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Travel + Leisure
13-05-2025
- Travel + Leisure
Burgundy Is Your French Country Vacation Fantasy Come To Life—And It's Only a Train Ride Away From Paris
"Burgundy?" Three red wine emojis. 'Is it good for kids?' Crying with laughter face. The above text exchange with my Parisian friend Pascale was not very reassuring. Charolais cattle grazing near Burgundy's Morvan Regional Natural Park. As I studied a map of Burgundy while planning a vacation with my 10-year-old son, Lucas, many of the place names looked strangely familiar. Chablis, Pouilly-Fuissé, Puligny-Montrachet, Pommard: it was like perusing the wine list of a fancy French restaurant. I had never been to Burgundy (a.k.a. La Bourgogne), but surely there was more to the region than grands crus and Michelin-starred restaurants? Could a tour of its byways and backwaters offer rural respite for this harried mom and her screen-addled son? After a whirlwind 48 hours in Paris—where we strolled wide-eyed along the Seine, ate our body weight in steak frites, and witnessed a marriage proposal at the top of the Eiffel Tower—Lucas and I set off by train from the Paris-Bercy station. On a Saturday morning in August, it seemed as though every Parisian left in the city was amassed on the station platforms, desperate to escape. As far as I could tell, we were the only foreigners on the 2½-hour route to Clamecy, a market town in central Burgundy. At each stop, more people scrambled off, and fewer climbed aboard. At one station, a guard hollered something in French and all the remaining passengers jumped off the train and squeezed into the front carriage. Rather like the medieval villages that flecked the tidy green landscape, even the train was getting smaller. Clamecy was clearly off the beaten track, even for Parisian weekenders. From left: The streets of medieval Clamecy, a town in central Burgundy; summer berries at Clamecy market. Indeed, this sleepy little town was so unprepared for its trickle of summer visitors that there hadn't been a single rental car available during our visit. My resourceful cousin Suzanne—a New Yorker who moved to Paris more than 20 years ago, then decamped to a hamlet outside Clamecy during the pandemic—had come up with a solution: she rented a white cargo van for our three-day stay. Chic it was not, but what fun to squeeze into the front cabin and survey our new surroundings from this lofty perch. 'We're in Burgundy, but not the fancy part,' Suzanne deadpanned as we drove past Clamecy's half-timbered buildings. There was a lovely, lived-in feel to the lopsided alleys, which were appointed with all the essentials of Gallic life: a tabac, a flea market, a Gothic church, a post office, a secondhand bookstore, a chocolaterie, and a couple of cafés and bakeries. A few dog walkers strolled along the grassy banks of the Yonne River; the only other traffic was the occasional barge or a bicycle freewheeling along the embankment. From left: Boris Lévy, Adrien Lachappelle, Nicolas Delaroche, and Jamie Freeman-Turner, the founders of Boule d'Or, in Clamecy; a guest room at the Boule d'Or,. With around 800 miles of rivers and canals, Burgundy has the largest network of inland waterways in France. It's ideal for boating, and well-maintained towpaths make it excellent for cycling, too. For about four centuries, starting in the mid-1400s, Clamecy was a prosperous center of the timber trade, thanks to its location at the confluence of the Yonne and the Canal du Nivernais. Beech and oak logs felled in the Morvan Forest were fastened together and floated along the Yonne, then up the Seine to fuel the fires of the growing population of Paris. These wood 'trains' were steered by flotteurs, or raftsmen, who used wooden poles to maneuver them like gondoliers. The perilous journey to Paris took up to 11 days; the raftsmen then had to trudge back to Clamecy on foot. In the mid 19th century railways began to replace the rafts. The last flottage left Clamecy in 1923. A century later, we spied two brightly colored rowing boats full of men, poking each other with poles. They were preparing for a riverine jousting contest, commemorating the aquatic feats of their ancestors. All 116 locks along the Canal du Nivernais are still operated by an éclusier: a lockkeeper who manually opens and closes the cumbersome iron gates. On the quayside in Clamecy, we watched one deftly handle the cranks and valves, flooding the holding bay with a rush of water to allow a barge to continue its journey. Some of the old lockkeeper's cottages along the canal are now occupied by painters and potters, who sell their wares to passing tourists. From left: La Maison de Colette, in St.