Artists residence
As a residence for artists, the Villa Aurora in Los Angeles is once again a place where German, European and American cultures cross paths as well as a meeting place for intellectuals and artists. It is a venue for the democratic expression of ideas and fosters German-American exchange in literature, art, culture, science and politics.
Thomas Mann called the former home of Lion and Marta Feuchtwanger "a true castle by the sea". Built in 1927 on the bluffs of Pacific Palisades, when the Feuchtwangers moved in in 1943, it became the central meeting point for German émigrés and their American friends. Among the villa's visitors were Thomas and Heinrich Mann, Bertolt Brecht, Franz and Alma Werfel, Alfred Döblin, Ludwig Marcuse, Bruno Frank, Albert Einstein, Arnold Schönberg, Kurt Weill, Hanns Eisler, Fritz Lang and Charlie Chaplin. They gathered at the villa for evenings of readings, music, fun and discussion. After Lion Feuchtwanger's death, his widow kept the flame of that intellectual legacy alive.
When Marta Feuchtwanger died in autumn 1987, she left the Feuchtwanger fortune and the Villa Aurora to the University of Southern California. The house had fallen into disrepair and USC considered selling it. At the request of professor Harold von Hofe, the journalist and Feuchtwanger biographer Volker Skierka launched an initiative to save the dilapidated building. He won the support of numerous public figures. The then head of the publishing house Rowohlt, Michael Naumann, cultural journalist Fritz J. Raddatz and Freimut Duve, a member of the German parliament, gave the initiative a goal by stating that it should become a kind of "Villa Massimo on the Pacific", in reference to the German art institute in Rome. A foundation under the aegis of Berlin's Tagesspiegel newspaper also committed to the goal of preserving the villa. In 1988, the two campaigns joined forces and founded the non-profit association "friends and supporters of the Villa Aurora" in Berlin.
Under the leadership of the association chairperson, lawyer Lothar Poll, and his successor, Marianne Heuwagen, the association bought the villa in 1990 with funding help from the German lottery foundation and the foreign office, and restored the house to its original state. The city of Los Angeles awarded a distinction in 1996 for the restoration work on the historical building and the villa now stands under historic preservation order. About 22,000 volumes from the Feuchtwangers' extensive library remain in the villa on permanent loan from USC. The other, particularly valuable books now make up USC's Feuchtwanger Memorial Library. Since opening in December 1995, the Villa Aurora has become an international meeting place for artists.
» Feuchtwanger Memorial Library site
