For Jennifer Meyer, Los Angeles’ Westside is more than just a place on a map or a coveted vacation destination.
“I’m born and raised here. I grew up in Malibu. I lived solely in Malibu until I was 17 years old. We had a house there until five years ago. I’ve lived in the Palisades. I live in Brentwood, currently. My family lives here. We’re all here, from Brentwood to the Palisades, and have been here for 85 years or something. The whole Westside is my heart and the heart of my family,” said the A-list jewelry designer and daughter of veteran high-profile Hollywood executive Ron Meyer, who was born in Westwood and later settled in Malibu. “This place means everything to me.”
Seeing it reduced to ash over the past week due to the destructive Palisades Fire, which has decimated the area across 23,000 acres and destroyed thousands of homes, businesses, schools and vehicles, is “unfathomable” to Meyer. “I have no words,” she said. “I can’t even grasp what happened here.”
Despite the emotional weight of speaking out amid tragic wildfires, Meyer, who fought back tears at several points during an interview, agreed to speak to The Hollywood Reporter because of what the area to her. It’s also where she works as her brick-and-mortar boutique is located as Rick Caruso’s luxury Palisades Village, which survived the blaze, and she was quick to turn the conversation away from what was spared and toward how to help those less fortunate.
“Listen, Caruso is a force of nature, he is amazing,” said Meyer, whose jewelry designs have been seen on a who’s who of A-list celebrities including Taylor Swift, Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Lawrence and Selena Gomez, among many others. “He protects his people and he protected our stories. It’s a beautiful thing but now the focus should be on the families who lost everything. How can we help them rebuild their homes? How can we get these kids everything they need?”
The threat of fires and losing everything is something Meyers knows all too well from a lifetime spent on Pacific Coast Highway or the surrounding hills.
“I’ve been evacuated so many times over the years. I’ll never forget the Malibu fire in 1993. I’ve seen so many different iterations of this for my whole life, but this is unprecedented,” recalled Meyer. “I have so many best friends that have been affected and lost everything. Teachers at my kids’ school, too. Nobody took anything, it all happened so fast. Nobody thought, let me pack up my car and see what I can get. They just left.”
Meyer herself evacuated Brentwood with her children and fiancé when the Palisades Fire expanded later in the week to threaten Mandeville Canyon and the hills surrounding the 405-freeway. “I’m luck that I’m best friends with my ex-husband [Tobey Maguire] so we all went there to him,” she recalled. “There’s a text chain with my whole area in Brentwood, and everyone in my neighborhood was sharing updates. There was so much love coming through, and people offering help and comfort, like, ‘Can I bring you something?’ ‘What can I do for you?’”
She said it’s not unusual to see community rallying together in that way, particularly on the Westside. “There’s no place like it. It’s Cheers — where everybody knows your name. It’s a hometown. Malibu and the Palisades are literally a small hometown. The customers are repeat customers who come back over and over. You walk down the street, and you see your friend, your best friend, your kids’ friends. It’s a feeling of home.”
While real estate prices have dominated headlines and faced criticism on social media platforms, Meyer said there’s a deeper humanity to the conversation. “You listen to these stories of people who have been there for 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years. It’s their childhood home, their parents’ homes. People don’t leave because it’s a community. Everybody sits together, they hang together. They don’t leave Malibu or the Palisades because there’s no place like it in the world.”
Knowing her corner of the world has been largely leveled brings Meyer to tears again. “I get emotional because I’ve seen all the videos, but the drive down PCH out to Malibu is…” she says, as her voice breaks. “You won’t beat it anywhere in the world. It brings a sense of peace. There’s a feeling in the ocean air. It brings me to this place mentally, too. I’ve had my best days on PCH and my worst days on PCH. There’s no place like it. And to think we’re going to drive down PCH and Carbon Beach will be gone, La Costa Beach will be gone. I can’t wrap my head around it.”
She finds comfort in shifting focus to the resiliency of the city.
“I know Los Angeles is strong, and I know we will come together and we will rebuild. I just know it and I feel it, and I can’t wait for it. I will be a part of that in every which way that I can. I know everyone in Palisades Village will do everything they can to help the community in whatever way we can when we know how to do it. I think people will have a lot of compassion for each other and really love each other through this. All of Los Angeles is truly in this together,” said Meyer, before pausing to collect her thoughts and offer one final parting thought. “God bless Los Angeles.”
English (US) ·