Rebuilding for Resilience
Drawing on lessons from historic Mediterranean sites, staff are planning a Getty Villa landscape that honors Roman models while adapting to Southern California’s changing environment
Gardener Zoe Goulet with giant phacelia, a "fire follower" plant, blooming at the Getty Villa after the Palisades Fire.
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After this year’s generous winter rains, the landscape around the Getty Villa is a brilliant green.
Prickly dandelions, hardy shrubs, and tangles of wild mustard soak up the sun, while tiny yellow trumpets of sour grass dot the shaded slopes. With a closer look though, you’ll notice a few blackened, skeletal branches of bushes and charred tree stumps.
The Palisades Fire of January 2025 caused sitewide burn damage to vegetation on the Villa’s property. Fortunately, thanks to the tireless work of Getty employees and city firefighters, the buildings and formal gardens were spared. Up on the hills, certain trees were damaged, but their thick bark, burly leaves, and insulated root system give them a good chance of survival. Other trees on the site weren’t so lucky.
Getty staff walks around the Getty Villa after the Palisades Fire.
The current riot of green shows the quick resilience of plant life. Luis Gómez and Brian Houck, of Getty’s grounds and gardens team, mention seeing certain species of “fire followers” for the first time after the blaze—plants like the perennial pea and giant phacelia that thrive in mineral-rich ash. A variety of additional fire-resistant trees will soon be planted, and the slopes are being reseeded—several of them are currently blanketed in pale turquoise seed spray, a substance with 12 varieties of native grass and wildflowers that will prevent erosion.
“The disaster allows for a pause to reimagine the whole Villa landscape and plan ahead for its sustainable future,” Houck notes. “But there are a lot of unique factors to consider.”
Landscaping a cultural site
The Villa complex sits on a 64-acre parcel of land that runs north-south from the hills of the Santa Monica Mountains down to Pacific Coast Highway. The Museum and its formal gardens, which are mainly what visitors see, are nestled on the southern end.
Aerial view of the Getty Villa site, 2006
Photo: Warren Aerial Photography
As a museum modeled on an ancient site, the Villa’s next master plan must navigate among several different considerations, including historical accuracy, for both aesthetic and educational purposes. This was the vision of founder J. Paul Getty, who wanted the location to closely follow classical Roman prototypes, from the roof tiles and mosaics down to the Italian cypresses and grapevines. The Villa’s original landscape design was informed by depictions of plants in wall frescoes and other art, ancient texts (such as Pliny the Elder’s Natural History), and archaeology that revealed the horticultural world of coastal Italy in the early years of the first millennium. As Curator of Antiquities Kenneth Lapatin explains, in the 1970s, archaeobotanists were able to determine additional ancient plant species and garden designs via delicate plaster casts of the root voids in volcanic ash at Pompeii and other places buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE.
Roman fresco, House of the Stags, Herculaneum. Still life with fruit and pitcher. 1st century CE. Wikimedia Commons
Frescoes can reveal the types of plants grown in ancient gardens.
Hewing to such authenticity meant that when the Villa opened to the public in 1974, its formal gardens were planted entirely with Italian imports. Despite the many similarities in climate, sunshine, and humidity between the coastal cities around the Bay of Naples and Southern California, a perfect botanical replica was impossible. For example, the rich soil around Pompeii is full of ash—thus contributing to its excellent viticulture—while Malibu’s earth is drier, due to cool, rainless summers. Over time, certain Italian species that didn’t thrive in Southern California were replaced with versions that were better adapted to the local climate.
Most urgently, the landscape master plan must also prepare for an uncertain future, where hotter temperatures, droughts, and the risk of fire are anticipated. How does an institution balance both?
To answer this question, Getty has embarked on a comprehensive effort to strengthen its resilient landscape design, including seeking insight from historic Mediterranean gardens that have long navigated similar climatic realities. Last fall, Lapatin—an expert in ancient Roman art and archaeology—accompanied Houck, Getty’s Head of Sustainability Camille Kirk, and other Getty colleagues on a study trip to visit historic gardens in Italy such as those at Pompeii, Herculaneum, Boscoreale, Hadrian’s Villa, and Villa d’Este. They met with Italian partners and studied examples of Italian landscape vernacular, such as pavement patterns, water features, ridgelines, vanishing points, and agricultural plots.
Getty staff at Pompeii, taking inspiration from historic Italian gardens.
Kirk was reminded of the essential role natural resources played in these ancient villas. “Access to and engineering of water, wood, and other energy sources, as well as the production of food, really drove how ‘sustainable’ a villa could be,” she reflects. She also found new sources of inspiration in how Getty could connect more directly with its property, the visitor experience of the landscape, and the collections—perhaps further embracing the California Modern concept of permeability between indoors and outdoors. “The study trip afforded us an incredible opportunity to closely observe our origins and deeply consider what our next chapter of Getty Villa history can be.”
The group returned with many new ideas, like drawing from ancient Roman water collection and circulation methods, that will both strengthen the resilience of the Villa’s acreage and retain a nod to its Italian source. “We actually have a natural spring at the Villa, but it has been much overlooked in recent decades,” says Lapatin. “Now it seems ripe for more active programming.”
As the future of the Villa site continues to take shape, the work ahead offers a chance not only to restore what was lost but also to create a landscape better adapted to the world to come.
Getty’s Grounds and Gardens team plants myrtles in the Herb Garden at the Villa.
Dig Deeper
When it comes to fire remediation and resilience, many of the choices being made for the Getty Villa’s landscaping can be applied on a smaller scale to yards or gardens. Check out the following local organizations for tips, or support their efforts to maintain and restore sustainable public spaces.
The Theodore Payne Foundation
A 22-acre native plant nursery in Sun Valley, the Theodore Payne Foundation offers educational opportunities through classes, workshops, display gardens, and a bookshop, as well as a wide variety of plants and seeds to take home. While the organization emphasizes that no plant is fireproof, native species like coast live oak and coyote brush ground cover can help block embers from your home, while deep-rooted toyon can prevent erosion on slopes.
Tree People
A nonprofit environmental organization located in the Santa Monica Mountains, Tree People works across Los Angeles to plant, advocate for, and spread awareness about the many benefits of native trees. To increase resilience, the group recommends planting a diverse array of native plants, keeping flammable materials away from your house, clearing roof gutters of leaves, and creating a defensible perimeter around buildings that is well irrigated and maintained. Even native species can become more flammable if they aren’t nurtured. Volunteer opportunities are offered year-round to plant trees and restore wildlands.
Audubon Center at Ernest E. Debs Park
This native plant nursery in northeast LA offers volunteer opportunities in habitat restoration for the birds, monarch butterflies, and other animals in Debs Park. Volunteers can plant native seedlings and learn about their care or track bird and butterfly numbers.
