3-HOUR TOUR : In Grand Style : Fenyes Mansion visitors step back in time. The estate also features Finnish Folk Art Museum.

PASADENA — To visit the Fenyes Mansion is to step back into turn-of-the-century Southern California.

Eva S. Fenyes, an arts patron and artist, commis sioned architect Robert Farquhar to build the Beaux-Arts-style estate on Orange Grove Boulevard in 1905. (The architect later became known for his 1927-28 design of Beverly Hills High School and his contributions to the Pentagon in Washington.)

Very little has changed since Fenyes furnished the home, even though three succeeding generations lived in the mansion.

Fenyes, born Eva Scott in New York in 1849, was married to an Army general from 1878 until 1891, when she divorced him and resumed the travels throughout the East Coast and Europe that she had enjoyed before she married. She met Adalbert Fenyes in Cairo. They married in Hungary in 1896 and moved to Pasadena in 1897.

During her travels, Fenyes made sketches and painted. Her watercolors can be seen throughout the mansion.

In 1946, Fenyes’ granddaughter married Y. A. Paloheimo of Finland, who was appointed Finnish consul for Southern California the following year. The house became the area’s first Finnish Consulate, serving that function until 1965. That year, the family decided to turn over its home to the Pasadena Historical Society, which has been promoting Pasadena history since 1924.

The society moved into the Fenyes Mansion in 1970. Pasadena declared the estate a cultural landmark in 1981, and it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.

In March, the society changed the estate’s name to the Pasadena Historical Museum. It encompasses four buildings on the property, including the Fenyes Mansion, the Finnish Folk Art Museum and the new Research Library and Archives.

The Fenyes Mansion and the Finnish Folk Art Museum are open for docent-guided tours Thursday through Sunday afternoons. The library is open during the same hours to anyone interested in learning about Pasadena history and culture.

This tour begins in the Fenyes Mansion, but history buffs may want to bring along a notepad and pen or laptop computer for an extended stay in the library.

1 to 2 p.m.: Enter the front door of the 23-room home. All the draperies and carpets are original. The woodwork is mahogany.

Furniture from all over the world lends charm to the foyer, whose floors are covered with well-preserved Persian rugs. The date 1613 is carved into the front panel of a small chest from Germany. A 16th-Century chest from Spain with secret compartments was reputedly used to hide valuables during the Spanish Inquisition.

Also on view in the foyer is the tall, grand “Raymond Hotel Clock” from the old hotel that once overlooked the city. Within its wooden cabinet are slides of colored glass depicting scenes from early Pasadena, including the Rose Parade. This served as a “travel brochure” for hotel guests.

Enter the dining room to find portraits of Eva Fenyes, her daughter and granddaughter, both at the age of 5, and the Paloheimo children. The kitchen remains much as it was when the house was built except for a more modern stove and refrigerator.

Go up the sweeping main staircase (as opposed to the servants’ back stairway, close by) to a sitting room with good-sized windows on its western wall. Opened in the afternoon, they brought in the sea breeze.

Upstairs, you can also view a child’s bedroom with a replica of an English Windsor chair and a wicker crib with an antique crazy quilt. A master bedroom sports a ceiling fixture once connected for both gas and electricity, a knitting table and a rope hanging on the wall that was to function as a fire escape.

Downstairs again, you’ll cross the foyer to enter the hallway, lined with books and art objects, that leads to the northern side of the mansion. On its walls are paintings of Fenyes’ daughter and granddaughter when they were 20 and 16, respectively. Throughout the house are paintings by several well-known Californian and American painters of Fenyes’ day, including Benjamin Brown, Granville Redmond and William Merritt Chase.

Next, turn into Consul Paloheimo’s office, which is filled with rare books in Finnish and English. But it’s the authentic, early-1900s Tiffany desk lamp that stands out from the office memorabilia. It was made when Tiffany was still personally directing the production of his studio products. There is also a Tiffany studios glass and bronze picture frame on display.

Across the hall is the sitting room, originally Fenyes’ bedroom, which contains an American Empire mahogany sleigh bed in a Napoleonic design. This room leads to the large living room, with its Steinway grand piano and Louis XV furniture.

Beyond the living room is the 1911 addition to the mansion. The solarium was used as a greenhouse. Today it exhibits many fine examples of turn-of-the-century pottery by Artus VanBriggle.

From the solarium, you’ll enter Fenyes’ studio. Its large windows allowed for plenty of light while she painted. There’s another Tiffany lamp, a Victrola still full of 78s and a cage for the family’s pet marmoset. The room was also designed for entertaining: A stage was built with a trap door and spiral staircase. Above the stage is a minstrels gallery.

2 p.m.: Go downstairs to see a small exhibit on the Mt. Lowe Railway, which was opened in 1893 to take people into the mountains by cable car. A small museum store carries cards, gift items and books.

2:40 p.m.: Take a stroll through the gardens behind the mansion. Roses may be in bloom, and there are peach and other trees.

2:50 p.m.: Beyond the garden is the Finnish Folk Art Museum. Founded in 1974 by the Paloheimos, it is the only exhibit of its kind outside Finland. In it is an inviting, traditional Finnish sauna. The front room is a re-created tupa , or smoke cabin, found in 19th-Century Finland. Among the objects on view are a cradle, spinning wheel and butter churn, all made of wood, and a brick hearth. Another room displays farmhouse furnishings and ryijy rugs--shaggy pile rugs that are well-known Finnish textile products.

3:10 to 4 p.m.: Spend time in the Research Library and Archives. Scan some of its 750,000 photographs of Pasadena and the surrounding area. There are also postcards, glass slides and stereoscopic pictures. Peruse its reference materials on Pasadena and Southern California.

Early periodicals include California Southland/California Arts and Architecture, Out West and Pacific Monthly. City street maps, travel brochures and political flyers date to the 19th Century. Among special collections are the Pasadena Olympic Stars collection and the Tournament of Roses collection of programs and pictorials. The library also maintains a file of local news clippings and a manuscript file with diaries and correspondence.

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WHERE AND WHEN

What: Pasadena Historical Museum.

Location: 470 W. Walnut St. (at Orange Grove Boulevard), Pasadena.

Hours: 1 to 4 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays.

Price: $4 general, $3 seniors and students, free for children under 12.

Call: (818) 577-1660.