In his nearly seven decades on earth, Arthur Simoneau chased the sky.
The 69-year-old hang glider pilot rode the wind, navigating the dangerous peaks of Owens Valley and Yosemite with the confidence of someone who understood the sky like a second home.
“He had a very high regard and respect for the air,” said Steve Murillo, a local hang glider and friend of Simoneau’s.
But Simoneau’s roots were planted in the home he built on Swenson Drive in Topanga Canyon, a place where he raised his son and built his life. That home became his anchor — and, ultimately, the reason he returned to the canyon as the Palisades fire blazed through it.
Simoneau had managed to save his house from the fire that swept through the canyon in 1993, and he likely “thought he could do that this time,” said Jill Ajioka, his ex-wife. When an ember slipped under the garage door and ignited a mop, Simoneau had stamped it out.
Their home was made of cement-filled cinder blocks, and Simoneau built it from the ground up.
“I carried the fireplace up there with him, I carried all the appliances up there with him,” Ajioka said. “I would help him move the windows with a pulley system.”
Loved ones ‘calling everywhere’
Fast forward to Jan. 7, when Ajioka sent Simoneau this text: “There’s a fire in the Palisades.” He replied, “I’m skiing in Mammoth, I hope I’ll have a home to come home to.”
At first, Ajioka, a Westlake resident, didn’t think the situation was too dire — everything she saw on the news suggested the fire was heading toward Santa Monica. But then, on Thursday, their son Andre called and said, “No one’s heard from my dad.” When she learned Simoneau’s girlfriend hadn’t heard from him either, Ajioka began to worry.
“He and I were both calling everywhere. Andre was saying, ‘Mom, file a missing person’s report,’” she said. “And later that afternoon, we learned they found his remains.”
Ajioka fondly remembered Simoneau as someone who put family first and was her partner in crime through the first half of his life.
“We just spent five days together at Christmas. We spent every holiday as a family, the three of us for five days,” she said.
Deep love for great outdoors
And while hang gliding was a huge part of his life, Simoneau simply had a deep love for the great outdoors. Loved ones describe him as a man of boundless curiosity — always seeking the next adventure.
“He rock climbed all the time at Stoney Point. He was also an avid kayaker. He and I kayaked everywhere in this country. He was also a big motorcycle rider, and that was something he shared with his son — they recently took a motorcycle trip to Eastern Europe. He was also a downhill skier and cross-country skier,” Ajioka said.
The pair took up cross-country skiing in their 20s and spent hours perfecting their skills. Long car rides became a regular part of their routine — they’d drive to Brian Head in Utah to ski, then drive another five hours to Salt Lake City. There, they’d spend three days downhill skiing at Alta before heading back to Brian Head for a half-day of skiing.
“We took Andre when he was 6 months old, in a front path, and at 18 months old we put him down in cross-country skis before he could talk,” Ajioka said with a laugh. “Now, he’s a downhill acrobat skier doing flips.”
Ajioka also joined Simoneau in hang gliding when it was still a relatively new sport. Together, they soared over places like Bishop, Sylmar, the Sierra Mountains and Mount Wilson.
“Arthur started hang gliding in his twenties, and I was his driver for years,” she said. “Even though I don’t know how to drive a stick shift, he taught me down the mountain, and I knew enough just to get down the hill and get on flat land.”
One of 10 boys in his family
Lisa Levinson, Simoneau’s girlfriend, said he had a deep appreciation for life’s simple joys. He grew up in Paso Robles as one of 10 boys in a family with very little, where his mother made everything from scratch.
“And so he learned to be thrifty, but he also learned to really appreciate everything,” Levinson said. “He knew that even though he was able to be successful and become a computer programmer, there is beauty in the simple things.”
He embraced the unexpected, often springing spontaneous trips on Levinson.
“He’d just show up and say, ‘We’re going to Ojai today,’ ” she said. “And then we’d go hiking, go in hot springs, go hang gliding.”
‘Exploration partner’
Simoneau was Levinson’s “exploration partner” for more than a decade. The pair met in 2012, shortly after Levinson moved to the area. She was walking along Zuma Beach during her free time while job hunting, and Simoneau was taking a break at the beach while his son was at baseball practice nearby.
“I’m a really big animal lover and animal rights activist,” said Levinson, who serves as director of In Defense of Animals’ sustainable activism campaign. “I noticed that there were all these little bees that had gotten tumbled into the waves, and they would die if they didn’t get taken out of the saltwater.”
And so Levinson zigzagged across the shore, plucking the saltwater-drenched bees and moving them over to the plants on the beach.
Simoneau, quiet and observant, came up to her and said, “Are you rescuing bees?”
“I was so moved by that, I thought I can’t believe he noticed that I was doing that. Then we just talked a little but, and we started hiking together, and that’s how we got to know each other,” she said.
“That was the beginning of all kinds of adventures.”
“We had taken this incredible road trip to Alaska — we drove in a Subaru Forester for six weeks and ended up skinny dipping in the midnight sun in the Arctic sea, up by Tuktoyaktuk in Canada. He also loved Utah. And everywhere we went, we always went to a hot spring.”
Simoneau was the most thoughtful partner, she said.
“I remember one of the days we were hiking, and I told him that I was vegan, I could tell he didn’t know what that meant,” she said. “So he went home and looked it up, and then he came back and said, ‘OK, I’ll be vegan when I’m with you.’ That was so sweet. And all those years he really did that.”
Always put others first
Andy Beem, another local hang glider pilot and owner of Windsports Hang Gliding in Sylmar, said beyond his adventurous spirit, Simoneau was one of the kindest people he knew.
“I don’t think I ever saw Arthur angry. I don’t think I ever saw him yell at anybody,” he said. “When we would go on our flying adventures, he was always part of the group. He was never the leader. He was wonderful to have as part of your tribe. I think that’s the best way to describe him.”
“He always was looking to add to people’s lives, not take away. It was never about him, it was about the person in front of him,” Murillo said.
Friends and family are tentatively planning a celebration of life for Simoneau on Feb. 15, what would have been his 70th birthday, Levinson said. It may include a “pilot’s send-off,” with a hang glider flying over the landing zone at Kagle Canyon in Sylmar to scatter Simoneau’s ashes.
It would mark a full-circle moment — where the end of his journey on Earth becomes the start of a new one in the sky, on the same day he was born.