Business
L.A. wildfires prompt surge in local home furnishings market
The day after the Palisades fire broke out, luxury staging company Vesta began manufacturing beds around the clock.
Vesta produced 1,000 that first week from its factory near downtown Los Angeles. The beds — along with the company’s supply of sofas, dining tables, outdoor furniture, area rugs, linens, kitchenware and even faux plants — were quickly rented by displaced wildfire victims.
“We’re doing basically toothbrush-ready homes. Everything needed to get back up and running,” co-founder Brett Baer said. Some clients had lost all of their possessions except “the pair of shoes that they got out of the fire with.”
The January wildfires created a highly unusual situation in the local home furnishings market. Thousands of residential structures and everything inside them burned down, setting off a frantic scramble to find new lodging and replace the entirety of a home’s contents.
Many of those items, such as furniture and appliances, are typically big-ticket purchases with long life cycles, making rebuying an infrequent occurrence under normal circumstances.
Now, sellers of furniture and other home decor around L.A. are seeing an unexpected rise in sales. It’s a trend they anticipate will accelerate in the months to come as those affected by the fires receive insurance payouts and move out of temporary accommodations, where many still remain, into permanent residences.
“Natural disasters such as the California fires, floods, hurricanes, etc., create incredible spikes in demand,” said Ray Allegrezza, a director for the International Home Furnishings Representatives Assn. “West Coast furniture retailers are realizing a windfall of sorts…. It is a shame that the business had to come as a result of this disaster.”
About two weeks after the start of the Palisades and Eaton blazes, Ikea stores in Los Angeles County began noticing an uptick in sales for sleep and kitchen basics, said Gus Tinajero, the company’s Los Angeles area manager.
Ikea stores in the L.A. area saw an increase in sales of bedding and kitchenware after the fires.
(Adam Tschorn / Los Angeles Times)
“Once we started to see the trend, we started to react,” he said, which included increasing orders from its Kern County distribution center and allocating more in-store floor space and pallets for coveted essentials such as comforters.
“We have planned for a prolonged period where we see high demand in those categories,” said Tinajero, who was Ikea’s area manager in Houston when Hurricane Harvey hit in 2017. “It’s not something you ever hope for or plan for, but the reality is it’s [thousands of destroyed] structures — of course you see that there’s going to be a need in the market.”
By far, the biggest impact of the January wildfires was on homes.
In all, just under 13,000 households were displaced by the Palisades and Eaton fires. They came from nearly 9,700 single-family homes and condominiums, almost 700 apartment units, more than 2,000 units of duplexes and bungalow courts and 373 mobile homes that Cal Fire determined were either destroyed or heavily damaged.
A firefighting plane makes a drop on a burning home in Pacific Palisades on Jan. 7.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Related businesses, such as interior designers and home staging companies, are also mobilizing to meet the unprecedented demand. Many have started to offer turnkey packages, outfitting new homes from top to bottom.
Vesta’s swift pivot to mass-manufacturing beds and other furniture and renting its stock of lightly used home goods has upended its business model: The company’s luxury leasing division now accounts for more than 90% of its sales, a massive jump from just 15% at the start of the year. Baer said Vesta is on track to take in $100 million in revenue this year.
On a recent Tuesday morning, Baer made his way through Vesta’s 6,000-square-foot Florence factory, maneuvering past stacks of upholstered headboards and newly built armchairs wrapped in green plastic as workers sanded down wooden tables and benches.
Brett Baer, co-founder of Vesta, at the company’s Florence factory.
(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)
Vesta was founded in 2017 and serves affluent customers in L.A., San Francisco, New York and Miami. Today it has 360 employees, 30 of them hired since the wildfires began to keep up with the surge in business.
Originally focused on residential and commercial staging, Vesta branched out to include interior design, retail sales and short-term rentals; it designs all of its furniture, producing half in L.A. and outsourcing the rest to third-party manufacturers.
The company doesn’t lease its pieces a la carte, instead offering tailored whole-home packages with on-site setup. Many wildfire victims have been forced to downsize from large homes in Pacific Palisades to condos and apartments, so Vesta has been working with customers to adapt to smaller-format spaces, like sourcing trundle beds for families with young children.
“For displaced people, we’re doing anything between like 1,000 square feet, which may be a couple thousand dollars a month, to one that’s 20,000 square feet in Brentwood that’ll probably be $20,000 a month to rent everything: furniture, cutlery, linens, pillows, mattresses,” Baer said. “A lot of people are like, ‘I just want to move into a completely done house, down to toilet paper holders.’”