-Sauveur-en-Puisaye; the living room of the writer Colette's childhood home, now a museum. Artists of all kinds have been inspired by the region's gentle landscapes and austere architecture, and almost every village has a museum commemorating some local luminary or other. Over the course of a languid long weekend, we admired Art Deco posters by graphic artist Charles Loupot in Clamecy's Romain Rolland Museum of Art & History; marveled at Colette's collection of paperweights and pressed butterflies (and her succession of unlikely lovers) at the author's namesake museum in St.-Sauveur-en-Puisaye, the charming village where she grew up; and were astonished by the Picassos, Kandinskys, and Mirós at the Musée Zervos, in Vézelay—an incredible collection that belonged to the critic and editor Christian Zervos, who published the seminal journal Cahiers d'Art. When he died, Zervos bequeathed the art to his beloved town. From left: The Canal du Nivernay; blue skies over Morvan Regional Natural Park. Curiously, the Zervos Museum is often overlooked by the day-trippers traipsing up to the hilltop Basilica of Ste.-Marie-Madeleine, which has been a pilgrimage site for more than 1,000 years. Its vaulted abbey, with its ghostly sculptures and stained-glass windows, is profoundly moving, but I found the unbroken vistas of rolling pastures, isolated farmhouses, and scattered hamlets to be equally stirring. Lucas was less impressed by the scenery. Churches and museums are not a 10-year-old boy's idea of a good time. To make matters worse, we had missed the 12–2 p.m. lunch slot strictly observed by many restaurants in France's smaller cities and towns. Luckily, Suzanne had another great idea: we would drive to the nearest guinguette . In summer, social life revolves around these riverside cafés-cum-cabarets, where sustenance comes with musical entertainment and opportunities for swimming. At La Guinguette de Coulanges, the fast food had a distinctly local flavor: instead of hot dogs, we ate andouillettes (a sausage stuffed with pork tripe), and the burgers came with ratatouille and onion confit. (Under new ownership as of February, the guinguette now specializes in crêpes and galettes.) Sunbathers on Lac de St.-Agnan, near Saulieu. As we ate, we watched a couple of seniors burning up the plein-air dance floor, quickstepping through well-rehearsed routines to Elvis and Chuck Berry while toddlers high on sugary soda freestyled in the wings. Locals chattered over $3 glasses of kir, while the younger set messed about in kayaks or swung from a rope into the cool green river. If the ballroom dancing was unexpected, the evening's entertainment in Clamecy was even more surprising. Around dusk, we joined a motley crew of locals in a riverside clearing to watch a riotous performance by Les Rustines de l'Ange, a skirt-clad band of accordion players whose repertoire included rousing cover versions of AC/DC's 'Highway to Hell' and the Madness ska classic 'One Step Beyond.' From left: Summer tomatoes with sheep-milk cheese at La Côte d'Or, the restaurant at Le Relais Bernard Loiseau; the quarry-walled garden at La Boule d'Or. The next day, we were better prepared to forestall midday meltdowns. After a slow breakfast of croissants and coffee at Suzanne's beautiful, antique-filled home, where we were staying, we stocked up with provisions for a picnic. At the lively market in Quarré-les-Tombes we picked up pavé du Morvan (an air-dried pork sausage coated in seasonings), gougères (puffy cheese pastries), green olives, baguettes, and buttery blackcurrant tarts. Lucas was diverted by a treat—waffles with chocolate and hazelnut spread—at one of the sunny cafés on the square, while I trawled the market stalls that were selling straw baskets, Moroccan slippers, and locally made pocket knives. Suitably fortified, we pressed onward to Guédelon, where a madcap troupe of quarrymen and stonemasons, tilers and joiners, blacksmiths and carters are building a castle using only tools and techniques that were available in the 13th century. Everything from the mortar to the rope has been handmade on the dusty site. (This wildly ambitious experiment, which began in 1997, is the subject of a BBC TV series, Secrets of the Castle. Some of the skills learned at Guédelon were also applied to rebuilding Notre Dame after the 2019 fire.) Seeing this enormous collective enterprise take shape in real time—much of it by trial and error—was like witnessing history in reverse. A street in Quarré-les-Tombes. Later, through Suzanne's connections, we got a backstage tour of another collective labor of love: La Boule d'Or, an abandoned auberge in Clamecy that has been transformed into an artists' residency and guesthouse by four friends, with help from an army of volunteers recruited on TikTok. 