A hidden Alpine retreat destroyed in Eaton fire rises from the ashes for Oktoberfest

The Eaton occurrence erased a century-old Sierra Madre lodge successful January, but not the resoluteness of its members who held their signature Oktoberfest connected Saturday. The rubble cleared and a signifier built implicit the ruins, the 200-member Nature Friends nine fired up its biergarten grill with shouts of prost! and raised brew steins. Kids scrambled up rehabbed trails, and immoderate danced the schuhplattler, a Bavarian people creation with tons of ft stomping and thigh and ft slapping.

Nature Friends lodge, built with quaint Bavarian styling by German immigrants successful 1923, had been reduced by the occurrence to heaps of charred timber, twisted metallic and breached dishes. Nine months aft the destruction, the nine was acceptable for its phoenix moment.

Nature Friends, a 100-year-old rustic upland retreat, hosted its yearly Oktoberfest connected caller platforms built supra the rubble near down by the Eaton fire.

(Gary Coronado / For The Times)

“Our members person viewed the occurrence arsenic a challenge, not a dealbreaker,” said Nature Friends president Jim Angus. “There’s a caller consciousness of opportunity, and adjacent excitement to reimagine the property.” The nonprofit plans to rebuild the three-story lodge successful stages arsenic the founders did, preserving its alpine look but adding modern innovations. Fundraising efforts person netted astir $140,000.

Nature Friends is simply a subdivision of Naturfreunde, founded successful 1895 by societal democrats to enrich the lives of mill workers successful Vienna. The genitor enactment champions ecological and sociopolitical causes and operates 700 lodges worldwide that connection fund accommodations and quality activities.

Although dirndl dresses and lederhosen prevailed astatine Oktoberfest, attended by astir 60 people, Nature Friends is not a German societal nine but alternatively a haven for lovers of nature, creation and culture.

“I emotion Nature Friends due to the fact that it reminded maine of home, northbound of Tehran — a spot called Darband,” said subordinate Lila Ghobady, who hosted Nowruz, the Persian New Year celebration, astatine the lodge successful 2023 successful representation of her sister, Fereshteh.

Sierra Madre Clubhouse, Nature Friends lodge, recently built successful 1924.

(Courtesy of Nature Friends, Los Angeles)

Darband, a dreamy upland village, mirrors the simplicity of canyon beingness on Woodland Drive, which leads to Nature Friends. The roadworthy is lined with chromatic walls and cottages adorned with flags, painted rocks, upwind chimes and gnomes — a mini Topanga Canyon anchored by Mary’s Market, a 103-year-old eclectic diner and state store.

Ghobady said Nature Friends recalls her free-spirited teenage days successful Darband when, with friends, she’d flight strict formal codification laws. “We’d instrumentality disconnected our hijabs, devour large food, enactment together,” she said. “Nature Friends has the aforesaid benignant of affluent Persian culture, a assemblage that celebrates life, quality and beauty.”

Wielding a sledgehammer to assistance wide the wreckage of the lodge successful February, I recovered remnants of that assemblage that the occurrence had spared: an robust triangle we struck earlier assemblage dinners, a java cupful I drank from aft all-night revelries with friends, and a handprint pressed into cement by a long-ago member. Countless acts of emotion had gone into maintaining and beautifying the lodge.

As a 30-year subordinate and past president, I’ve watched the enactment germinate into a hub for divers groups, immoderate nonconformist: drum circles, shamanic trainings, sweat lodges, yoga retreats, dependable baths, ecological lectures and the Body Electric School, founded successful San Francisco during the 1980s AIDS epidemic to thatch Taoist and Tantric massage.

But agelong earlier the blaze, the lodge had already reinvented itself respective times.

On the surface, the enactment offers potlucks, movie nights and vacation gatherings unfastened to all. But excavation deeper, and what Angus calls the club’s “hidden history” emerges.

“We’ve ne'er been rather what we appear,” helium said.

The nine had been mostly an expatriate German nine that besides had Jewish members. That began to alteration successful the aboriginal 1990s.

“We brought successful friends — a cheery constituent and escaped spirits,” said Bruce Anderson, whose location other Nature Friends was spared successful the fire. His husband, Cuban-born Ken Symington, became Nature Friends’ caretaker successful 1993, a station helium retained until his decease astatine property 90 successful 2022. Symington was a mentor to hundreds of seekers who gathered astatine the lodge for events and concerts. He besides became the motor that kept the nine solvent and thriving, partially by offering the spot arsenic a wedding venue.

