Pasadena Showcase House Is Open Through May 20

The 1990 Pasadena Showcase House of Design, opening today on the east bank of the Arroyo Seco in Pasadena, is a mansion with a split personality.

The 9,000-square-foot house was designed to look like a French chateau, with cream-colored concrete walls and a green-slate roof, but the architects produced an interior influenced by the American Federal period of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Tickets to tour the 26th annual showcase house cost $15 and are available only on a reserved basis, according to benefit chairman Shirley Goldsmith of the sponsoring Pasadena Junior Philharmonic Committee. Proceeds benefit the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and youth music appreciation and education programs in the San Gabriel Valley.

About 50,000 people are expected to tour the mansion designed in 1916 by the architectural firm of Allison & Allison for Mr. and Mrs. Julius C. Daniels of Chicago, Goldsmith said.

The showcase house and its 2-acre grounds will be open through May 20. It will be closed Mondays and Tuesdays and will be open 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Fridays and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Tickets must be ordered through Ticketmaster, (213) 480-3232, according to Susan Clayton of the committee.

Thirty-eight interior and landscape designers have transformed every room and area of the house and its grounds. This year’s interior color palette is Baltimore Blue, Cranberry Red, Empire Green, Old Virginia Gold and Independence Ivory, Goldsmith said.

Arts and crafts booths, food and refreshment service and live music will be available at the estate during the run of the showcase house. Parking will be at Seco Street and Arroyo Boulevard near the Rose Bowl, with shuttle vans taking visitors to the house. Information is available by calling (818) 792-4661.