'The idea had been germinating for years,' Boris Lévy, a soft-spoken cinematographer from Paris, told me over a beer in the garden, which is set in a disused limestone quarry. Limestone was used to build the 12th-century chapel on the grounds, which now hosts acoustic gigs and pop-up dinners. Lévy found the derelict property on Le Bon Coin, the French equivalent of Craigslist. Its simple guest rooms are furnished with flea-market finds. 'It isn't a classical hotel; it's more of a cultural space that celebrates the importance of community,' Lévy said. 'A place where you can meet like-minded people in the kitchen instead of ordering room service.' I was already plotting a return trip to stay at La Boule d'Or; but at that moment, Lucas, a born bon vivant, was ready for some room service. In planning this trip, I'd enlisted the help of one of T+L's A-List travel advisors, Marc Bonte, whose team at French Side Travel helped dream up an itinerary that would please both me and Lucas. On the third day, we swapped Suzanne and our cargo van for 'prestige chauffeur' Erick Gayet and his Mercedes-Benz V-Class limousine and set off for one of the region's most luxurious hotels. A beefy Bourguignon in a navy blazer and blue suede shoes, Gayet patiently fielded my questions as we glided down the highway to Saulieu. A reproduction of a François Pompon sculpture on display in the town of Saulieu. More or less in the middle of Burgundy, the town of Saulieu has been a staging post for travelers between northern and southern Europe since Roman times. Today it is the gateway to the Morvan Regional Natural Park, a glorious swath of granite peaks, mountain lakes, and woodlands threaded with hiking and biking trails. This being France, the great outdoors comes with a temple of gastronomy, in the form of Le Relais Bernard Loiseau. Named after the celebrated chef who was an inspiration for the Pixar movie Ratatouille, this supremely civilized hotel is today owned and managed by Loiseau's family. Established in 1875, the former coaching inn (or relais ) is a bastion of old-fashioned art de vivre . A courtly manager, Charles Manderveld, welcomed me as 'Madame Aouar,' which made me feel way more sophisticated than plain old Ms. Howard. ' Relais towns were seven to eight leagues apart, the distance a horse could travel in a single day,' Manderveld explained as he showed us around the property. Even the newest additions—like our Cocoon Suite, with its decadent pink-marble bathroom and crisply made bed enclosed within sliding wicker doors—felt reassuringly solid and snug. Sculpted frogs spouted water into the swimming pool at the end of the garden. In the cellar, Manderveld pointed out the empty bottles of outrageously expensive wine that Loiseau had once quaffed with his pals at a marble tasting table. 'Is that where they do massages?' Lucas asked. 'No, but there's a three-story spa for that,' Manderveld replied with a smile. The pool at Le Relais Bernard Loiseau, a hotel in Saulieu. Le Relais Bernard Loiseau's wood-clad spa bills itself as a 'multisensory universe.' Shimmering tiles, showers with a rainforest soundtrack, and purple lighting gave it a wellness-disco effect, much to Lucas's delight. He was the only child racing excitably between the 'bubbling beach,' 'geyser,' and 'gooseneck shower,' but the middle-aged bathers nonchalantly throwing buckets of ice over their heads didn't seem to mind. Refreshed, we took a stroll around Saulieu. Its local museum is dedicated to François Pompon, a student of Rodin whose life-size sculptures of bears and bulls are dotted around town. We followed a trail of arrows embedded in the sidewalks that directs visitors to noteworthy landmarks. I was distracted by the many antiques shops, until one arrow led us to the huge red door of the Basilica of St.