After I met Symington, helium invited maine and others to co-found the Invisible Theater. Starting successful 1998, our troupe of 30 held a decennary of yearly performances, an underground happening exploring themes of masculinity. It was a uncommon collaboration that profoundly connected our people done art, play and escaped expression.

After Symington’s death, the nine began yet different reinvention. Zak Clark became the club’s archetypal manager of operations, surviving successful the bunkhouse connected the spot that aboriginal survived the fire. He attracted younger members and encouraged hands-on involvement.

“We’re stressing the value of volunteering, and radical are loving it,” said Clark, who managed the rehab effort. “They privation to enactment with their hands and consciousness a consciousness of ownership, conscionable similar the immigrants who founded the club.”

Nature Friends built a impermanent platform among the remaining walls and instauration of the lodge aft occurrence debris was cleared. (Courtesy of Nature Friends, Los Angeles)

Darrell Goodwin holds a German stein during the Oktoberfest celebration. (Gary Coronado / For The Times)

Two twelve volunteers person worked to marque the spot usable for outdoor events. Retired contractor Darrell Goodwin, who lives down the canyon, built the 750-square-foot signifier and volition caput the building’s volunteer-led reconstruction. His woman Heidi Goodwin and her household person been Nature Friends regulars since the aboriginal 1960s, erstwhile their German emigrant begetter Benno Werstein joined.

“It was truthful dense to spot it burned down — each that clip and emotion we’d poured into the building,” said Lori Werstein, Heidi Goodwin’s sister. Months earlier the fire, she and her parent Barbara Werstein created Bavarian decor for the lodge’s facade — faux shutters, angiosperm boxes and doorway and model trim. Undaunted, Werstein crafted caller alpine touches that adorn the ruins’ recently painted factual walls.

The Eaton occurrence destroyed much than 9,400 structures, astir of them successful Altadena; Sierra Madre was not arsenic severely hit.

For members, the occurrence was lone the archetypal successful what Clark called a “trifecta of horribleness.” Winter downpours brought a torrential stream cascading down Yucca Trail, which lies betwixt the leveled lodge and the bunkhouse. Mudslides followed, burying parts of the spot nether 4 feet of sludge.

Next came the bears, breaking into Clark’s cottage aggregate times, ravaging cabinets and the refrigerator; it has since been bear-proofed.

Nature Friends members survey the ruins of the lodge aft the Eaton occurrence destroyed it successful aboriginal January.

(Courtesy of Nature Friends, Los Angeles)

By aboriginal summer, the cleanup was showing results. The club’s rehab effort centers connected expanding its nonprofit status. A caller instauration is dedicated to restoration, acquisition and outreach. “The occurrence gave america permission, oregon possibly a mandate, to evolve,” said Angus, who plans to found household and scouting programs and conservation internships.

Member Jeff Cain grabbed the accidental to reimagine the surrounding slopes. After clearing swaths of torched aloe plants, helium trenched successful astir 500 autochthonal plants that helium said “will look spectacular successful a fewer years.”

At Oktoberfest, I got roped into a schuhplattler creation contest, losing severely to 6-year-old Lionel Gaimari. (The creation troupe Die Gemütlichen Schuhplattler performed astatine nary cost). The winning times of a stein-holding contention (mugs of h2o held retired with consecutive arms), clocked astatine 5 minutes, 57 seconds for the women’s radical and 7 minutes, 20 seconds for the men’s.

We dug into the potluck, enjoying subordinate Michael Swain’s makeshift set playing classical rock. Lead vocalist Maggie Moran is nary alien to occurrence risk. Her adjacent business, Adams’ Pack Station, which does donkey proviso runs to historical cabins, was financially deed during the 2020 Bobcat fire.

“She came retired to enactment us, and we’ve done the same,” Clark said. “We’re each super-vulnerable to occurrence successful these parts — we instrumentality adjacent and assistance each other.”

Verona Gaimari, 3, center, dances astatine Oktoberfest astatine Nature Friends.

(Gary Coronado / For The Times)

Nature Friends volition clasp its yearly “Dezemberfest” nighttime marketplace 4 to 8 p.m. Dec. 13. Open to all, the lawsuit includes arts and crafts vendors, a soundless auction, unrecorded euphony and appearances by Santa and Krampus. Pricing to beryllium determined.