Just months ago, the Will Rogers State Historic Park in Los Angeles was a sprawling mountainside estate where celebrities gathered to watch polo and drink champagne.
Nearby, the Palisades Village shopping mall was the centre point of the city's affluent west-side suburb, boasting dozens of shops, live music, and the farmers' market.
Across the street was the Theatre Palisades, built in 1976, just days away from launching its latest performance.
The theatre's vice-president of operations Cynthia Wright-Banks said she was among those who started it back in 1976.
"I put so many years into getting that theatre built, and I didn't build it for myself as much as I built it for my mum," she told ABC US.
"My mum had tried to build a theatre in Laguna Beach and never got it done, but when [she] moved up here it was our opportunity.
"It was a wonderful, wonderful place."
All these structures have been destroyed by the out-of-control fires which continue to burn through Los Angeles.
Where there were once luscious hillside hiking trails, well-kept lawns and blocks of homes, there is now only blackened land and twisted metal skeletons.
"This fire is unprecedented in Los Angeles," conservation group Docomomo US board president Katie Horak told magazine Dezeen.
"I've lived here [my] whole life, including in areas prone to evacuations and fires, and this is unlike anything I have ever seen.
"This is a city-changing moment for us."
State Parks director Armando Quintero said his department had been directing "all available resources" into protecting parklands in the area.
"California State Parks mourns the loss of these treasured natural and cultural resources, and our hearts go out to everyone impacted by [the fires]," he said.
"We are deeply grateful to our parks staff and all partner agencies for their swift actions.
"Our top priority remains the safety of the public, our employees and responders bravely battling the fires."
Officials managed to evacuate the horses and some of the historical artefacts, according to a statement.
The 31-room ranch home once belonged to vaudeville performer, philanthropist and radio personality Will Rogers, dubbed America's cowboy philosopher, who was the highest-paid actor in Hollywood in the mid-1930s.
Also destroyed was the Topanga Ranch Motel, a bungalow-style retreat inside the park, built in 1929 by newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst.
Other landmark structures, including the Getty Villa and modernist icon the Eames House by the LA waterfront, have been saved.
Many connected to the houses, businesses, and landmarks destroyed were forced to find out their fate via social media and news footage.
Ms Wright-Banks described watching on in horror as the theatre burned.
"I watched the lobby burn, I watched it all burn … probably the basement is the only thing that remains," she said.
"It broke my heart. I saw 40 solid years of my life go up in flames."