-Andoche. There were no other visitors, but up in the gallery, someone was belting out a hymn on the blue and gold organ, charging the space with a swell of emotion. From left: Antiques for sale in the town of Saulieu; exploring the town of Flavigny-sur-Ozerain. At dinner, our fresh-faced waiter revealed that he was the church organist; it was hard to fathom that such a slight young man could produce such powerful music. I had been secretly relieved to learn that the hotel's Michelin two-starred restaurant, La Côte d'Or, was closed that night, as I was not sure whether Lucas's table manners were up to the challenge. The ambience in the bistro of Le Relais was relaxed, the room humming with French diners and their immaculately behaved children. By contrast, my young hoodlum mopped up béarnaise sauce with his fingers and squealed when the dessert trolley was wheeled over, but there was not so much as a raised eyebrow from the unflappable staff. Much like the service, the cooking was precise and faultless, and the brief wine list was absolutely on point. When my trio of local cheeses arrived I was too preoccupied with my Crémant de Bourgogne to pay them proper attention, so instead Lucas dug in, spooning the intensely gooey Époisses with gusto. It was hard to bid farewell to the ministrations of the maître d' in the hotel's sun-dappled breakfast room, but I was on a mission to stay at both a relais and a château. For our last night, we had booked one of the four rooms at the Château de St.-Aubin, in the Côte de Beaune, where some of the world's most prized white wines are produced. The door of a lockkeeper's cottage. En route, Gayet suggested a stop at MuséoParc Alésia, an interactive museum on the site of an epic Gallo-Roman battle in 52 B.C. Designed by Swiss architect Bernard Tschumi, the striking circular museum is the antithesis of Guédelon: history is brought vividly to life through 3-D puzzles, animations, and video games. I felt like I was stepping inside an Asterix cartoon—a brilliant way of bringing history to life for my comic-book-fanatic son. A 10-minute drive from Alésia, we fast-forwarded to the Middle Ages. Officially designated as one of the most beautiful villages in France, Flavigny-sur-Ozerain is an enchanting patchwork of pale stone houses with painted wooden shutters. Most of Burgundy's medieval villages look like movie sets, but Flavigny really was the location for Chocolat, the schmaltzy 2000 romance starring Johnny Depp and Juliette Binoche. In real life, the village is famous for a different kind of confection: the anise-flavored bonbons, produced with the same recipe since 1591, at Les Anis de Flavigny. On a tour of the converted Benedictine abbey, we saw thousands of candies rattling around in copper vats as they were being squirted with essence of violet, rose, or citron. Afterward, we got our sugar fix in the retro tearoom and gift shop. Lunch at La Grange, a restaurant in Flavigny-sur-Ozerain where farmers cook and serve their own produce. As we continued south, untamed landscapes gave way to neatly parceled vineyards. At dusk, we rolled into the village of St.-Aubin, where tractors were parked outside modest vignerons' houses. Gayet deposited our luggage outside the Château de St.-Aubin, but there was nobody around. So we wandered across the courtyard to Maison Prosper Maufoux, the estate winery, and snagged the last table at Prosper, the vineyard's glass-walled restaurant. A full moon rose over the vines as we tucked in to perfectly pink veal and puréed potatoes as fluffy as whipped cream. Époisses made another appearance as a custardy foam oozing into a 'chutney' of julienned carrots and caramelized hazelnuts. You could easily bankrupt yourself on the wine list, but I struck gold on my first try with a glass of Clos du Château, the best Chardonnay I have ever tasted. 'It's not really a castle,' Lucas said as he surveyed the scene. 'But at least there's a pool.' Lucas had imagined a moat and drawbridge, but he certainly wasn't complaining. Our luggage was full of candy. He had acquired a taste for stinky cheese, and I had developed a dangerous penchant for fine wine. In short: despite my initial misgivings, Burgundy was a triumph. Three popping cork emojis, five star emojis, and a whole lot of tricolor flags. A version of this story first appeared in the June 2025 issue of Travel + Leisure under the headline "Burgundy ... But Hold the Wine ."
