The lingering scent of smoke clings to the air, despite a cool Pacific breeze that attempts to sweep it away. I’m standing before what was once Sir Anthony Hopkins’s grand colonial-style residence, now reduced to an empty plot bordered by temporary plywood fencing, adorned with a ‘private property’ sign.

Tomorrow marks the somber one-year anniversary of the catastrophic Pacific Palisades fire. This disaster obliterated 7,000 homes and businesses in one of Los Angeles’s most prestigious neighborhoods, claiming 12 lives and displacing nearly 100,000 people. The financial toll of this wildfire has been estimated at a staggering $28 billion (£18 billion).

For those who once cherished this serene enclave with its sweeping ocean views, including many Hollywood legends, the hope of restoration seems dim. Sir Anthony Hopkins, now 88, appears to have relinquished any dreams of seeing his cherished home rebuilt to its former magnificence, at least within his lifetime.

The ruins of his luxurious estate, located on two neighboring lots he acquired in 2018 and 2019 for a combined $12.6 million, now bear a ‘For Sale’ sign. The main house, an exquisite weatherboard structure originally constructed in 1940, was painstakingly restored by Hopkins and his third wife, Stella Arroyave, aged 69.

The estate also featured a guesthouse that doubled as an art studio, which met the same destructive fate.

Only the concrete foundations of the garage, a chimney stack, and the mud-filled pool remain.

The estate was valued at just $6.4million when it was put on the market last year, and realtors are believed to be in the process of selling it to developers as two divided lots, suggesting the original house will never be rebuilt.

Oscar-winner Sir Anthony took to Instagram days after the tragedy, saying: ‘As we struggle to heal from the devastation of these fires, it’s important we remember that the only thing we take with us is the love we give.’

The actor is now renting a home in nearby Brentwood. A mutual friend told me: ‘At his age, he doesn’t want to rebuild. It’s time to sell up and move on.’

It’s a sentiment shared by many.

Visiting Pacific Palisades on the eve of memorials and protests scheduled to mark the anniversary left me with a heavy heart.

I was one of the first journalists to arrive here in the early hours of January 8, 2025, not long after the wildfire raced down the Santa Monica Mountains, obliterating nearly everything in its wake.

Navigating my way through police roadblocks and driving around downed electric cables that were still sparking, the scale of the devastation was obvious.

Entire blocks had been razed. Poisonous fumes spewed from burned-out Teslas. Houses were still burning. Exhausted firemen complained they had been forced to abandon the fight because water in the fire hydrants ran out. I saw the charred remains of scores of homes, including those belonging to Billy Crystal, Paris Hilton, and John Goodman.

Yet, despite the shock, I felt confident the American ‘can do’ spirit would prevail. I spoke to city officials who vowed to ‘build, build, build!’ and locals who proudly put up ‘Palisades Strong’ signs.

Within days, hundreds of fund-raising benefit events had been arranged. One of the biggest, a ‘Fire Aid’ concert starring Billie Eilish, Lady Gaga, Rod Stewart, Sting, and Stevie Wonder raised over $100million.

So why, when I visited this week, is the Palisades still a ghost town in ruin?

Even the handful of businesses and houses that miraculously escaped the blaze are boarded up.

There is some construction going on. Crews of Mexican workers are working on homes, mostly for corporate developers, which look like vast McMansions rising from the rubble.

I bumped into a local, who gave her name only as ‘Karen’.

She had come back to look at the remains of her family home, something she told me she often does without telling her husband or children: ‘We’re living in Santa Monica now, in a rented apartment,’ she explained.

‘The kids are traumatised. We lost everything. The mayor and the insurance companies promised to fast-track the rebuilding process, but those were empty lies. Some people have received insurance payouts, but we’re fighting for ours. It’s impossible to get permits to rebuild. We’re jumping through hoops to offer proof that our lot has been cleared of toxins to please the eco mob. We were offered $1 million to rebuild a family home that belonged to my grandparents. It was worth at least three times that.

