When visitors arrive at the Getty Villa’s gate and granite pillar, they will almost immediately be confronted by a Los Angeles hillside that has been changed — and charred.
The eucalyptus trees have been intentionally pruned, their blackened stumps protruding from the ground at sharp, jagged angles. The devastation is hard to miss, said Camille Kirk, the Getty’s sustainability director.
“We have to acknowledge the burn,” she said.
The museum that is as famous for its stunning landscape as for its art collection is reopening on Friday on grounds that have been licked by flames. Nearly six months after the Palisades fire carved its way through the neighborhood and came knocking at the museum’s door, the best way to understand its significance may be to notice what is no longer there.
Roughly 1,400 trees burned beyond saving, many which once shaded the now barren hills that stretch out around the 65-acre property. The melted P.V.C. pipe that had made up the museum’s irrigation system in those hillsides has been removed. Gone too is the rosemary, zapped by flare-ups, that once decorated the concrete ledges that encircle the museum.
That is how close the flames got. Less than a football field from a Greek and Roman treasure trove. But while the grounds were damaged — the hills on all sides were enveloped, the museum quite literally surrounded by fire — officials say the campus buildings and galleries were never ablaze.
“This is exactly what it looked like — there was not a speck of dust,” Les Borsay, the Getty’s emergency preparedness specialist, said as he recently strolled through the museum’s immaculate second floor, recalling how similar it seemed to what he found the morning after the fires began.
“There was a little bit of smudge on the deck there outside the windows,” he added, pointing through the glass. “But for the most part, it was just like this.”
In the aftermath of the fire that began in the Pacific Palisades on Jan. 7, officials have made it as clear as ever that the museum itself is the safest place for its collection — a refuge that is also a steel and concrete fortress.
Even if they felt otherwise, it would be impossible for curators to decide to haul away, say, “Portrait Head of Augustus” in their cars during an emergency and leave the mummy that is resting nearby. (Though Borsay did concede: “The good thing about the mummy is, I could ride in the H.O.V. lane.”)
“There was not a moment when I thought, ‘Oh my goodness, my Etruscan sarcophagus is about to be burned to a crisp,” said Katherine Fleming, president and chief executive of the J. Paul Getty Trust.
Indeed, if those who will now brave a battered Pacific Coast Highway to come to the Getty notice anything special, it may be that the property is as pristine as ever. The frescoes that cover the walls of the outer peristyle have been touched up; the central reflecting pool, drained of soot, is crystal clear; fresh plants are growing in the gardens.
On a recent afternoon, a conservator was carefully attending to a sculpture of the Roman god Mercury, whose sandal had lost its wing.
It has been a slow and deliberate process to figure out exactly how to reopen the Getty Villa, Fleming acknowledged. Were there days that the museum would create the least strain on the Pacific Coast Highway? (For now, officials have settled on Friday to Monday.) What were the optics of opening at all when at least 12 lives and 5,000 nearby buildings had been lost? (Tricky to balance.)
“We want to be a symbol of some kind of life in the neighborhood, but we don’t want to look like, ‘Hey, everything’s good over at the Getty, so sorry,’” Fleming said.
The feedback so far has been positive, she added. People seem to be happy the museum pulled through, and it appears to have maintained its standing as a good neighbor.
Kirk, the Getty’s sustainability director, said the museum’s “fire journey” would evolve as time passes and guests explain what they need.
But officials did purposely decide to leave visible traces of the fire on the property. They have saved some burned Italian Cypress tree trunks, which they may place in a spot currently occupied by gumdrop boxwoods. And docents have been preparing fact sheets about the Palisades fire and its impact.
One key detail? The Villa in Pacific Palisades is modeled on the Villa dei Papiri at Herculaneum, which was buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79.
Matt Stevens is a Times reporter who writes about arts and culture from Los Angeles.
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