Design Magic in Pasadena

When this year’s Pasadena Showcase House For the Arts opens in the spring following a three-month face-lift, it will be the second time a former Thorsen family home will be featured on the annual home tour, which has raised more than $10 million over the last 36 years for the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

The former home of the late Lucille Thorsen Chase, in the Oak Knoll area of Pasadena, was the site of the 1981 showcase, but it’s this year’s house, an Italianate villa in the San Rafael hills, that holds the fondest memories for Chase’s two daughters, Charlene Brandmeier and Diane Randolph.

The villa, designed in 1924 by Pasadena architect Garrett Van Pelt, was the home of their grandparents, Lyle and Arthur Thorsen, co-founder of the 100-year-old Walgreen Drug Store chain.

Among its unique features: a 150-foot-long tunnel that was passageway, playground and science lab.

“My sister and I loved to play in the tunnel that led to the lower garden,” said Randolph. “There was a rosewood paneled elevator that served all three stories and descended to the back garden and that incredible tunnel. We thought all kids had elevators in their houses. Our parents’ wedding was held in the long drawing room, which was banked in roses from my grandmother’s gardens. She loved to grow roses for the Rose Parade.”

After Lyle Thorsen died, the house was acquired by Caltech in 1957 to serve as a seismology laboratory. Charles Richter, the renowned seismologist, who devised the Richter Scale, used the elevator shaft as the pit for a pendulum to measure vertical land movement in an earthquake. Caltech altered the house dramatically over the years and sold it in 1975 when a grant funded the construction of new facilities. The new owners of the house, Sylvia and Frank LiVolsi, spent $650,000 restoring it and sold it in 1981, to the current owners, who are lending it for the 2001 Showcase.

The Showcase committee hosted its traditional “empty house” party Friday night, where designers had a chance to preview their plans for transforming the 16,000-square-foot house, which includes a six-car garage with gasoline pump, basement and wine cellar.

“I’m delighted that the house is being restored to its former grandeur,” said Randolph. from her Houston home.

The Pasadena Showcase House for the Arts is open April 22 to May 20. Tickets are $17 to $20. For information, call (626) 792-4661.

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Jonathan Spencer’s fellow “West Wingers” Stockard Channing, Dule Hill and Allison Smith were among the first-nighters who celebrated at the cast party following the opening of “Glimmer, Glimmer and Shine” at the Mark Taper Forum on Thursday. Although Spencer’s character in the play, an over-the-hill trumpet player, survives on Chinese takeout and single-malt scotch, the Impresario Room chefs took their cue from the play’s jazz theme and whomped up barbecue and jambalaya for the late-night buffet. Playwright Warren Leight was on hand to take bows. Also spotted sampling the fare were the play’s co-stars Nicolas Surovy (he’s the son of durable diva, Rise Stevens), Alexa Fischer and Jonathan Silverman.

Coming Up

* The Music Theater of Southern California opens Cole Porter’s 1934 musical “Anything Goes,” the show that launched the career of Ethel Merman and the writing team of Howard Lindsay and Russell Crouse, on Friday. The production runs through Feb. 18 at the San Gabriel Civic Auditorium and moves to Glendale’s Alex Theater on Feb. 23-25. For Civic tickets, call (626) 308-2868; for Alex tickets, call (800) 233-3123. . . .

* Cal State Fullerton stages its 10th annual Whoopi Goldberg: Front & Center extravaganza on Saturday at the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim to benefit its scholarship programs. This year’s gala will feature a conversation between the Whoopster and Walter Cronkite (now there’s a combo) and honor renowned anthropologist Jane Goodall. Floor seating for the black-tie dinner is $600 to $1,200 per person; arena seating is $28 to $80. For information, call (714) 278-3480. . . .

* This year’s benefit for Pasadena’s Kidspace Children’s Museum is Viva Las Vegas! It’s set for Saturda, at Calamigos Ranch Casino at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center in Burbank. Event chairpersons Kim Shepherd and Buzzy White say the dress code for this bash is “vintage Vegas.” Tickets are $175 per person. For information, call (626) 449-9143. . . .

* Santo S. Polito, a cardiologist and founder of the Heart Center at Glendale Memorial Hospital and Medical Center, will be honored at the Angels of the Heart 2001 black-tie dinner dance fund-raiser, to be held Saturday at the Ritz-Carlton, Huntington Hotel & Spa in Pasadena. Proceeds will benefit the Dr. John Goodwin Memorial Scholarship Fund for cardiac patient nursing care and a fourth cardiac catheterization laboratory at the center. Tickets for the event are $200 per person. For information, call (818) 502-2375. . . .

* The Children’s Burn Foundation will honor Suzanne and Ric Kayne, for their philanthropic work among Los Angeles youth at the annual Giving New Hope Dinner on Feb. 5. Marion and John Anderson and Suzanne and David Booth are co-chairing the event at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Tickets are $250 per person. For information, call (818) 907-2822. . . .

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Patt Diroll’s column runs Tuesdays. She is at pattdiroll@earthlink.net.