Sky News AU
06-05-2025
- Climate
- Sky News AU
Two separate earthquakes rattles hundreds of residents across Melbourne and Adelaide overnight just hours apart
Hundreds of residents across two major Aussie cities woke up to overnight tremors on Tuesday following separate earthquakes just hours apart. Melbourne was hit by a magnitude 2.8 quake about 12.30am with the epicentre located outside Mount Dandenong in the Olinda Area, 44km east of the city. Geoscience Australia confirmed more than 700 Victorians reported the unexpected tremors with some feeling the effects as far as Jam Jerrup in the south and Craigieburn in the north. Just less than two hours after the first quake, east of Adelaide was hit by a magnitude of 2.7 earthquake about 2am. The epicentre was located in the Adelaide Hills, northeast of Mount Barker near Nairne, at a depth of 9km. Up to 200 residents reported the incident to Geoscience Australia mostly from in and around the Adelaide region. Owners of the Big Rocking Horse, a tourist attraction located in Gumeracha took to social media to report feeling the quake. 'Not even an earthquake could make Wal The Big Rocking Horse rock,' they posted. 'It was a rolling rumble sound and we didn't feel the earth move. 'Checking on all our animals now to make sure they aren't spooked.' Seismology Research Centre chief scientist Adam Pascale told FIVEAA Radio earthquakes of this small degree has been occurring almost every year around the same time in the Adelaide Hills region. 'The pattern shows the last couple of years we've had in sort of March, April, May around, roughly around this time," he said. 'But it's not really related to seasons, I think it's just about that stress building up … the big ones started in 2022; there was a 3.7 there, and a 3.1 a bit later that month and then last year we had a, it was a 2.7 in the region, and there's been sort of small ones popping off along the way. But this is one of the larger ones this morning.' Mr Pascale further predicted a big earthquake could be on the cards for the city. 'There's been a magnitude six in South Australia in recent history ... it's quite likely that there will be another large event sometime,' he said. 'Unfortunately, I can't predict when these things but we know that we will see an event of magnitude five or six, probably in the next 50 or 100 years.'
