. Totally gorgeous.”

However, a different reviewer commented: “We had a lovely week. The flat was very clean and had everything we needed and plenty of space for the two of us. The seaview is a big plus. The only disappointments were that it stands on a very busy road, though maybe we shouldn’t have been surprised, given its location, and that we couldn’t get wifi in the twin bedroom, neither of which would stop us staying again as we loved being so close to the sea for our morning dips.”

Someone else with mixed feedback replied: “Excellent location, just across the road from the beach and short walk to the town/harbour. So many beautiful walking routes close by. The view of the sea from the lounge was amazing.

“The apartment was comfortable with good facilities. Off road car parking was definitely a bonus. The only negative for us was the lack of windows in the bedrooms, having said that, this would not prevent us from booking here again as the positives far out way this negative.”

Meanwhile, a reviewer thought: “Superb property, exactly as listed and in a perfect location on esplanade with beach and all amenities on doorstep. Very practical layout and star attraction being front room with huge windows overlooking sea. Had a perfect stay and one of our family’s favourite UK breaks ever.

“If there’s an observation, it’s the double bedroom – a little on the small side with minimal storage and a seemingly worn and uncomfortable mattress. Nothing some shelving in wardrobe and a new mattress wouldn’t resolve. Overall, an amazing property for our holiday.”

A similar response read: “Wessex View is a beautiful property with period features and an amazing view. The road is busy and obviously there was traffic noise but we expected this. There was everything we could need in the flat & it’s just a short walk into town. The only issue for us was the mattress which wasn’t the most comfortable if you have back problems.”