The protesters lugged the charred sofa into the center of the two-lane road, depositing it straight in entrance of Vice President Kamala Harris’ Brentwood residence.
The activists, from the Dawn Motion, had been there Sept. 23 to beseech Harris to cease selling the extraction of fossil fuels. The ruined sofa had come from a home destroyed final month in a Riverside County wildfire.
“BIG OIL CAUSED THE FIRES,” learn indicators that some protesters carried whereas chanting slogans and marching previous the foliage-shrouded residence that Harris shares with Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff.
This went on for about 45 minutes, and visitors sometimes constructed up as drivers negotiated the disruption. Ultimately, a neighbor throughout the road had seen sufficient, popping out of his home to shout, “She’s not right here, you recognize! That is silly! Get off my driveway.”
Such are the occasional aggravations and annoyances that bedevil the tony part of Los Angeles that Harris calls residence.
Although her road is dotted with garden indicators championing her candidacy, some residents are annoyed by the eye and safety that include having the vp of their midst. And so they worry what the long run will maintain if Harris wins the presidency.
Kamala Harris visits her L.A. residence typically, prompting safety measures that residents fear will intensify if she is president.
“Each time she comes, we’ve got to undergo safety. The road turns into one-way. If she’s about to depart or enter, we’ve got to attend outdoors 45 minutes,” mentioned a girl who lives on the identical block as Harris, including that she’s heard neighbors counsel they’d put their property up on the market if Harris defeats Donald Trump in November.
“If she mentioned, ‘Merry Christmas, sorry for the inconvenience,’ that may be good. However, 4 years, not a line,” mentioned the resident, who, like a handful of others not thrilled concerning the vp dwelling close by, requested that her identify not be disclosed over considerations that her feedback may reveal her political leanings.
In Harris’ north-of-Sundown Boulevard neighborhood, the place solely 23% of the vote went for Trump in 2020, among the sad residents are Republicans. “Do you assume she’s gonna win?” fretted a girl who mentioned she has lengthy supported the GOP earlier than issuing a warning over the publication of her identify: “In case you use it, I’ll kill you.”
It’s unclear how typically Harris stays in Brentwood, although neighbors say she visits with some regularity. Emhoff bought the home for $2.7 million in 2012, in response to public information, and Harris moved there after marrying him two years later. She visited Los Angeles not less than 59 occasions in 2023, and not less than 46 days a 12 months earlier, in response to the Wall Avenue Journal.
The Harris marketing campaign didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Officers who did “advance work” for previous presidents — coordinating journey and logistics — mentioned that if Harris secures the presidency, her visits to Brentwood may be much less frequent however would require extra safety. Take Harris’ motorcade — the supply of visitors snarls. If she had been touring as president, it may simply high 40 autos.
“It’s arduous to cover a motorcade, particularly a presidential motorcade,” mentioned Reed Galen, advance director for George W. Bush throughout his 2004 marketing campaign. Galen, who co-founded the anti-Trump Lincoln Undertaking, ticked off the numerous parts of a motorcade, amongst them an ambulance and a automobile carrying a counterassault workforce. “It may possibly stretch out to be ridiculously lengthy.”
Residents in Harris’ Kenter Canyon neighborhood are accustomed to high-profile owners — LeBron James and Travis Scott reside close by — and the safety particulars and path of paparazzi they convey. However the safety for Harris rises to a different degree. That was obvious the morning of Sept. 29, when Harris was at residence. Her block was closed to all however native automobile visitors and pedestrians went by way of a checkpoint. White tents had been arrange for plainclothes guards.
Although some residents are miffed, many extra mentioned they take the visitors, parking restrictions and presence of Secret Service personnel in stride. Some, together with Jonathan Kimmel, mentioned Harris bedding down close by is one thing of an honor, and he declared, with an eye fixed towards the election, that he was keen to endure an excellent worse commutes.
“I might do a two-hour detour every approach if it meant Trump not being president,” mentioned Kimmel, govt producer of Comedy Central’s “Crank Yankers,” whose brother, TV host Jimmy Kimmel, has endorsed Harris. “I might gladly take the sewer system down the road if I needed to.”
