Wish you were here? It’s L.A.

It was a picture-postcard day as the small crowd stood Sunday outside an ornate 131-year-old wood-frame home in Montecito Heights.

There was a cloudless blue sky overhead and a cool breeze fresh with the scent of spring swirling down from the nearby hills. If you let your imagination flow, the traffic noise on the nearby Pasadena Freeway could have been the roar of April rain shower runoff rushing down the Arroyo Seco.

In his derby hat and 19th century long coat, Mike Schutz could have been pioneering Los Angeles lumberyard owner and city booster William H. Perry himself as he stood in front of the magnate’s restored mansion at the Heritage Square Museum.

Schutz is a volunteer tour guide at the museum, a collection of historic buildings that were moved to the arroyo from other locations.

He explained how lumberman Perry built the Italian Renaissance and Greek Revival home out of wood in 1876, creating Boyle Heights’ first showpiece architecture. Then he invited the group inside, past a sweeping staircase and marble fireplace mantels, into its old dining room.

There, covering all of the walls and spilling into the old kitchen area, was the day’s unexpected treasure: 300 historic postcards tracing Los Angeles’ architectural past.

The hand-tinted photographic cards depict city landmarks that long ago were torn down and replaced with something grander. And they show structures that have survived to see the 21st century despite all odds.

The cards are on display weekends at Heritage Square, at 3800 Homer St., through April 22. They are among early Los Angeles postcards collected for more than 30 years by historic preservation consultant Mitzi March Mogul -- who herself lives in a West Adams district home that was built in 1913.

“Postcards are a little moment in time that nobody expected to be an historic document. But they are. They tell a huge story,” Mogul said Sunday.

“They lured people out here to help build a city. People seem to think, ‘Oh, we’ve lost so much and so much has changed.’ But if you take time to really dig around, you see that despite L.A.’s size and growth, it’s surprisingly unchanged in many aspects.”

Mogul, who is vice president of the Heritage Square Museum’s board of directors, declined to name her favorite historic postcard.

“They’re like your children: You don’t pick favorites,” she explained.

But others visiting the Perry House dining room weren’t so hesitant.

Charlotte Conant, a first-grade teacher from South Los Angeles, studied an old card depicting downtown Angels Flight funicular railroad, which she rode as a child.

A Brown Derby postcard caught the eye of Lola Quan-Ramirez, a graphic designer from La Crescenta. “We could never afford to go there and eat. We just knew about it growing up,” she said. “These cards capture the era in which they were published. Even if the sky is a fakey-looking blue, that stylization is part of that era.”

Special education teacher Mark Smalarz, who lives in Hawthorne, agreed. “The design and color add to them. I like the antiquated look.”

Michelle Gascon of Highland Park lingered over postcards that showed early Victorian neighborhoods.

“Our neighborhoods today are very, very different,” said Gascon, a freshman business student at Glendale Community College. “It’s amazing to see how it used to be. I would have had no idea L.A. looked like that, especially downtown. It is awesome.”

Tour guide Schutz, a retired computer network manager who lives in San Gabriel, was attracted to a downtown scene depicting a circa-1910 Farmers and Merchants Bank building at 4th and Main. The card showed a formal, fancy building surrounded by bulkier, more humdrum structures. “It is using ancient Greek or Roman styles to create a sense of power, wealth and awe,” he said. “It’s saying, ‘We’re a big, rich place.’ ”

The Perry House itself conveyed that feeling, said visitor Andy Pulsipher, a Phoenix architect who professionally is more drawn to modern steel-and-glass designs than ornate wood.

“It’s interesting to see how different craftsmen brought their skills to Los Angeles from back East,” Pulsipher said. Pointing to the Victorian-styled Hale House next door to the Perry House, he grinned. Highly detailed and multicolored, Hale House was built in Highland Park in 1887.

“These ‘Painted Ladies’ by far are the most odd, with their intricate detail. But they all make up the fabric of history of Los Angeles. None is more important than another.”

Sunday’s Heritage Square visitors said the postcard display was an unanticipated treat. What they’d come to see were eight historic structures that were saved from demolition, cut apart and trucked there and then lovingly reassembled. Other buildings include the circa-1887 Palms Southern Pacific Railroad Station and an 1893 octagonal house.

“I’ve seen this place so many times driving by on the 110 Freeway,” said visitor Kelly McMartin, a Whittier elementary school teacher.

Her husband, Biola University theology professor Jason McMartin, said the old postcards were surprisingly accurate in depicting early Los Angeles. When asked if modern cards, such as those sold to tourists in Hollywood, will be viewed the same way 100 years from now, he replied: “I certainly hope not.”

bob.pool@latimes.com