< You've likely seen this ranch on-screen — burned by wildfire, it awaits its next act

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

Paramount Ranch in the Santa Monica Mountains, west of Los Angeles, served as a backdrop for movies and TV shows for nearly a century, from "Klondike Annie," starring Mae West, back in 1936...

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "KLONDIKE ANNIE")

MAE WEST: (As The Frisco Doll) When caught between two evils, I generally like to take the one I never tried.

CHANG: ...To the hit sci-fi drama series "Westworld" shot around 80 years later.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "WESTWORLD")

ANTHONY HOPKINS: (As Dr. Ford) And I'm afraid, in order to escape this place, you will need to suffer more.

CHANG: But a wildfire decimated most of Paramount Ranch's historic Hollywood landmarks in 2018, and now parts of the site are being rebuilt. As NPR's Chloe Veltman reports, human-driven climate change is demanding difficult decisions about what to preserve.

CHLOE VELTMAN, BYLINE: One of the most famous parts of Paramount Ranch was Western Town. The purpose-built setting for movie and TV production had dirt streets and quaint wooden buildings, including a hotel, mercantile and saloon. A Wild West-themed episode of "Adam Ruins Everything" was shot there in 2016.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "ADAM RUINS EVERYTHING")

ADAM CONOVER: Wow, a Wild West town - or the Hollywood version, anyway.

VELTMAN: Amelia Brooke was an art director on the comedy TV series. In a video interview with NPR, she shared fond memories of working there.

AMELIA BROOKE: You basically walk in, and it's ready to shoot.

VELTMAN: Paramount Ranch is part of the National Park Service's Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. Brooke says she appreciated how the public could stop by any time to watch the TV and filmmaking process in action.

BROOKE: Everything that we create is for an audience, so having an audience be able to easily access Western Town was really special.

VELTMAN: So when the Woolsey Fire incinerated most of Western Town's flimsy, pastel-colored structures five years ago, the art director was understandably upset.

BROOKE: I was like, well, we can't go back and do that again.

(SOUNDBITE OF VEHICLE BEEPING, WHIRRING)

VELTMAN: Turns out Hollywood will be able to do that again, or something like it, in the near future. The National Park Service is working to bring film and TV shoots back to Paramount Ranch by 2025. Earlier this month, construction crews started working at the site.

DAVID SZYMANSKI: We're doing something called rehabilitation.

VELTMAN: That's David Szymanski. He's the park superintendent at the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.

SZYMANSKI: And we only put things in the same places that they would have been historically. And they should be about the same size and similar appearance without seeming to be a recreation.

VELTMAN: Szymanski says the plans include erecting barn-like structures on the footprints of four of the historic buildings from the Paramount era dating back to the 1920s. He says the new buildings will be basic, yet flexible. Production companies will be able to adapt them to suit their needs. Unlike the old wooden buildings, the new ones will be made out of fire-resilient materials, like concrete and cement board.

SZYMANSKI: We're not trying to recreate the 1920s or the 1940s, but one of the best ways to preserve a historic place is to continue doing what was done there historically. And for us here, that's film.

VELTMAN: Marcy Rockman is a researcher and consultant in Washington, D.C., who works at the intersection of climate change and cultural heritage. She says people tend to have rigid ideas about how to protect history.

MARCY ROCKMAN: Our whole mandate is we try to keep it unchanging. We try to preserve it exactly as it is. That is really hard to do under climate change.

VELTMAN: Rockman says there are various ways to plan for the future of cultural heritage in the face of human-caused climate change, from moving a landmark out of harm's way to making a deliberate choice to do nothing about it.

ROCKMAN: It's not just benign neglect, but it's saying we have looked at what the vulnerability of this place is. And it would take so many resources to try to hold back whatever forces are happening, we are going to let it go.

(SOUNDBITE OF VEHICLE BEEPING, WHIRRING)

VELTMAN: At Paramount Ranch, superintendent David Szymanski says he's had to get comfortable with different outcomes.

SZYMANSKI: We've been pretty choosy about what we rebuild and not replacing everything.

VELTMAN: Congress appropriated $22 million worth of disaster relief funds in 2019 for the rehabilitation work at the site. That sounds like a lot, but it only goes so far. Szymanski says the Park Service has had to make some tough decisions.

SZYMANSKI: Western Town is not coming back.

VELTMAN: Only two of Western Town's structures survived the Woolsey Fire, the little chapel from "Westworld" and the train depot built for the 1990s Western TV drama "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman."

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "DR. QUINN, MEDICINE WOMAN")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) Dr. Quinn and I would just like to say what a joy it's been to have had you here.

VELTMAN: The National Park Service says it's not planning to rebuild these structures if they get taken out next time there's a fire. But they will live on in the many films and TV shows that were shot there.

Chloe Veltman, NPR News, Paramount Ranch.

(SOUNDBITE OF LOLA YOUNG SONG, "REVOLVE AROUND YOU")

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