‘They [the authorities] have tied us up in red tape. They don’t want to help families. They want developers to maximise the size of the properties so they earn more in property taxes. There’s huge anger towards the mayor, governor, insurance companies, and the incompetence that allowed this fire to destroy our town in the first place.’

The anger is palpable. Signs all over town declare: ‘They Let Us Burn!’

It is not far from the truth. For one year after the conflagration, controversy rages.

An investigation last month by the LA Times showed firefighters voiced ‘grave concerns’ at the time about being pulled off an earlier fire in the area, known as the Lachman fire, five days before the Palisades inferno.

That eight-acre bush fire was declared ‘contained’ despite whistleblowers claiming the ground was smouldering, and rocks remained hot to the touch.

A former Pacific Palisades resident, Jonathan Rinderknecht, now living in Florida, who was working as an Uber driver at the time, has since been arrested and charged with starting the Lachman fire, which caused the Palisades Fire, and is facing a maximum sentence of 20 years in jail if convicted.

A Los Angeles Fire Department report said strong winds stoked the Lachman fire into a wall of 50-foot-high flames, which tore down the mountains and straight into Pacific Palisades.

To compound matters, firefighters quickly ran out of water.

A reservoir, built specifically to provide water to fight wildfires and which should have contained 117 million gallons, was empty. It had been closed for repairs for nine months.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles’s left-wing mayor, Karen Bass, was away on a ‘jolly’ in Ghana, to celebrate the inauguration of John Mahama as the new Ghanaian president.

Photographs of her at a cocktail party while the fires raged fuelled public anger. Bass later admitted it was a ‘mistake’ not to jump on a plane immediately, but blamed the fire chief for not calling her to flag the severity of the situation.

Like many, I was stunned that one of the richest parts of LA, a place where you would routinely see stars like Ben Affleck and Tom Hanks at the local Starbucks – housed in a beautiful 1924 historic building – could be wiped out overnight.

But I also assumed that the sheer star wattage of many of those affected would spearhead a massive clean-up and rebuilding project that would move at warp speed. Not so.

This week, I drove past Billy Crystal’s home, where only a stone-arched front door now remains. His lot also displays a ‘For Sale’ sign.

Paris Hilton watched ‘in horror’ as her beachside weekend home burned to the ground on TV. It remains rubble in the sand.

There is no sign of any building work at John Goodman’s house either.

Schools remain shut. Supermarkets have been demolished but not rebuilt. No one had counted on ‘woke’ California’s endless bureaucratic red tape on everything from regulating when a cleared site could be declared ‘safe’ from toxins, to lengthy delays in issuing building permits, stalling by insurance companies, and political rows.

Mayor Bass hired a ‘fire czar’, wealthy real estate developer Steve Soboroff, on a salary of $500,000 (£369,000) for a 90-day contract, prompting a public outcry.

He would complain he had been ‘lied to’ that his salary would be paid by philanthropic donations, although later distanced himself from that comment, saying: ‘That’s not what I feel and not what I meant.’

Within the past couple of weeks, Bass has come under fire again for grandly announcing that the first certificate of occupancy had been issued for a rebuilt home in the Palisades.

It emerged that the home belonged to a professional contractor who obtained all the necessary building permits before the fire conveniently demolished the existing house and allowed him to start building his new dwelling, which, he said, will be used as a ‘show home’ for other properties he intends to build.

One friend, who worked for a major movie star for decades, lost her home of 40 years in the fire.

She told me: ‘Pacific Palisades was a wealthy area, but a lot of that wealth, like mine, was inherited. Yes, you have movie stars in big houses, but you also had people like me who had 1940s cottages they’d inherited from their parents.

‘That was part of the charm of the place. Of course, the proximity to the ocean and the endless sunshine are what attracted people, but Pacific Palisades had a small-town feel. Neighbour helped neighbour, even when that neighbour turned out to be Steven Spielberg.