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Close to Harris’ residence, an edgy garden signal graces the entrance yard of an almost 8,200-square-foot home.
“EVERYBODY SUCKS / 2024,” it reads.
Nobody was residence on the day The Instances knocked on the entrance door, the place a ground mat invitations guests to “COME BACK WITH A WARRANT.” Nonetheless, for each resident grousing about visitors, there have been extra who mentioned they had been tickled by Harris’ presence, and bristled at what they see as others’ unneighborly attitudes.
Actor Jon Tenney, who lives up the road from Harris, mentioned that when the Secret Service is there, “It appears like type of a pleasant block social gathering” — in a great way. He grew exasperated when advised about one other resident’s pique.
“That’s loopy,” mentioned Tenney, who co-starred on TV’s “The Nearer.” “She’s the vp of america: There’s a safety element. That’s a part of her job.”
Harris’ supporters and detractors agree on one factor: The Secret Service personnel had been courteous {and professional} — and residents felt safer with them round. That’s even a promoting level touted by Ben Belack, the itemizing agent for a home provided at $5.149 million down the road from Harris’ property.
“When individuals had been coming for [the] open home, I used to be not main with LeBron James … it was, ‘presidential candidate’ and ‘Secret Service,’” mentioned Belack, including that a number of potential consumers had been pleasantly shocked to know Harris had a home within the enclave. “I believe individuals rank safety and the potential enchancment of safety excessive.”
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Brentwood is a land of canyons, from moneyed Mandeville Canyon to Harris’ Kenter Canyon. It’s no marvel VIPs favor them: Their chaparral-dusted peaks afford beautiful views and privateness, and their shaded lowlands present posh small-town vibes and proximity to procuring streets and different facilities.
Harris isn’t even the one canyon dweller to mount a president marketing campaign: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who dropped out of the race in August, lives in a $6.6-million Mandeville Canyon residence, in response to experiences.
In contrast with Kennedy’s almost 6,000-square-foot home, the four-bedroom Harris-Emhoff house is unassuming. The roughly 3,500-square-foot residence was in-built 1948, a long time earlier than the McMansion pattern — to say nothing of the fake farmhouses that now dot Brentwood.
If Harris defeats Trump in November, may she nonetheless discover time to go to it? Galen, the previous advance director, mentioned {that a} president’s many obligations would in all probability make common journeys troublesome. The presidency, he mentioned, is “a little bit bit like being in a gilded jail cell.”
One factor is definite, Galen mentioned — if Harris had been to go to Brentwood as president, safety could be beefed up. Contemplate the current local weather protest: “If she turns into president, [the Secret Service] is not going to let that occur once more. Or they’ll designate a free-speech space.”
A political marketing consultant who has achieved advance work for Democratic presidents mentioned that the geography and infrastructure of Harris’ neighborhood current primary safety challenges. It begins with the road itself, a slender one the place residents park on the facet of the highway.
“That creates vulnerabilities,” mentioned the marketing consultant, who requested anonymity because of the delicate material. “Ideally, you’d run a presidential motorcade on a road with no automobiles parked.”
Properties housing presidents, he famous, additionally are sometimes protected with massive bodily obstacles — assume the sanitation vehicles full of sand that had been positioned across the entrance to Trump Tower when its namesake proprietor was on the town. It’s arduous to think about an identical association engaged on Harris’ road.
Certainly, the home in Kenter Canyon seems harder to safe than the house bases of some previous presidents. Bush, for instance, delighted in journeys to his ranch in tiny Crawford, Texas. And Californian presidents have had abodes in additional out-of-the-way locations: Richard Nixon’s La Casa Pacifica in San Clemente, and Ronald Reagan’s Rancho del Cielo in Santa Barbara County.
Realizing that Brentwood presents safety challenges, Galen mentioned, Harris and Emhoff may ask themselves, “Each time we need to take a few days off, do we actually need to inconvenience hundreds of individuals?”
Tenney, the actor, mentioned that an assistant for Harris as soon as delivered a present bag and an apology “for any inconvenience.” Tenney mentioned he met the vp just lately at a fundraiser and advised her they had been neighbors.
“She mentioned, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’” he recalled.
Instances workers writers Sammy Roth and Jack Flemming contributed to this report.