When Ian White heard that Walt Disney Imagineers were helping with the rebuild of the fire-torn Charles White Park, he was concerned he wouldn’t get to talk to them.
“You usually aren’t able to talk to anybody, to “human-ify” it,” said Ian, son of the park’s namesake and owner of his father’s archives.
In time, that would change, as White connected with the designers re-imagining the beloved local park. Now, he’s been weighing in, with hopes that his father’s artistic and social legacy is fused into that vision.
Charles White Park, in the northwest portion of Altadena, suffered significant damage from the Eaton fire, joining the array of burned lots and felled homes in the neighborhoods that surround it.
It was named after Charles White, an American painter, printmaker and teacher known for chronicling African American-related subjects in paintings, drawings, lithographs, and murals.
White died in 1979, but his work, as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art notes, was his “tool to highlight dark realities that he personally experienced as a black man.”
A year later, the park — in a diverse part of West Altadena where many Black residents would call home — would be named after White, who lived the last 20 years of his life in the unincorporated town with his wife and children, Ian and Jessica.
In November, L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, whose district includes Altadena, announced that $10.5 million had been secured in the rebuild of the park, including $5 million from the Walt Disney Company – part of a larger pledge of $15 million from Disney to help L.A. recover from the catastrophe.
But even when news of the Disney pledge broke, concern emerged that the Walt Disney Company wouldn’t be approachable, Ian White said.
It was fear that turned to trust once he talked to Imagineers about ways his father’s legacy could be maintained in the park named after him, he said.
“I got a sense of, ‘Wow, tell us. Share with us. Tell us how we can think about something,’” Ian said. “They’re cool folks.”
Indeed. Imagineers themselves were among the thousands who lost their homes in the fire. They were looking for the community’s voices to inform the vision.
Just up the street from the park on a recent Saturday, Imagineers aimed to provoke curiosity and ideas from those who would actually be using the park.
But they mostly floated a core question, as the bustle of business at Fair Oaks Burger filled the air: What do Altadena residents want to see specifically in the play area and community center of the revamped park?
In essence, the Imagineers let residents young and old re-imagine their park’s future.
A series of interactive stations set up in the front of the restaurant sparked reflection on questions designed to encourage a new vision for the West Altadena Park.
How do you play? What’s the first thing you do at a play area? How can we honor Charles White’s artistic legacy in this park?
During this first of three “community workshops” — which organizers plan to host each month for the next two months — some of the initial ideas included a bike path, pumptrack and a museum about Charles White.
Such a museum could be a poignant addition to a culturally diverse, rustic area that before the fires was known as a haven for Black people facing redlining and racism.
This, after all, is the birthplace or hometown of many famous folk, including abolitionist Owen Brown, whose gravesite was designated a Los Angeles County Historical Landmark in December; Willa Beatrice Brown, first Black woman to earn a commercial pilot’s license in the U.S..
By the time the Eaton fire tore through Altadena, killing 19 and destroying more than 9,000 structures, nearly 60% of residents in Altadena were non-white – one-fourth of them Hispanic and nearly a fifth Black, according to Census data.
The park held a special place among that population.
It became the only park in the United States named after an American-born artist, according to LACMA. It would host the annual Art in the Park festivals through the 1990s, which paid tribute to the work of the park’s namesake while supporting local artists.
The vision at the moment includes a play area of the park that will include the Charles White Community Center and new pickleball courts. But community members will lead discussions about what specific structures they’d want to see in the park and also what kinds of programs the community center can offer.
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Amanda and Jacob Suzuki sand wood during a Charles White Park community workshop event at Fair Oaks Burger in Altadena on Mar. 7, 2026. (Photo by Connor Terry, Contributing Photographer)
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Amanda and Jacob Suzuki sand wood during a Charles White Park community workshop event at Fair Oaks Burger in Altadena on Mar. 7, 2026. (Photo by Connor Terry, Contributing Photographer)
The workshops are organized with the help of landscape architects and designers from the Kounkuey Design Institute, who work with L.A. County, and artists from Altadena-based Side Street Projects.
L.A. County is spearheading the initiative to rebuild the park with design firm KDI, SALT Landscape Architects, and other vendors, who will help to design the park. After the workshops, organizers will follow-up and discuss findings to see how the community’s input can be incorporated into the design of the park.
Walt Disney Imagineer Rhoi Carpena, who was at the workshop event, wanted to assuage fears about Disney’s involvement in the rebuilding of the park.
The aim isn’t to create a miniature Disney replica, but rather, “a canvas for the community to visualize their voice,” Carpena said. He hopes the “pixie dust” will encourage Altadena residents to dream big in their vision for their park.
Ian White hopes to see “engagement” and “usage” out of the park’s rebuild.
Before the fires, Charles White Park was classified as a “passive park,” or one that doesn’t host specifically programmed activities. Now, there’s effort to make it more interactive.
One structure that he hopes to see in the play area are splash pads, which can incorporate elements such as conch shells and other Afro-Caribbean themes that were prevalent in his father’s work.
As the owner of the Charles White Archives, his goal is that, “in order for there to be further discussions and intervention, there has to be this documentation of things. So the function of the archive is, at times, to validate one’s own existence.”
“Think about these other things that aren’t “Finding Nemo.” There’s a place for Nemo that doesn’t necessarily have to be in the neighborhood… orange fish doesn’t do that,” Ian said. “A conch shell might. A rose might.”
Additionally, with the new community center, he hopes that oral-history programming can be offered that shares the history of Altadena and Charles White to educate visitors of the park.
Jonathan Franklin, a project manager from KDI, talked about plans to revitalize Art in the Park, a festival organized by White’s wife that took place in the West Altadena park decades ago.
“There’s going to be these other layers that’ll happen in this park because of the creative folks that are around this project,” Ian said.
In Disney’s initial announcement about the park, they’d hoped for re-opening some time this year.
The next workshops, “Concept Design + Hands-On Play” and “Final Design + Community Wokrshop,” are set to be held at Fair Oaks Burger. Dates are to be determined, but will be posted on charleswhitepark.com. Project managers also plan surveys and pop-ups with schools and community organizations.
Julianna Lozada is a correspondent with the Southern California News Group.