The revenue boost comes after a sluggish period for the furniture industry, which experienced a boom during the pandemic as people quarantined and spent heavily on sprucing up their homes.
That tapered off in recent years due to a number of factors including shifts in consumer spending, high inflation and a slowdown in the housing market, leading to a surplus of merchandise for many home furnishing retailers going into this year.
“Fortunately for consumers in distress and needing furniture in short order, inventory levels are still abundant,” Allegrezza said.
Consumer spending for residential furniture and bedding fell 3% last year to $116.1 billion, according to the American Home Furnishings Alliance. The number of production workers for furniture and related products fell to 235,500 people from 244,800 in 2023, the group said.
A Vesta worker builds a sofa cushion at the company’s factory.
(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)
Later that morning, at Vesta’s cavernous warehouse in Pico Rivera, workers packaged and loaded furniture onto trucks as the company’s interior designers browsed the aisles for items including lamps, board games, stuffed animals, Peloton bikes and framed art.
The last couple of months have been “incredibly turbulent” for the company, Baer said. Thirty-four homes that were staged with Vesta’s furnishings burned down or were damaged in the Palisades fire, and he said insurance would cover only about 70% of the losses.
“It’s been a double-edged sword. We took a huge hit there,” he said. “But then there’s like this regeneration on the other side: Everything on the Westside is selling. Most of those people want furniture, too. We’re trying to replenish all that inventory as fast as we can.”
The luxury shopping center in Pacific Palisades will reopen next month after more than $100 million in renovations forced by the January 2025 wildfire that devastated the Los Angeles neighborhood.
Palisades Village will reopen Aug. 15, owner Rick Caruso announced Wednesday. The outdoor center survived the blaze that destroyed homes and other businesses but needed refurbishment to eliminate contaminants that the fire could have spread.
Crews are putting finishing touches on mall buildings after tearing them down to the studs, treating the wood and rebuilding the walls, Caruso said.
“Everybody’s working, and stores are moving their products in,” he said. “It’s a really cool feeling that people have really locked arms and are working together.”
An electrician installs lighting for a restaurant at Rick Caruso’s Palisades Village on Thursday. The shopping center is scheduled to reopen mid-August.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Pacific Palisades resident Allison Polhill, who is rebuilding the home of 30 years that her family lost in the blaze, said she is “thrilled” at the prospect of returning to the mall she used to frequent. Its comeback is a boost for the community, she said.
“Every single step that we make to reopen our commercial corridors is going to bring more people back into the Palisades,” said Polhill, who expects to move back into her home at the end of August.
A total of 6,822 structures were destroyed in the Palisades fire, including more than 5,500 residences and 100 commercial businesses, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Caruso previously attributed the mall’s survival to the hard work of private firefighters and the fire-resistant materials used in the mall’s construction.
The $200-million shopping and dining center opened in 2018 with a movie theater and a roster of upmarket tenants, including Erewhon, which may be the only grocer in the heart of the fire-ravaged neighborhood when it opens.
Caruso’s company was able to fill the mall with tenants despite the long shutdown.
Palisades Village is 99% leased, with the majority of tenants returning, said Jackie Levy, chief financial and revenue officer. Nearly one-third of the shops and restaurants are new to the property.
A firefighter carries a hose back to his rig while walking through a destroyed home from the Palisades fire in Pacific Palisades on Jan. 7, 2025.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Last year, Pacific Palisades-based fashion designer Elyse Walker said she would reopen her eponymous store in Palisades Village after losing her 25-year flagship location on Antioch Street to the inferno.
Other neighborhood shops destroyed in the fire that are reopening at the mall include K Bakery and Loomey’s Toys, which caters to children up to age 12 and used to be across the street from Palisades Elementary Charter School.
“It’s been a journey and I’m excited because I wasn’t sure that there was going to be a place to come back to,” said toy store owner Amanda Rastegar. “Hopefully we can bring some of that magic back.”
Rastegar’s home in the Palisades survived but was damaged by the fire. The family returned about eight weeks ago. Her last memory of the fire was a burning supermarket.
“I just couldn’t wrap my brain around what was happening,” she said. “By the time I left, Gelson’s was on fire.”
Among the returning tenants is Angelini Ristorante & Bar. Well-known Los Angeles chef Gino Angelini said he will be in the kitchen next month for a return of the Italian restaurant.
“We won’t do a big celebrity open,” he said. “We want to have a very soft opening and see our customers come back.”