News.com.au
05-05-2025
- Climate
- News.com.au
Earthquakes rattle Melbourne and Adelaide hours apart
Two Australian cities were rattled overnight as separate earthquakes struck within hours of each other, prompting hundreds of residents to report the tremors. Melbourne was the first to feel the earth move, with a magnitude 2.8 quake striking just after 12.30am on Tuesday. The epicentre was located near Mount Dandenong, in the Olinda area, at a depth of 5km. According to Geoscience Australia, more than 620 people reported feeling the tremor, with reports stretching from Jam Jerrup in the south to Craigieburn in the north. Less than two hours later, Adelaide was rocked by a magnitude 2.7 quake about 2am. The tremor was centred near Nairne, east of the city, at a depth of 9km. Nearly 200 residents contacted Geoscience Australia to report the event, mostly from in and around the Adelaide region. Seismology Research Centre chief scientist Adam Pascale told FIVEAA radio that small earthquakes had been common in the Adelaide Hills region in recent years. '(I'm) surprised it has been felt, it is pretty small, but it's something that's seemingly occurring almost every year around this time of year,' he said. Mr Pascale said while a pattern of earthquakes had emerged around March to May over the past few years, the timing wasn't due to seasonal factors but rather the gradual build-up of stress beneath the surface. He noted that the more significant tremors began in 2022 with a magnitude of 3.7, followed by a 3.1 later that month. In 2023, the region recorded a 2.7, with smaller quakes occurring sporadically since then. He added that the latest tremor was one of the larger ones in recent times. Mr Pascale also said a more powerful quake could be looming. 'There's been a magnitude six in South Australia in recent history … it's quite likely that there will be another large event sometime,' he said. 'Unfortunately, I can't predict these things, but we know that we will see an event of magnitude five or six, probably in the next 50 or 100 years.' Both cities sit on the Australian tectonic plate, which shifts about 7cm each year. While Australia is not known for frequent large earthquakes, minor tremors are not uncommon. 'Earthquakes in Australia are caused by the slow build-up of stress in the interior of the continent,' Geoscience Australia explained. 'The stress that builds in these tectonic plates during this movement is released as an earthquake.' On March 1, 1954, a magnitude 5.4 earthquake injured three people and damaged 3000 buildings, triggering more than 30,000 insurance claims for structural damage. Australia's largest recorded earthquake occurred in 1988 near Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory, with a magnitude estimated at 6.6. No damage or injuries have been reported from Monday night's quakes.
Perth Now
05-05-2025
- Climate
- Perth Now
Twin quakes rock two Aussie cities
Two Australian cities were rattled overnight as separate earthquakes struck within hours of each other, prompting hundreds of residents to report the tremors. Melbourne was the first to feel the earth move, with a magnitude 2.8 quake striking just after 12.30am on Tuesday. The epicentre was located near Mount Dandenong, in the Olinda area, at a depth of 5km. According to Geoscience Australia, more than 620 people reported feeling the tremor, with reports stretching from Jam Jerrup in the south to Craigieburn in the north. Less than two hours later, Adelaide was rocked by a magnitude 2.7 quake about 2am. The tremor was centred near Nairne, east of the city, at a depth of 9km. Nearly 200 residents contacted Geoscience Australia to report the event, mostly from in and around the Adelaide region. Seismology Research Centre chief scientist Adam Pascale told FIVEAA radio that small earthquakes had been common in the Adelaide Hills region in recent years. '(I'm) surprised it has been felt, it is pretty small, but it's something that's seemingly occurring almost every year around this time of year,' he said. Melbourne and Adelaide have been shaken as separate earthquakes struck within hours. Geoscience Australia Credit: News Corp Australia Mr Pascale said while a pattern of earthquakes had emerged around March to May over the past few years, the timing wasn't due to seasonal factors but rather the gradual build-up of stress beneath the surface. He noted that the more significant tremors began in 2022 with a magnitude of 3.7, followed by a 3.1 later that month. In 2023, the region recorded a 2.7, with smaller quakes occurring sporadically since then. He added that the latest tremor was one of the larger ones in recent times. Mr Pascale also said a more powerful quake could be looming. 'There's been a magnitude six in South Australia in recent history … it's quite likely that there will be another large event sometime,' he said. 'Unfortunately, I can't predict these things, but we know that we will see an event of magnitude five or six, probably in the next 50 or 100 years.' Both cities sit on the Australian tectonic plate, which shifts about 7cm each year. While Australia is not known for frequent large earthquakes, minor tremors are not uncommon. 'Earthquakes in Australia are caused by the slow build-up of stress in the interior of the continent,' Geoscience Australia explained. 'The stress that builds in these tectonic plates during this movement is released as an earthquake.' On March 1, 1954, a magnitude 5.4 earthquake injured three people and damaged 3000 buildings, triggering more than 30,000 insurance claims for structural damage. Australia's largest recorded earthquake occurred in 1988 near Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory, with a magnitude estimated at 6.6. No damage or injuries have been reported from Monday night's quakes.
