Nov 28

Nov 28 Beato Chocolates

The Thomas Fire started on December 4, 2017. It burned 281,893 acres, destroyed 1,063 structures, and killed one civilian and one firefighter.

In 1944, after a weekend in Ojai, Willie Weidman, who was also in real estate, drove me to the bus and casually remarked, “Only one lot is left here on McAndrew Road.”

“Which lot is left?” I asked, hardly able to contain myself.

He slowed the car. “That one.”

It was “my lot,” the one I had always wanted. “How much are they asking for it?”

He told me. “I’ll buy it,” I replied, without knowing where I was going to find the money.”

— Beatrice “Beato” Wood, from I Shock Myself

In 2017, Lisa and I operated the Porch Gallery for five years. We didn’t own the building that housed the business, but it was ours. The Montgomery House was old, quirky, and symbiotic with the Porch Gallery.

When Carl, the owner, approached us with the opportunity to buy the building, “We’ll buy it,” we replied, without knowing where we were going to find the money. The house needed a paint job, new floors, and new bathrooms. It was like a cautionary episode of This Old House. I had never wanted anything more in my whole life. Even if we sold our home, it would only cover a portion of the purchase price. But, I had a three-phase plan. 1. Beg. 2. Steal. 3. Borrow.

On December 4, 2017, Lisa and I dropped off a substantial deposit and sealed the deal with nothing more than a handshake. On December 5, my mom called in a panic at 6:00 in the morning. It was national news. Ojai was on fire.

Living in the land of Earthquakes, Mudslides, Fires, and Riots, Lisa and I had many discussions about our emergency plan. Unfortunately, they all happened as we escaped the fire rapidly circling Ojai. Our car was filled with two dogs, their beds, their toys, three of Lisa’s pillows, two days’ worth of clean clothes, and a shockingly heavy garbage bag full of wet clothes that I had pulled mid-cycle from the washer. My pillows, our personal documents, and family photos were back at the house, stored in a closet next to the paint thinner and old lithium batteries.

The entire Ojai Valley seemed to be traveling in a caravan on the only open road out of town. Behind us, the Thomas Fire was burning an acre a second. I spent the entire drive to the coast mentally calculating which of us would first make it there.

When we reached the 101, we turned right and headed up to Solvang, where a friend mentioned that hotel rooms were still available. We checked in and went straight to the hotel bar. It was packed with Ojai people…our community. We hugged. We joked. We bought each other drinks. For a brief moment, we forgot why we were there. And then, the phones started buzzing. The updates from home were starting to trickle in. “All the houses on Tower Road were gone.” “Libbey Bowl was destroyed.” “Beatrice Wood’s home and Center for the Arts had burned.” We didn’t know what was true and what was rumor. Eventually, everyone stopped talking. The only sound was the cacophony of the emergency broadcast warnings echoing through the phones. We left the room silently and went to bed, believing our homes and businesses were gone.

Lisa and I went to bed with the report that a ring of fire surrounded Ojai. We woke up expecting to read about destruction and heartbreak. Instead, the news was the fire surrounded and entered the Valley, but before it could reach the town, the winds shifted, and it moved in the opposite direction. Many had lost their homes, but most of the town was saved. The rumors that flowed the night before were corrected. Tower Road was intact. Libbey Bowl survived. And, while a part of Beatrice Wood’s home and Center for the Arts had caught on fire, the structure and her archives were spared.

A lot of credit was given to the first responders who risked everything to fight the fire. There were also whispers that we were saved by The Vortex — the spiritual hotspot created by the East/West layout of the Valley. It could also have been my weeping promise that I would give up all my vices if the universe saved our home. Whatever the cause, our home and business were secure.

The smoke and ash made Ojai uninhabitable. It would be days before we could return. With nothing else to do, Lisa and I headed to the lobby. I went directly to the bar, and she beelined to the complimentary hot chocolate. When I went to check on her, she had that look, that “I have an idea” look. I saw it when she proposed moving to Ojai, then again when she wanted to open the gallery, and it was there when she pitched raffling off our house instead of selling it. Some of her ideas made more sense than others. This time, she wanted to start a chocolate company. Evidently, drinking chocolate in the afternoon gave her the inspiration. If that was the case, we could also start a company called “8 Pinot Grigios.” I began to regret leaving Lisa alone with her thoughts. There was no way in hell I was going to transition into the chocolate business.

