Salvaged chimneys from the Palisades fire are a tangible memorial to L.A.'s unspeakable loss

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High above Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, Kraig Hill stood on a concrete slab and gave a tour of a home that is no longer there.Destroyed in the January wildfires, the home Hill grew up in now exists only as a blueprint in his mind.A concrete Buddha used to gaze toward the horizon from its perch beneath a coral tree.

Behind the house was the swimming pool that Hill, a semi-professional musician and producer, and his partner Hashi Clark, an artist, converted into a concert venue.They used to invite guests to sit in the shallow end to listen to musician friends playing in the deep end.

Murky rainwater now filled the pool-slash-auditorium.The Buddha survived, but the coral tree that shaded it was gone.

Only one small piece of the house remained: a brick fireplace with its chimney, situated near windows with bird’s-eye views of the Pacific Ocean below.The fireplace was the living room’s only heat source.Hill and his family would gather around it when he was young to keep warm on chilly winter days.

So when conceptual artist Evan Curtis Charles Hall asked Hill if he wanted to be a part of Project Chimney, a planned memorial to the January fires that will be made up of chimneys salvaged from six destroyed homes — five in Pacific Palisades and one, Hill’s home, in Malibu — Hill didn’t hesitate.“This house was a part of me — and vice versa,” Hill said.

With little left besides memories for those who lost houses in the fire, chimneys — the only architectural feature left intact at many homes — contain new layers of symbolism.Hall, founding director of the landmark preservation nonprofit House Museum, recently completed the painstaking relocation of the weighty structures, enlisting volunteer brick masons, structural engineers and architectural consultants, and raising donor money for equipment and supplies.The chimneys came from homes built between 1920 and 2...