Construction takes place at Rick Caruso’s Palisades Village on Thursday. The shopping center is scheduled to reopen mid-August.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
An elaborate celebration would not feel “correct for me,” Angelini said, because the devastation has been “very sad” for so many.
Other new tenants include local chef Nancy Silverton, who has agreed to move in with a new Italian steakhouse called Spacca Tutto. Women’s activewear retailer LESET will open its first West Coast location.
Caruso said he is optimistic that customers will return to the center, even though many Pacific Palisades residents are still dispersed. One tracking system estimated that about 30% of the Village’s customer base was impacted by the fire, he said.
“That means 70% did not get impacted, so there’s a lot of customers still left out there,” Caruso said. Historically, the center drew customers from as far away as Beverly Hills and Calabasas, as well as Malibu, Brentwood and Santa Monica.
He also hopes many will be inspired to visit the revived mall.
“I believe in the goodness of people and I believe that people are going to want to support the Palisades,” he said. “They’re going to want to be there and support the businesses that have had the courage and the heart to reopen.”
Walmart is rapidly expanding its network of electric vehicle chargers designed for customers to use while they shop.
The network could help fill gaps in EV infrastructure in states with greater need for chargers. Walmart, which has more than 5,000 locations in the U.S. and hundreds in California, says more than 90% of Americans live within 10 miles of one of its stores.
The chargers also offer an incentive for customers to choose Walmart — Walmart Plus members will receive a 10% discount off an average price of $0.46 per kilowatt-hour of energy at the company’s chargers.
Walmart chargers are already available at more than 75 locations in 17 states, with Texas boasting the most charging stations, followed by Florida and Arizona.
Matthew Nelson, Walmart’s director of energy policy, said last week on LinkedIn that the network will soon reach 29 states, including California.
“We are delivering on the promise of affordable, reliable and convenient charging,” Nelson said in his post.
According to Walmart’s website, six charging stations are coming to California soon, though the company did not offer a specific timeline.
The chargers will be installed at stores in Antelope, Brea, Fresno, Stockton, Suisun City and Vallejo.
Most charging sites in California will include eight to 16 fast-charging stalls, said Walmart spokesperson Kelsey Bohl.
The company first announced plans in April 2023 to install its own EV chargers at Walmart and Sam’s Club stores, with a goal of installing thousands of chargers by 2030. Partnering with ABB E-Mobility and Alpitronic, it added 25 new charging sites this past May and six more in June.
“Walmart is building a leading retail-integrated EV fast-charging network, focused on delivering an affordable, reliable and convenient charging experience where customers already shop,” Bohl said in an emailed statement. “Customers can charge while they shop, access stations through the Walmart app they already use, and benefit from affordable pricing.”
The charging stations already available include 612 individual charging stalls using 400-kilowatt chargers. Each stall has a dual charging cord with both Combined Charging System and North American Charging Standard connectors. The standard connectors, designed by Tesla, are smaller and lighter than the combined systems.
The primary way to pay for the chargers is through the Walmart app, but the company is also experimenting with built-in credit card readers to allow those without the app to use the stations.
Customers can check charger availability on the Walmart app. The company said the chargers will be available 24 hours a day.
Robotaxis could be turning into robocops.
A self-driving Waymo reported two teens to San Mateo, Calif., police on Monday after they were found drinking alcohol and shooting toy guns in the back of the vehicle.
According to a social media post from the San Mateo Police Department, officers detained two 15-year-olds after the Waymo they were riding in contacted the department and stopped in a parking lot until law enforcement arrived.
“Parents do you know where your teens are?” the San Mateo Police Department wrote on Facebook following the incident. “Waymo does!”
Officers removed both teens from the vehicle and determined they were using toy guns to shoot Orbeez out the windows. Orbeez are small, water-absorbing beads sold at toy stores.
“Toy guns, water guns, and BB guns all pose real dangers, especially to an untrained eye,” the Police Department said. “The simple handling of them can cause fear in [passersby].” “
A video posted on Facebook shows at least five officers and a police dog responding to the scene and approaching the Waymo with their weapons raised.
Waymo did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Waymo vehicles have internal cameras and microphones that may be used in an emergency or to “promote safety and security,” according to Waymo’s online support page.
The cameras are also used to ensure the vehicles are clean and to help find lost items, according to the support page.
The company said it does not use facial recognition or other biometric identification technologies to identify individuals.
“In more urgent circumstances, support may access live video during a trip,” the Waymo page said.
The San Mateo Police Department’s Facebook post has garnered nearly 60 comments, with one user accusing Waymo of “snitching.”
“At least they got a designated driver?!” one user commented.
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