‘Building permits have been issued, but they’re mostly to professional contractors who bought cheap and are maximising the size of the McMansions they are building on each lot. I’m not sure I want to return even if I get the insurance money to rebuild. It’s not going to be the same. All we’re seeing is homogenised mega mansions.’

Spencer Pratt is a former reality star who has become one of the most outspoken critics of what he calls a ‘conspiracy’ that allowed the Palisades to burn.

Pratt, 42, made his name on a show called The Hills, married co-star Heidi Montag, and appeared on Celebrity Big Brother twice. The couple were runners-up in 2013 and returned for an all-stars season in 2017.

They have two children and moved to a hillside home in the Palisades to be near his parents.

Pratt had his one million Instagram followers on edge as he live-streamed the fire racing towards his 2,200 square feet, three-bedroom property before showing his family’s escape.

He is spearheading a lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles and the LA Department of Water and Power (LADWP) – which controlled the empty reservoir – citing negligence and mismanagement.

Two dozen neighbours have joined the suit, seeking millions in compensation for property damage, lost wages, and emotional distress.

He said: ‘Everyone processes trauma differently. I’ve tried to channel all my emotional energy into accountability and making it clear that this was preventable. This was no act of God. This was gross negligence.’

Pratt rails against major corporations snapping up land parcels from distressed sellers. He posts regularly about the ‘dereliction of duty’ at Democrat-managed government agencies including what he calls the ‘utter incompetence’ of California’s Governor Gavin Newsom.

Newsom is hotly-tipped to run as the Democratic candidate for the Presidential elections in 2028, but Pratt argues that he’s been to Washington to fight for aid on more occasions than the Governor.

Governor Newsom’s high-powered PR team has accused Pratt of being a conspiracy theorist and posted pictures of him online that compared him during his reality-TV peak to how he looks now.

Pratt fired back: ‘I’m sure my appearance would be better if Newsom hadn’t let my town burn down. Stress alone has taken years off my life.’

The star grew up in the Palisades. His parents’ house burned down, too. He took pleasure in raising his sons, ages eight and three, in his hometown. ‘They went to my preschool. Then I watched footage of their bedroom ignite. It was surreal. I will never stop fighting for justice.’

While Pratt had insurance, the money is nowhere near enough for him to rebuild his $5.5 million home.

‘Most people we know in the same circumstances have given up, sold up and moved.’

Pratt and his wife have launched a podcast, ‘The Fame Game,’ which they broadcast from plastic lawn chairs on their burnt-out lot.

He said: ‘I’m still paying for the mortgage. I don’t have a single photo from before an iPhone existed. They’re all gone. Everything I ever bought in my life burned down. Everything my parents ever bought in their lives burned down.’

There have been claims that some of the land has been snatched up by Chinese-backed corporations seeking a foothold in one of America’s most desirable places.

President Donald Trump, who ordered snow run-off water from the mountains in northern California to be released into Pacific Palisades to replenish water supplies, has ordered a Congressional investigation into the failures that led to the fire.

He has been scathing about Newsom, whom he calls ‘incompetent’ for regulating water levels in LA to appease environmentalists who were opposed to snow run-off water being moved to ease the water shortages in LA. Trump, who made his fortune as a builder in New York, has lambasted Newsom and Bass for failing to fast-track building permits and for imposing ‘prohibitive’ property taxes on those who wish to rebuild.

The president has ordered an official investigation into what happened to the tens of millions of charity dollars raised after the fires.

The organisation behind Fire Aid has vehemently denied any wrongdoing, as have other charitable groups. Nonetheless, victims like Pratt say they have yet to see a penny.

Mayor Bass and Governor Newsom have both denied stalling aid programmes or delaying the issuing of rebuilding permits.

Whatever the outcome of the official investigations, as I drove out of Pacific Palisades last week, past the burned-out facade of Starbucks, it is clear something has gone catastrophically wrong.