Lisa is an ideas person. I’m a numbers person. She chases butterflies; I squish joy.

My role in both our business and marriage is to keep her in check. On day three of being evacuated from our home during the Thomas Fire, Lisa devised a plan to create a line of chocolates. Thankfully, I had strategies in place for her random schemes. I could tell from her enthusiasm that my “say ‘yes’ and hope she loses interest in the idea” tactic was too risky. Confusing her with numbers wasn’t going to pack the punch I needed. Logic was best suited for plans that included farm animals and motorcycles. I had to pull out a combo move if I was going to block Lisa’s idea to side hustle in chocolate. I smiled and told her, “That’s a good idea. The equipment is probably going to cost at least $20,000. We will have to sell at least 100 bars a week for 20 weeks before we make our money back. Also, we own an art gallery, and selling chocolate will dilute our brand.”

I went to bed that night confident in my success. The next morning, Lisa had that “I have an idea” look again, and I knew I was in trouble. “We could name the company Beato Chocolates after Beatrice Wood. It’s chocolate AND art.” Lisa had found the loophole. I was playing checkers…Lisa was playing chess.

Oprah Daily ranked Solvang as one of the “Most Magical Christmas Towns and Villages Across the World.” I felt like it was the setting of a Sartre play. In December 2017, the town’s population was a combination of traumatized evacuees from the Thomas Fire and zealous holiday tourists. The former shuffled through the streets, pasty and red-eyed from days spent talking to insurance companies, while the latter bounced around, rosy-cheeked and plump from holiday cheer and Æbleskivers. The two groups did not mix well.

Life in our hotel room was a microcosm of our surroundings. I was agitated; Lisa was excited. I wanted to brave the smoke and ash and return to Ojai; she wanted to walk around town tasting chocolate for the company we hadn’t started. We were at an impasse until I expressed my deepest fear, “This town is going to ruin Christmas for me.” With that, Lisa knew it was time to go. As off-brand as it is, I absolutely love the holidays. I couldn’t let a Danish town in central California take that away from me.

As we drove home, Lisa and I discussed how our business would look in a town deserted by the fire. The air quality would keep tourists and part-time residents away. Financially, it was going to be devastating. For Lisa, this was the perfect opportunity to pour money into another business endeavor. She was never going to let this chocolate idea die. It was time to negotiate, “If you get your chocolate company, I’m listening to Christmas music until January 5.”

“Three weeks later, Miss Selby phoned. ‘Miss Wood, I am glad to tell you that the disaster fund of the Red Cross is giving Steven Hoag [and you] nine hundred dollars to buy a new lot, five hundred dollars for you to start a new workshop, one hundred twenty-five dollars for a new kiln, plus a hundred dollars for materials.’… Thus, the Red Cross enabled me to pick up the broken pieces of my life.”

— Beatrice “Beato” Wood,
Excerpt from I Shock Myself, describing the aftermath of losing her Los Angeles home to a flood.

BACK IN OJAI…

Five days after the fire, Ojai looked like a post-apocalyptic movie set. The landscape was blackened with charred trees still smoldering. Smoke filled the valley like a thick fog. The streets were filled with firefighters and emergency vehicles. Part of me wondered if it was safe to return home. The other part wondered why I was there instead of Lisa. Through a series of Jedi mind tricks, she had convinced me that it was my job to return to Ojai to clean the ash from our home and gallery. Somewhere along the line, I became in charge of anything that required spreadsheets, tools, vermin eradication, and/or toxic cleanup. Nurturing, extended conversations, and smiling were Lisa’s purview.

Lisa stayed with the dogs in Ventura while I spent my mornings vacuuming soot and my afternoons attending meetings with disaster relief specialists*. At one meeting, a woman announced that government grants and loans were available to those who qualified. The “Beg...Steal...Borrow” part of our plan to buy the building was about to come to fruition. Traditional banks didn’t seem very interested in answering questions like, “Tell me how much income I need to write down to qualify?” What Lisa and I required was the lapse oversight of a government agency and the support of a strong female banker. We needed an institution that was more concerned with our future growth, not our past. There, sitting at a folding table in a local restaurant dressed in a drab grey suit with a government lanyard, I had met my perfect match.

Six months later, through an SBA Loan, we bought the Montgomery House and started the launch of Beato Chocolates in its kitchen.