New York Times
04-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Where Would Hollywood Find Its Guillotines or Pay Phones Without Them?
When the Netflix series 'Wednesday' needed a guillotine recently, it did not have to venture far. A North Hollywood prop house called History for Hire had one available, standing more than eight feet high with a suitably menacing blade. (The business offers pillories too, but the show wasn't in the market for any.) The company's 33,000-square-foot warehouse is like the film and television industry's treasure-filled attic, crammed with hundreds of thousands of items that help bring the past to life. It has a guitar Timothée Chalamet used in 'A Complete Unknown,' luggage from 'Titanic,' a black baby carriage from 'The Addams Family.' Looking for period detail? You can find different iterations of Wheaties boxes going back to the '40s, enormous television cameras with rotating lenses from the '50s, a hair dyer with a long hose that connects to a plastic bonnet from the '60s, a pay phone from the '70s and a yellow waterproof Sony Walkman from the '80s. History for Hire, which Jim and Pam Elyea have owned for almost four decades, is part of the crucial but often unseen infrastructure that keeps Hollywood churning, and helps make it one of the best places in the world to make film and television. 'People just don't realize how valuable a business like that is to help support the look of a film,' said Nancy Haigh, a set decorator who found everything from a retro can of pork and beans to a one-ton studio crane there for 'Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,' which she won an Oscar for. 'But it's because people like them exist that your moviegoing experience has such life to it.' When 'Good Night, and Good Luck' was being filmed in town on a tight $7-million budget, its set decorator, Jan Pascale, persuaded the Elyeas to rent them vintage cameras, microphones and monitors at a discount. When the director, George Clooney, really wanted an old Moviola editing machine, Pascale recalled, the Elyeas found her one at a local school. And they had not only the telex machines that the production needed, but also workers who knew how to get them to work. 'I don't know what we would do without them,' said Pascale, who has won an Oscar for 'Mank.' No one likes entertaining that idea. But with fewer movies and television shows being shot in Los Angeles these days, and History for Hire getting less business, the Elyeas fear they may not be able to afford to renew their lease for five more years. If they close, Los Angeles will lose another piece of the vibrant ecosystem that has kept it attractive to filmmakers, even as states like Georgia and New Mexico lure productions with lucrative tax credits. Some Angelenos fear a vicious cycle: If the city continues to lose local talent and resources, even more productions will flee. The Elyeas were making enough before the pandemic to employ 25 people. Now they employ 11, and have been drawing down savings to stay open. The rent is expected to go up by 25 percent in July, when their lease is up. Now they face a difficult choice. 'What do we do?' Pam, 71, asked. 'Do we say yes — we think there's going to be a going business here? Or do we say, 'You know, we had a good run?'' The Elyeas met at design school. Jim, 74, became a courtroom artist, but a sex-abuse trial he worked on in the 1980s soured him on that career. His parents owned an antique store, and Jim had always been a collector. So when a friend who was a production designer asked Jim to come work on sets, he was sold. 'He loved it,' Pam said. It was what he wanted to do. The couple opened their prop-rental business out of their apartment. Their first big break came when they got the gig to rent flak vests, field radios and medic equipment to Oliver Stone's 1986 film 'Platoon.' (They now admit that they may have exaggerated their size and expertise.) They soon opened a 4,000-square-foot store, a fraction of their current size. Using his eye for antiques, Jim bought many items over the years. Artisans reproduced others. The work called for creativity and flexibility. An 8,000-pound camera crane from the 1930s — shown in movies like 'Hail, Caesar!' and 'Babylon' — had to be modified to comply with modern federal safety laws. On a recent afternoon inside the warehouse, Dave McCullough, a prop maker, was hunkered over a work station fitting a microphone stand to a base it was not designed for. He would later use a 3-D printer to make a new tally light — the light which tells performers which camera is on at any moment — for an original RCA TK60 television camera from the 1960s and consider whether to use a heat gun to make it a slightly richer shade of red. 