By Zach Armstrong
Gladstone’s, a seaside restaurant and West L.A. dining gem, along with the Parish of St. Matthew both suffered partial damage amid the ongoing carnage of the Palisades Fire, although parts of the establishments appear to have been spared.
Jim Harris, general manager of Gladstone’s, said in an email that “the restaurant seems to have weathered the worst of it,” adding that more details would be provided once known. The Los Angeles Daily News reported that, while an outside storage area burned, the restaurant still stood.The Los Angeles Times reported that on Wednesday afternoon, a reporter found the restaurant to be partly smoking.
In an Instagram post on Thursday afternoon, St. Matthew stated that its clergy residences perished in the fire. However, as of 11 a.m. Thursday, other features of its campus, such as the Church, Founder’s Hall, the Mill Building and the Parish Center remained intact with “minimal damage” along with middle school classrooms and the Sprague Center at the Parish School.
As of 6:30 p.m., officials estimate that around 5,300 structures have been gutted in the Palisades fire, with another 4,000 to 5,000 structures damaged or destroyed in the Eaton fire burning in the Altadena area. The Palisades Fire, which started in the morning hours of Jan. 7, is currently scorching a near 18,000 acres.
A host of precious landmarks, institutions and establishments have vanished in flames in the last three days as the raging blaze continues to devastate the Palisades.
The ranch house once owned by actor and performer Will Rogers and the Topanga Ranch Motel, built by newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, have been reduced to rubble. A video posted on X by @JonVigliotti showed the Palisades Village area as a skeletal ember of its former self, with everything around the intersection of Antioch and Swarthmore is nearly or completely incinerated. Palisades Charter High School and Elementary School, the PCH-adjacent seafood restaurant Reel Inn, and the Theatre Palisades were shown by local news outlets to be completely infused with flames.
The Getty Villa Museum, however, although confirming to outlets that its grounds had caught fire, is still safe.
