Six months after the devastating fires in Los Angeles, the Thomas Mann House in Pacific Palisades will resume its regular activities on Friday, June 6, 2025. 

The reopening will be marked by a special concert program and readings on the occasion of the famous writer’s 150th birthday,  the first in-person event since the fires.

While the historic structure remained largely intact, in the last few months, the house has undergone a comprehensive series of professional tests as well as clean-up, repair, and maintenance work. 

Starting in June, the fellowship program will return to the house. Among the first fellows to move back into the Thomas Mann House are Steven Walter, curator and artistic director of the Beethovenfest Bonn; the stage director and dramaturge Johannes Müller; and Robert Riener, Professor for Health Sciences and Technology at ETH Zurich. Due to the fires, several of the fellowships scheduled for the first half of 2025 had to be postponed and will take place at a later date in the coming year.

The reopening event will take place in the family’s former living room of the two-story home.  Together with Monday Evening Concerts and the Los Angeles Poverty Department, the Thomas Mann House will host a varied program of music and dramatic readings titled “Faustus Revisited.” 

The focus will be on musical presentations on the historical Faustus grand piano and on excerpts from Thomas Mann’s novel Doctor Faustus, which he wrote during his exile in the United States. 

The nearby  Villa Aurora is currently undergoing comprehensive fire damage restoration, which is expected to take several more months.

“Both houses are structurally sound. Given the enormous destruction wrought by the fires, especially near Villa Aurora, this is nothing short of a miracle,” Jakob Scherer, Executive Director of Villa Aurora and the  Thomas Mann House, said in a press release. “At VATMH, we see this as a responsibility to even more strongly uphold the spirit of cosmopolitanism, artistic and scientific freedom, and transatlantic exchange. The damage caused by the fires continues to be tangible. Countless friends, neighbors, and partners of both residency houses are affected or have lost everything. Our thoughts and most heartfelt sympathies are with all affected individuals and communities in and around Los Angeles.”

 

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