Large Home or Small, the View Is Grand : San Rafael: Hilly vistas, trees and animals in small section of Pasadena make residents forget they live near metropolis.
Bill and Valerie Bauman found their dream house on a quiet street in the San Rafael section of Pasadena.
Just a few steps from a park, a block from the local library and grammar school and close to Bill’s parents, the location was perfect. But at $459,000, the three-bedroom, 1 3/4-bath house was too costly for the newly married couple.
Eventually they gave up house hunting in Pasadena, which had been their first choice for location. Bill had grown up in the San Rafael area, and Valerie had lived in Pasadena a few years before.
“We didn’t think we could afford the neighborhood we really wanted,” Bill said, “until our agent called to say our dream house was back on the market at a lower price.”
A year of sluggish house sales resulted in a dramatic price reduction, and the couple was able to buy the 2,080-square-foot home for $337,500.
Located in the southwest corner of Pasadena, the 1.5-square-mile San Rafael area is bounded by the Ventura (134) Freeway on the north, the Arroyo Seco to the east and the city of Los Angeles to the west and south.
Perhaps best known for the mansions of San Rafael Avenue, which overlook the arroyo and are often featured locations in movie and TV shows, the area has neighborhoods to satisfy other income levels and tastes. The hilly portion on the western half of the San Rafael area contains homes varying in size from two bedrooms to six bedrooms.
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Sales in the past few months have ranged from $250,000 for a two-bedroom, one-bath home to $1.8 million for a home and guest house on a large wooded lot with a view of Pasadena and the scenic San Gabriel Mountains.
Currently, the lowest priced two-bedroom, one-bath home in the San Rafael Hills is listed at $235,000, said Barbara Rose of Coldwell Banker. A larger San Rafael Avenue home is the most expensive listing at $1.5 million.
The gently rolling area between the large homes of the Arroyo and the San Rafael Hills was the first location of the Annandale Golf Club. When the club relocated north of Colorado Boulevard in 1919, the golf course land was sold and developed.
Today this part of San Rafael is an eclectic mix of tidy character homes well known for its old-fashioned family living. “It’s an area where children can go outside to play with neighborhood friends,” Rose said.
The biggest attraction of the San Rafael area is its lovely views. Whether of the San Gabriel Mountains to the north, the arroyo to the east, or the hills of Los Angeles to the southwest, almost every home in San Rafael has a window on natural beauty. Even in sections without hilly vistas, groves of trees provide refreshing views and support a population of hawks, birds and squirrels.
Residents agree that San Rafael’s physical beauty and naturalness help them forget they live close to a big city.
Penny Bianchi, a fourth-generation Pasadenan, loves the country feeling of the 6,000-square-foot French Regency home she and her husband bought seven years ago. The property overlooks and extends down to the arroyo floor.
“Deer hike up the hill all the time, along with raccoons, skunks, possums and coyotes,” she said. “We even have owls nesting in a tree next to our window.”
Yet because of the proximity of the Ventura (134) Freeway on the north and the Pasadena (110) Freeway on the south, San Rafael residents have a short commute to downtown Los Angeles.
Erika Oller loves her rustic, brick-fronted home, which sits high above the street. With an 18-foot ceiling and two lofts, the 2,250-square-foot house offers privacy for her work as an artist as well as convenience to her job as a science illustrator at Caltech. Her front windows overlook a neighbor’s eucalyptus grove.
Even though her house is two blocks from the arroyo, Erika occasionally finds deer munching on the front yard ivy.
“I fell in love with the San Rafael area after moving here 20 years ago,” she said. “There’s a real feeling of tranquillity with all the trees around. . . . I rarely notice the smog.”
Because of its unusual topography, San Rafael’s residents discover temperatures are two or three degrees cooler than the rest of Pasadena in winter and summer.
Mary Davis attributes the temperature differential to the many trees and the nearby arroyo, which carries streams of cool air from the San Gabriel Mountains.
