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The architecture of Villa Aurora, built in Paseo Miramar in 1928, was loosely based on Roman, Moorish and Middle Eastern elements fused in a style called Mudéjar.
Photo by Rich Schmitt, Staff Photographer
Villa Aurora may be the most secret cultural heritage monument in Pacific Palisades, often confused with the “other” villas in town—the Getty Villa and the Villa Leon, whose Italianate portico stands like a sentinel looking over Pacific Coast Highway.
While its seclusion in the hills of Paseo Miramar serves Villa Aurora’s primary mission as a retreat for writers and artists, its programs, musical events and receptions remain a mystery to many Palisadians.
Villa Aurora was built in 1928 for judge Arthur Weber, one of the developers of Miramar Estates (Paseo Miramar), who reportedly patterned the house after a small castle he had seen near Seville. Authenticity was key, importing wood for a ceiling from Spain, and the patio fountain from Italy.
The house with its 14 rooms on three floors is distinguished by its “carpets” of majolica tile produced by the Hispano-Moresque Company of Los Angeles.
The location on a challenging hillside was selected by the Los Angeles Times for a Demonstration Home intended to promote Miramar Estates as a superb location, “the ocean terminus of Beverly Boulevard (Sunset).” The project was used as a model of design, quality construction and up-to-date amenities, including an electric dishwasher.
As a consequence of the Depression, the neighborhood developed slowly and Weber’s “villa” remained a lonely place, with few neighbors. In 1939, partly because of the impact of the isolated life on Weber’s young son, the family moved to Santa Monica.
Perhaps the biggest misconception of the villa is its very name. Former resident Lamont Johnson recalled that in the early 1960s, the neighborhood wanted to give the little enclave a European cache by titling the major Mediterranean-style structures with French and Italian sounding names. Marble plaques were produced with a variety of romantic sounding names and affixed to nine houses, including Villa Aurora.
The real story of Villa Aurora and the genesis of its important history and current mission began with German novelist and Nobel Prize nominee Lion Feuchtwanger, who managed to escape Nazi persecution and settled in Los Angeles in 1941.
Smitten by the climate and the ocean, Lion and his wife Marta purchased the villa despite its having been thoroughly neglected while in bank foreclosure. Windows were broken, there was a foot of dirt on the floors, and the garden had turned to weeds. Gradually the Feuchtwangers cleaned up the house, purchased second-hand furniture, and with proceeds from Lion’s book sales purchased more lots for privacy. They built paths down the hillside and bridges over the ravines; Marta planted trees and designed flowerbeds with roses and seasonal varieties. Lion’s generous income from movie rights permitted them both to indulge their hobbies—Marta to buy trees and Lion to assemble a new library.
Soon the Feuchtwanger home became a Mecca for friends and compatriots, including fellow émigrés Bertolt Brecht, Thomas Mann and Salka Viertel.
Charles Chaplin was a frequent guest, and Charles Laughton gave Shakespearean readings in the garden. The Feuchtwangers and Manns also took turns hosting large dinner parties at which the men read from their latest manuscripts.
Despite the 8 p.m. curfew imposed on them by the wartime U.S. government, which designated the Germans “enemy aliens,” many of the writers accepted the restrictions and used the long evenings productively, working on their manuscripts.
After the war, the House Un-American Activities Committee charged many of the émigrés with “premature antifascism”—being opposed to fascism before the U.S. entered World War II.
Feuchtwanger was called before the committee and action on his citizenship papers was repeatedly delayed. He appeared before the committee a week before he died (in 1958), missing his final, ironic vindication. Marta was told the day before his death that her citizenship request had been granted and that, had he lived, Lion would have become an American citizen as well.
Marta continued to live in the house, pledging it to USC upon her death to establish the Feuchtwanger Institute for the Study of Exile Literature. She also donated Lion’s library, their house and the gardens to the university.
His bequeath opened the new and most important chapter in the story of Villa Aurora.
Challenges ensued, most critically the financial support of the Villa. USC’s subtle threat to sell the house to assure the upkeep of the library energized political support in Germany and birthed the idea of the Villa Aurora as an artists’ residence, and the formation of Friends of Villa Aurora, to assure the villa’s financial future.
The Friends, a private nonprofit organization in Berlin, began a major restoration of the house between 1992 and 1994, which involved shoring up the foundation, stabilizing the hillside and replacing all the pipes and electrical circuits.
A major assist in reducing overhead arrived with the designation of the Villa as a Historical Landmark in California, which resulted in a reduction in real estate taxes.
By the fall of 1995, the Villa was prepared to welcome the first two artists in residence, and in December of that year the Villa officially celebrated its new identity.
A local director was appointed and since that time, Villa Aurora and the Feuchtwanger Library (which resides for the most part at USC) have co-sponsored a variety of programs and projects.
These days, Villa Aurora continues its core activity, the Artists in Residence program, which each year brings up to 16 individuals for three-month stays. These young artists—painters, writers, playwrights, photographers, dancers—are not required to be German citizens but must be living and working in Germany to qualify to apply.
In addition, the Villa offers an annual Feuchtwanger Fellowship, which provides a residency of up to 12 months to a writer from anywhere in the world who is being persecuted or forced to live in exile.
The Villa staff organizes individual presentations for each of the artists and works closely with local cultural and education institutions to organize readings, exhibitions concerts, screenings, workshops panel discussion, salons and receptions.
The upcoming LACMA exhibition, “German Art after 1945,” will provide an opportunity for programming between the two institutions.
This year, the 50th anniversary of Feuchtwanger’s death, has also produced a number of local programs in conjunction with the library at USC.
While Villa Aurora retains much of Lion Feuchtwanger’s library and personal possessions, its lifeblood is the artists and visitors who continue to energize the intellectual and artistic connections. It functions as a living memorial to the great artists and intellectuals who found refuge from Nazi Germany in Southern California and it also reminds us of the importance of fighting for freedom of expression around the globe.
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