The wildfires which have killed at the least 55 in Maui are burning on an island that additionally incorporates the part-time properties of billionaires, together with Oprah Winfrey, Peter Thiel and Jeff Bezos.
The presence of celebrities and tech executives on the island has prior to now created stress with locals. Few of the high-profile homeowners have commented publicly on the standing of their properties through the hearth disaster.
Representatives for Ms. Winfrey, who has lived in Maui part-time for greater than 15 years, didn’t reply to a request for remark. According to Architectural Digest, her portfolio of roughly 1,000 acres on the island contains 870 acres in Kula, an space southeast of Lahaina the place firefighting efforts have been underway on Thursday. During brush fires in 2019, she gave Maui County entry to a personal street on the property to help with evacuations.
The seclusion and pure great thing about Maui have lengthy attracted celebrities, together with Steven Tyler, Owen Wilson, Woody Harrelson, Willie Nelson and Jim Carrey. It has additionally drawn a set of tech executives, who’ve bought a few of the most costly properties on the island.
In 2011, Thiel, the founding father of Pay Pal, paid $27 million for a house in Makena, on the southwest coast of Maui, which The Wall Street Journal reported was then the costliest buy of a single-family dwelling within the county. Makena is roughly 10 miles from fires burning in South Maui.
Last 12 months, the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, one of many richest males on Earth, bought a 14-acre property on La Perouse Bay for an estimated $78 million. The bay is lower than 20 miles south of fires in South Maui.
Mr. Bezos’s associate, Lauren Sánchez, posted on Threads, a brand new messaging app linked to Instagram, that the wildfires have been “beyond heartbreaking.” She wrote that “Jeff and I have been on the phone with local residents and officials, and will be making donations to help.”
In 2012, the Oracle government Larry Ellison purchased 98 p.c of Lanai, a Maui County island the place Bill and Melinda Gates have been married in 1994. Lanai doesn’t at present seem to have been broken by the blaze.
Mick Fleetwood, the drummer for the band Fleetwood Mac, mentioned in a press release posted on Facebook that the restaurant he owned in Lahaina had been destroyed. He didn’t reply to a request for touch upon the standing of his dwelling, which can also be in West Maui.
“Maui and the Lahaina community have been my home for several decades,” he wrote. “This is a devastating moment for Maui, and many are suffering unimaginable loss.”
Source: www.nytimes.com