She and her husband, Mark, a professor of chemical engineering at Caltech, had a real shock on their first house-hunting tour of Pasadena in 1991. “The decision to relocate here was very difficult because of the high cost of housing,” she said.
The Davises finally bought a five-bedroom home on a quiet San Rafael street in the mid-$500,000s. “It was fully three times as much as our house near Roanoke, Va., and we have a lot less land.”
The Arroyo Seco is such a wide and deep cut across Pasadena that the San Rafael side remained undisturbed for years after the eastern section of the city had begun developing in the 1870s. A trestle bridge was constructed in the late 1880s near the site of the present Colorado Street Bridge.
Fifty acres of ranch land were planted in grapes, and the San Rafael Winery began wine production around 1875.
In the late 1870s a tunnel was cut through a nearby hill to allow the winery’s loaded wagons access to Mountain Avenue, later named Avenue 64. Dirt from the excavation helped form the eastern rim of present day Johnston Lake at Burleigh Drive and Laguna Road.
Today, the 3 1/2-acre lake is surrounded by spacious homes and privately managed by a homeowners’ association.
Nancy Rench remembers childhood trips to Pasadena with stops at the lake to see the ducks.
When she and her husband, Larry, went house hunting two years ago, she was especially attracted to the western edge of Pasadena she remembered as a child. “After 11 months of searching, we found a house in the San Rafael Hills that was perfect for us and our dog, Babe,” she said. The 1,700-square-foot home they bought in the high $300,000s gives them “a real sense of community,” she said.
Larry Rench, a free-lance musician, was surprised at how much he enjoys living on the “outskirts” of Pasadena. “Our out-of-the way house is perfect for working at home,” he added.
Many San Rafael residents enjoy the feeling of being close to a lively city, but far enough away to avoid the traffic and crowds. The San Rafael business district is small--a restaurant, a real estate office, a liquor store and a catering service selling gourmet take-out food. But Pasadena’s Old Town with restaurants, shops and movie theaters is less than two miles away.
The local school, a two-story red brick building, has been a fixture in the neighborhood since 1929. But following busing mandates of the 1960s, many local parents began turning to private schools.
When Heather and Harvey Lenkin moved to San Rafael three years ago, her two children were attending private schools. But the irony of living two blocks from a lovely public school was not lost on Heather. Finally, dissatisfied with the quality of education they were receiving in private schools, Heather took a good look at San Rafael School. When she enrolled her sons at the school, she decided to do every thing possible to make it even better. Putting her marketing experience to use, Heather spearheaded a campaign to create a private foundation to aid the school.
The Friends of San Rafael School have accomplished a great deal: replacing playground equipment, landscaping the front school grounds, repainting rooms and offices, producing a brochure about the staff for parents. The foundation created a community support group for the school and encourages local parents to enroll children in San Rafael School.
“We love the San Rafael area and school,” said Willard and Inez Bell, longtime residents whose sprawling, ranch-style home is within earshot of the playground. “We decided to move here soon after World War II,” Willard Bell said. “Our budget for a lot was $1,500. This acre lot was priced at $10,000 and had its own stream in the back yard. The day we looked at it, the owner lowered the price to $5,000. How could we say no?”
The Bells considered moving to a larger home when their fifth child was born. But after checking out other locations, they decided they couldn’t improve on San Rafael, and chose, instead, to remodel.
Although their children have left home, the Bells have no plans to move from their empty nest. Like others in all parts of San Rafael, they’ve decided to stay put. This has resulted in a 3% decline in population over the past decade.
“We’ve been very happy with our home and neighborhood,” Inez said. “Why should we move now?”
At a GlancePopulation
1991 estimate 3,945
1980-91 change -2.7%
Median age 43.1 years
Annual income
Per capita 33,616
Median household 70,730
Household distribution
Less than $30,000 14.4%
$30,000 - $50,000 14.8%
$50,000 - $75,000 25.2%
$75,000 - $100,000 19.8%
$100,000 + 25.8%
