Wildfires devastated the city of Altadena, California, and now an unusual—and painstaking—volunteer effort is underway to salvage a big part of Altadena's history: its craftsman tiles. A story at Dwell.com explains that when the city began growing in earnest in the early 1900s, new homeowners turned to local mason Ernest Batchelder, a leader in the arts and crafts movement, for his decorative ceramic tiles. "His neutral field tiles matched all sorts of styles and his more detailed art tiles helped elevate mantle pieces or add pizzazz to even the most basic of homes," writes Marah Elkin. And, crucially, his tiles were kiln-fired, thus allowing them to survive the intense fires of earlier this year that reduced homes to ashes.
Eric Garland noticed on a walk around his neighborhood that the only thing left standing on many lots were fireplaces and chimneys, often built with Batchelder tiles. He assembled a team of volunteers, and they identified more than 200 structures with the distinctive tiles. Thus began the Save the Tiles group, with an accompanying GoFundMe and the mission of saving as many tiles as possible—at no charge to homeowners, who could use them in their rebuilding. The challenge is a time crunch: Bulldozers from the Army Corps of Engineers are razing lots quickly, and the work is painstaking. But it's also worth it to locals: "While we know the house and everything that was in it is gone, the tiles are a physical reminder that the fire didn't take everything," says Brenda Davidge, who lost her 1911 Craftsman home. (Read the full story.)