'What is great about being in a building like this is I've got the last century of objects as a reference,' said McCullough, who has worked at History for Hire for nine years. 'A lot of the things here had multiple lives before they got to us.' No detail is too small, said Richard Adkins, the business's graphics director, who recreated eye-catching vintage cereal boxes of Cheerios, Froot Loops and bygone brands like Sugar Jets for the prop house. Does a scene call for a pack of Luckies? Depending on the year, or even the month the film is set in, he can help find one with the right Lucky Strike logo. He squinted at a ruler as he measured the height of a glass bottle. A film set in the 1980s was seeking a Budweiser bottle in a size that is no longer made, so Adkins pulled two candidates from his vintage stock. 'There's a lot of research that one can do on the internet, but there's also a natural advantage of being a person my age who remembers,' said Adkins, 76, who has been doing this work for 51 years and has worked at History for Hire for 27. Perhaps the most fulfilling part of the job, Pam said, is diving into the history itself. There is an entire library in the warehouse devoted to that work, filled with books and reference guides that could be props themselves. 'Sears catalogs from way back,' Jim said, gesturing at a crammed shelf. A Montgomery Ward Catalog from 1922. A Marshall Field's volume on 'Jewelry and European Fashions' from 1896. A Broadway-bound musical centered around 'Soul Train' recently needed to rent some TV cameras, Pam said. While researching the cameras, the History for Hire team discovered that the show was one of the first to employ female camera operators. So they sent over a camera — and a photo. And now, audience members will see a female camera operator in the show, a spokesman for the musical, 'Hippest Trip: The Soul Train Musical,' confirmed. Pam said she was once told that 'people learn their history from the movies.' She has not forgotten. Scan a bar code, and History for Hire's inventory system will reveal a prop's past lives. One much-loved vintage camera — used in the 1992 film 'Chaplin' starring Robert Downey Jr. — has been to Antarctica and Mexico. A weather-beaten brown satchel appeared in 'The Patriot,' 'The Alamo' and 'Pirates of the Caribbean.' For 10 percent of the price of the prop, it can be yours for a week. Want a wooden drum stick from the 1970s? That's $2. Want an actual Vistalite drum set? That's closer to $495. The Elyeas would have to rent many drum sets and many, many, many drum sticks to cover the $500,000 they pay annually to rent the building where they store them all. Pam said that she is fine with some work going other places, and noted that it made sense to film, say, 'Oppenheimer' in New Mexico. She has shipped her props all over the world for years. But Pam said that she would need more local production in Los Angeles to keep her doors open. To fill in some of the gaps left by her smaller staff, she has started hiring people like Sadie Spezzano for the odd day of work here or there. Spezzano is a set decorator herself, but her work, too, has been slow. So Spezzano has picked up extra hours at a business she has often visited as a client. 'There are so many talented and amazing people that work in our industry that are just grasping at straws to stay afloat,' she said. Set decorators say they have already lost several local prop houses, one as recently as this year. Faux Library had specialized in providing lightweight books that designers could use to fill a study. Modern Props, which had been a go-to for futuristic items, shuttered a while back. 'It's getting harder and harder here,' Pascale said. 'Losing History for Hire and what they have — I just don't know what we would do.' Pam intends to keep the doors open as long as she can for herself, her husband — who has Parkinson's disease — and her staff. 'Neither Jim or I are really ready to throw in the towel yet,' she said. Maybe, she said, they will sign a two-year lease, rather than a five-year lease. And then they'll see how it goes. Pam is still thinking. She and Jim cannot work indefinitely. She had thought, if the business were still viable, of handing it over to the next generation that has learned the trade — perhaps some of her longtime staffers. But at this moment, it is a little unclear whether taking over the business would be a boon or a burden. She knows this: 'I don't want to be the last prop house in Los Angeles.'
