Snooping in Pasadena for Good Causes
Doves as plump as partridges wandered happily on the brick walk leading from the front door at 734 S. Oakland Ave., practicing on their pink feet for next Sunday.
That’s the day that the Pasadena Junior Chamber of Commerce will present house tours, treasure finding, snacks and an antique automobile or two at their Afternoon on South Oakland Avenue.
I don’t remember what public-spirited groups did to raise money before someone hit on the idea of letting strangers walk through someone’s house. There is something wonderfully satisfying in this sanctified snooping, seeing how residents have decorated a house that is a treasure to begin with.
Because Pasadena is an older city and did not appear overnight from some developer’s loan money, it is filled with picture-book enclaves of houses that have been around a while. They are so well-kept, so painted and restored, that they all look as if they will be good for another 100 years.
The houses on South Oakland are all shiny bright and all different. The enterprising members of the Junior Chamber persuaded seven families that they would just love to have people troop through their pretty houses, for the good of the chamber’s many projects and for the Huntington Collection, a glorified recycled merchandise store that supports the Huntington Memorial Hospital senior care network. The Junior Chamber’s committee, headed by Sue Bicknell, had the indomitable ebullience of a fourth-grade class getting ready for a candy sale. It simply didn’t occur to anyone to turn them down.
Each house will be graced with informal bouquets, each house done at no charge by a different Pasadena florist. The people are all enthusiastic about the project, offering happily to share their hospitality.
The house at 734 is a two-story Colonial Revival built in 1917 for Mrs. Thomas Early, the widow of a Pasadena mayor. The house is slate blue with a white front door and window frames and a huge tree in the front, standing in a round brick garden seat.
The house at 754 is pigeon gray, of formal Italian design, with a two-storied section in the center and a flat-roofed, balustraded section on each side. I was hoping it would be red-and-white striped and have the mellow fragrance of popcorn surrounding it. It used to belong to Effie Barnum, part of the Barnum and Bailey circus families.
In a first-floor bedroom, the Huntington Collection will offer some of its treasures for sale.
There are five more houses in the next two blocks, each one proudly wearing its individuality. There is a Craftsman built to resemble a Swiss chalet, a French Provincial built in 1920 as part of a multi-lot family compound, and another Craftsman built for Orville Hiram Ensign, who invented the carburetor. The present owners found an old, worn workbench and brought it up from the basement to the kitchen where it stands as a table. It’s worn by carburetor trials and pie crusts to a satin gloss.
The seventh house was built in 1913 and is a Colonial Revival. The house is filled with museum-quality woodwork because the builder, Ray Zug, was the manager of the Hammond Lumber Co. and a fancier of superb woods.
Junior Chamber members will escort South Oakland Avenue visitors through the houses. There will be snack stands, music and old cars to marvel at.
The Pasadena Junior Chamber will use the money to support their muscular dystrophy project and Operation Santa Claus. (Members collect needy children’s letters to Santa Claus and see that each letter writer is remembered.)
The walk-around picnic next Sunday will begin at 11 a.m. and close at 5. Tickets are $10 each if you purchase them ahead by calling (818) 792-9819. Or $12 next Sunday.
I don’t know why the Pasadena Junior Chamber didn’t ask Patsy and me. We could have had a Pasadena termite tour.
