A fire that broke out shortly before 3 a.m. on Wednesday tore through office buildings behind the Center Street Marketplace in Carmel Valley Village, then spread to one of the marketplace's main structures and a nearby home. By the time crews brought it under control Wednesday morning, the blaze had destroyed the longtime studio of San Francisco stained-glass artist Alan Masaoka and everything inside it, displaced a family from the home, and left several nearby businesses and residences with fire or water damage.
The fire started in the offices behind the marketplace before jumping to the marketplace structure and the adjacent home, according to Monterey County Now, which attributed the account to the Monterey County Regional Fire District. One person was displaced from the office buildings and a family was displaced from the home, the outlet reported. One person was taken to a hospital as a precaution, but nobody was injured, and the cause of the fire remained unknown as crews worked the scene.
Firefighters called in every fire agency in Monterey County to help knock down the flames, Monterey County Now reported. Separately, KSBW reported that firefighters responded shortly before 3 a.m. to a fire at an apartment on Center Street and evacuated the building, describing the affected site as an apartment building with nearby businesses rather than solely an office-and-marketplace complex. Firefighters described the structure involved as an old, un-sprinklered building with a heavy fuel load.
Jerome's Market Status Disputed
Jerome's Market Status Disputed Accounts differ on what happened to Jerome's Carmel Valley Market, a fixture that the business directory Carmel Valley Road Co. says has served the local community for decades. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the market was badly damaged, although firefighters saved the building, while KSBW reported that Jerome's Market posted on Facebook that it was closed until further notice. The market, originally known as Bennett's Market before becoming Carmel Valley Market in the 1970s, has been run by Chef Jerome and his family since 2016, according to Carmel Valley Road Co.
The office building behind the market was destroyed in the fire, and other nearby businesses sustained fire or water damage, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The newspaper's account centered on the loss suffered by Masaoka, whose studio and its contents — including work in progress — were lost in the blaze, per a GoFundMe cited in the Chronicle's account.
A Four-Decade Career Lost to Fire
Masaoka has worked with glass since 1975 and studied with renowned designers Ludwig Schaffrath and Johannes Schreider, as well as at the Pilchuck Glass School in Washington state, according to his studio's own biography at Masaoka Glass Design. He moved to the Monterey Peninsula in 1980 and established Masaoka Glass Design there before relocating the studio to its Carmel Valley location in 1998 — the space destroyed in Wednesday's fire.
His public commissions include a 1987 installation for the Monterey Conference Center with a listed budget of $10,000, according to the studio's site. He also designed and installed stained-glass windows for San Francisco General Hospital, where his portfolio lists three windows created for the facility. A 2017 profile from InMenlo noted that at the time, Masaoka's most recent public commission was a piece for the new San Francisco General Hospital — work that has since become part of the installation known as River of Time, part of the San Francisco Civic Art Collection, per the Chronicle's reporting.
A GoFundMe organized to help Masaoka was set up to cover the costs of finding a new workspace, replacing tools and buying a computer, the Chronicle reported. Dianne Driessen, who organized or contributed to the fundraiser, wrote that “this is a time where we can come together in community and help a friend,” according to the Chronicle.
