Ilian Rebei, who moved his art gallery Nagas from Paris to Los Angeles, had been thinking about relocating to New York, where most of clients are based, but hadn’t set anything in motion. “I had this idea in mind, but nothing concrete, no plan,” says Rebei. And then the wildfires hit. “I heard that in the Pacific Palisades it moved from ten acres to 200 acres very quickly,” he said. “And with artwork, when it’s gone, it’s gone.” Shortly after the fire broke out in the Hollywood Hills, he started calling freight companies to see if anyone could move the art from his Hollywood gallery — about 35 paintings and 15 drawings — to New York. “I had to call, like, 20 or 30 places,” he says. Once he locked one down, he set about finding a new home for himself, contacting Nancy Elton, a real-estate agent at Bond New York, about a rental listing she had for a studio apartment on the Upper East Side. “There was a real sense of urgency,” says Elton. “We saw the apartment at 2:45 p.m. Thursday, had him approved by 8 p.m., and he signed the lease at 8:20.” On Saturday, he moved in. “From where I was living in Santa Monica, I could see the fire with my own eyes,” Rebei said. “Of course, I could have moved later, could have taken the risk. But at one point, you have to decide, and I decided that the moment was now.”
