Just last week, we took off to Pasadena—a mere twenty-seven miles from home yet worlds apart. We go fairly often to appreciate the architecture whenever we get the chance, but our favorite season is the Heritage Weekend in October, when we tour the craftsman homes built by architects Greene and Greene between 1894 and 1922. Brothers Charles Sumner Greene and Charles Sumner Greene brought their degrees from MIT and apprenticeships from Boston to California to define a new style and a new word. “Bungalows” were not little shacks where Hollywood stars changed into their bathing clothes. No “Bungalows à la Greene and Greene were specific and of various sizes. In fact, the popular and famous Gamble House, completed in 1909 for David and Mary Gamble (of the Proctor and Gamble family), is an 8,000-square-foot home that is defined architecturally as a bungalow.
The Pasadena Showcase House of Design was built in 1902 and remodeled in 1922. At 7,300 sq
uare feet, it is slightly smaller than the Gamble house but in a totally different style now. The remodel was redesigned as a Tudor revival-style home, but architect Joseph J. Blick originally thought created it as a craftsman home for Gertrude Potter Daniels, who paid $15,000 to build it. It’s hard to believe!
Oh… that’s the bathtub in one of the redesigned rooms for the Showcase. It was amazing!
The Pasadena Showcase House for the Arts committee that sponsors the event contributes to arts and music nonprofits in Southern California and appreciates the 25,000 or so visitors to the Showcase every year. It’s a treat. You should go. It’s a fundraiser!
Information is here, and after 59 years of doing it, they have it down to a lovely and elegant science.
Enjoy!