Of Yards and Yardage
It was easy to envy David Reaume on a recent afternoon as he stood on the deck of his home, nestled high on a hillside in the Linda Vista neighborhood of Pasadena.
“The view here is usually just incredible,” Reaume told a visitor as he gazed upon the Rose Bowl and off into the San Gabriel Valley, which on this day was cloaked in a light haze.
Reaume is a serial Linda Vista homeowner. Captivated by the neighborhood’s bucolic charm, he has owned five homes in the neighborhood over the last 10 years. A general contractor by trade, Reaume remodels each home, sells it and then moves on to an even pricier fixer-upper.
Though the way he makes his living dictates his frequent moves, it doesn’t explain why he repeatedly buys in the same neighborhood.
“I enjoy living in Linda Vista because it almost feels like you’re in the country,” Reaume said. “But you’re also right by the Rose Bowl, which I love because it’s so active.”
Stretched along the western edge of Pasadena just north of the Ventura Freeway, Linda Vista has evolved over the years from a farming village to a residential neighborhood, bordered by Glendale to the west, aligned with the Rose Bowl to the east.
Its many hillside homes, lush landscaping and lack of commercial development combine to create a tranquil atmosphere that has long appealed to empty-nesters and has become increasingly popular among growing families and well-heeled professionals.
“It really has a small-town atmosphere,” said Boyd Smith, a Coldwell Banker agent who specializes in Pasadena and who grew up in Linda Vista. “It offers a kind of ‘Father Knows Best’ or ‘Ozzie and Harriet’ type of experience,” Smith said.
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A key reason for Linda Vista’s appeal is that the 2 1/2-square-mile neighborhood is made up almost entirely of single-family homes. The exceptions include a branch library, elementary school, the Art Center College of Design and a local fire station, which serves as a community hangout on Saturday mornings, when residents gather to sip coffee.
Many residents also relish the fact that their community sits on the west bank of the Arroyo Seco, one of Southern California’s most famous canyons and home to the Rose Bowl.
“Linda Vista has long been one of the most outstanding neighborhoods in the city,” Pasadena Police Lt. Rod Uyeda said. “It has a lot of trees, beautiful views of the arroyo and an extremely low crime rate.”
Living in a neighborhood as quaint as Linda Vista comes at a price, however. Homes start in the low $300,000s for a 1,600-square-foot house and max out at about $3 million for a multi-acre estate, according to Smith.
The average home carries a $725,000 price tag for 2,500 square feet with three bedrooms, two baths and no view.
Reaume bought his four-bedroom, 2,800-square-foot home with its spectacular vista nine months ago for about $725,000.
The 36-year-old Pasadena native shares the home with his foster son, Joshua Reyes, 16, who has also grown fond of Linda Vista in the two years he’s lived there.
“It’s a great atmosphere,” said Reyes, who previously lived in Hollywood. “It’s so quiet here.”
Reaume said he’s like many Linda Vista parents in that he has chosen to send Reyes--a sophomore at St. Francis High School in nearby La Canada Flintridge--to a private school out of concern over the quality of Pasadena’s public school system.
La Canada Flintridge is a popular destination for Linda Vista residents like Reaume, who find the community’s upscale shopping and dining venues to be more accessible than those in crowded Old Town Pasadena.
“You can pull up and eat right away,” Reaume said.
But it’s the neighborhood’s proximity to the Rose Bowl that’s the big draw for most homeowners.
Many residents are quick to rave about the activities it affords, including a monthly flea market, UCLA football games and a spectacular Fourth of July fireworks display. Some of those events, however, cause traffic headaches and amplified noise in the neighborhood.
“You hear big cheers when someone scores a touchdown,” said resident Martha Nelson, who moved to Linda Vista 15 years ago with her husband, Bryce.
Both of the couple’s children were born on New Year’s Day, making it nearly impossible for the family to hold birthday parties because of the Rose Bowl game, which Martha likes to describes as a “community birthday party.”
The most congested day of the year, however, is July 4, when thousands of visitors pour into the neighborhood to attend one of the many private parties thrown by residents. Traffic hassles aside, the Nelsons treasure the life they’ve carved out in Linda Vista. The couple looked at more than 200 houses across Los Angeles County before settling on a 2,200-square-foot home with four bedrooms and 2 1/2 baths.
The Nelsons paid $335,000 in 1984 for their home, which sits on nearly an acre. “We’ve had better houses,” said Bryce Nelson, a USC journalism professor. “But this is the best yard.”
And what a yard it is, a symbol of an era when land was plentiful in Southern California and life was enjoyed outdoors as much as indoors.
On the sprawling grounds are fruit trees, a badminton court, a swimming pool with pool house and a majestic oak tree that towers over a third of the yard. “What is typical of this neighborhood is that you get more trees here,” Martha Nelson said.
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Residents also seem to encounter more wildlife. Deer, raccoons, opossums and skunks have all passed through the Nelson’s backyard. Bryce Nelson once even spotted a hawk washing itself by the swimming pool.
When the Nelsons aren’t enjoying their home and yard, it’s not uncommon for Bryce Nelson to bike down the street to the library or for the couple to walk to the Norton Simon Museum.
“We liked that we were moving into a mature community but it has continued to change,” Bryce Nelson said. “There’s more ethnic diversity now, which has been good for the neighborhood.”
Linda Vista’s history goes back to the late 1880s, when settlers from the Midwest began arriving in what was then a farming village and built small, box-like homes with a Victorian emphasis, according to the book “Linda Vista: Portrait of a Neighborhood.”
About the same time, a number of Pasadena residents began building vacation “lodges” in the area, and soon the lower, or eastern, part of Linda Vista began to see traditional residential development. Homes there are closest to the Rose Bowl and tend to sit on cul-de-sacs, in neat rows on level land; others overlook the Arroyo Seco. The terrain changes as you head west, however, and reach the Linda Vista hills.
And it’s up in the hills that buyers can find secluded homes with dazzling views. The enticing combination drew Michael and Susanne Hollis from their hillside home in Monrovia to one in Linda Vista two years ago.
“She always wants to be up high so that she can see the weather,” Michael Hollis, 53, said of his wife.
Although the couple enjoyed the 15 years they lived in Monrovia, they found their lives gravitating toward Pasadena, where many of their friends live. Perhaps the most compelling reason to move, however, was that Susanne, 55, had grown tired of driving between her Monrovia home and the antiques store she owns in South Pasadena.
“I hated the commute,” Susanne said of the drive that could take as long as an hour. “Besides, how could you not want to live in Pasadena?”
The couple found a 2,600-square-foot, three-bedroom, three-bath home perched high in the hills of Linda Vista. They bought the home, just seven minutes from Susanne’s shop, in 1997 for $630,000. The house is oriented toward the backyard, which includes an extensive patio, a swimming pool and a lawn that ends at the edge of a bluff. The view from the yard is of the Rose Bowl, downtown Pasadena and beyond.
“This is the perfect place to have a glass of wine in the evening and watch the shade creep up on the city,” said Michael Hollis, who is working toward a doctorate in economics at Claremont McKenna College. Though the location of their 2 1/2-acre lot leaves little to be desired, the Hollises don’t have the same feeling about their home and yard. Consequently, landscape architect Mark Berry and architect David Serrurier are busy drawing up remodeling plans.
“I can’t wait to see what they come up with and get started,” Susanne Hollis said as a smile spread across her face. “You’ll have to come back when it’s all finished.”
