Five and a half months after it shut its doors in the midst of the Palisades Fire, the Getty Villa—one of the city’s cultural crown jewels—has finally reopened. Thanks to the efforts of both security and facilities staff and firefighters, the museum is still intact—a beacon of hope amid the surrounding landscape.
And as of June 27, the Getty Villa is officially welcoming the public again, albeit with limited hours: Friday to Mondays from 10am to 5pm. (You can reserve free tickets here, though the first couple of weeks are already booked solid.) We got to preview the grounds and the Villa’s new exhibition, “The Kingdom of Pylos: Warrior-Princes of Ancient Greece,” earlier this week. Here’s what you can expect from a visit to the newly reopened museum.
Driving to the museum on Tuesday night, I felt a mix of anticipation and trepidation. I hadn’t been close to the Palisades since the wildfires, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. After turning a corner on Sunset heading toward the Villa, I suddenly found myself driving through swaths of destruction—innumerable burnt trees, barren hillsides, empty lots where houses once stood, crumbled and hollowed-out buildings. The drive up made me emotional—I was full of both sorrow and love for our city.
Once I turned onto the cobblestones of the Getty Villa entrance from PCH, I felt on more familiar ground. At first glance, not much seemed different about the museum grounds. Thankfully, the art and buildings themselves were untouched and are still standing proud. The surrounding landscape, however, didn’t fare as well. According to the Getty’s website, some 1,415 trees had to be removed due to fire damage—that amounts to 44 percent of the Villa’s forest—though thankfully the plants in the courtyards weren’t harmed.
Sure enough, the hillsides behind the museum building are sparser than you might remember, and the ocean is a bit easier to see from the back of the property. The difference was especially stark in the East Garden, behind the mosaic fountain.
Some of the fire-damaged trees have been salvaged and will potentially be used in a memorial, as an art installation or furnishings. In the meantime, the Getty’s grounds and garden director and his team are replanting and placing an emphasis on native, more flame-resistant plants and trees.
The Palisades Fire also covered the Villa’s grounds with ash. Once it was deemed safe to do so, a specialty cleaning company was brought in, who used a multistep process to wash and sweep the ash off of the roof and roads, as well as the balconies and patios—the gorgeous outdoor spaces that make the Getty feel like such an oasis.
It took a little more finesse to clean the murals in the Outer Peristyle, though—the colorful paintings reminiscent of ancient Roman frescoes that surround possibly the most photogenic part of the Villa’s grounds. To do this involved calling in conservators to vacuum soot off the walls, wipe them down with wet sponges and then carefully inpaint, or fill in, the murals to make them more vivid and bright.
Inside the museum—besides an acknowledgment inside the Atrium thanking staff members for their service during and after the fires—you’ll find the same permanent collection of Greek and Roman antiquities that fully transports you to ancient times (oil industrialist and collector J. Paul Getty wanted the Villa to emulate a first-century Roman country house).
On the second floor, though, is a brand-new exhibition. “The Kingdom of Pylos: Warrior-Princes of Ancient Greece” is dedicated to the Greek Mycenaean civilization and the kingdom of Pylos, which Homer immortalized in the Iliad and Odyssey. It’s the first major museum show in North America devoted to the Late Bronze Age Mycenaeans (we’re talking 1700–1070 BCE). Three rooms and a hallway are filled with art and artifacts that excavators unearthed from Messenia, the Palace of Nestor and burial sites including the tomb of the Griffin Warrior (1450 BCE)—think clay tablets, gold cups, ornate weapons and tiny signets and sealstones adorned with awe-inspiring amounts of detail. It’s hard to wrap your head around the intricacies of these treasures that are thousands of years old.
A slate of public programming will accompany the exhibition, including an opening lecture by archaeologists Sharon Stocker and Jack Davis on June 28 and a Bacchus Uncorked wine program on August 9 and 10. Outside, starting September 4, the Villa’s Outdoor Classical Theater will spring back into action with the musical Oedipus the King, Mama!, a mash-up of Sophocles’s Oedipus the King and Elvis Presley’s music. Seeing a play in the ancient Greece–style amphitheater as you feel the Pacific Ocean breeze is a special experience.
My visit to the Getty Villa did a lot to restore my hope in L.A.’s resilience. And the Getty is leading by example, sharing advice on emergency preparedness with institutions around the world. Pacific Palisades and L.A. at large still have a lot of healing to do in the wake of the wildfires, but the Getty Villa’s reopening—right on the heels of PCH fully reopening in time for the summer—can serve as a beacon in the city’s ongoing recovery.