Personality to spare
Today, Jack and Paulette Lantz will swing wide the doors to their Pasadena home as they always do on the day after Christmas, to shepherd in friends, family and children to an annual open house.
Out back, the kids will play under the live oaks with weatherproof Swiss and German trains that glide over an only-in-L.A. bridge spanning the pool. When the trains reach the depot, Jack will flip a switch, and one of the cars will swivel to dump M&Ms into the children’s waiting hands.
Upstairs, in the train room, vintage American Flyers will burrow under bridges and over trestles in a room lighted to accentuate the small-town Americana layout. Lining the walls, custom cabinets will display the extra cars -- some of them treasures from Jack’s childhood.
Welcome to toyland. In a blend of cultures and traditions, the Lantzes have created a Pasadena home that glistens -- holidays or not -- with their various passions: toy trains, Asian antiquities and a glossy grand piano that symbolizes a life of music.
It’s hard to say why some homes just seem to light up during the holidays -- to sparkle and glow more than others. Lots of windows help, of course. Enamel paints and glossy wood floors can be factors too. Glass cases. The right metals. Lights. Tile. Martini shakers. Ornaments.
In the Lantzes’ case, their home comes alive with Jack’s train sets, of course, but also with the couple’s other treasures. Throughout the house, the Lantzes have displayed artworks from their trips to Japan, where they first met outside Tokyo 35 years ago.
Jack was an Army captain at the time. Paulette was teaching in the U.S. Department of Defense’s school program. They had music in common, but they grew to adore the culture of Japan as well.
They returned to the United States to start their careers, but Jack’s frequent overseas business trips allowed them to indulge their admiration for Japanese art, particularly the Genji woodblock prints that have come to dominate their 3,800-square-foot home.
Today, Jack is chief executive of Miyachi Unitek Corp., which supplies laser systems used to cut and weld such things as medical components and automotive electronics. Paulette teaches first grade in La Cañada Flintridge. Their home serves as a timeline not only for their own lives but also of that new (ancient) world they discovered together. In fact, they purchased this airy, open Buff & Hensman home three years ago chiefly because of how well it displayed their art collection.
The 19th century Genji artwork, inspired by a beloved 10th century book on the adventures of a Japanese prince, is everywhere in the house, beautifully framed and protected by special glass to protect it from sunlight. Their assortment of these prints is so extensive that only 20% is on display at any time.
“Nobody has a collection quite like this,” Jack says proudly.
But that is just part of their treasure trove. An elaborate sculpture from China’s Tang dynasty (7th to 9th century) sits near the fireplace, tomb art from a time when leaders commissioned artists to honor them when they passed.
There are also clay tiles from the 2nd century BC, terra cotta statuettes from the Ming dynasty (14th century), a samurai on a horse dating to the 1880s.
And finally, of course, the trains -- touchstones to Jack’s Pennsylvania boyhood.
“When we were young, my father would disappear into the cellar and assemble the train set,” he recalls. “Then on Christmas Eve, he and his father would bring the train up and set it around the tree.”
Four locomotives from that set triggered Jack’s current collection and a lifelong interest in the American Flyer trains from the 1940s and ‘50s. He acquires new pieces from hobby shops, private collectors and at shows such as the Cal-Stewart Train Meet held in Pasadena every November, one of the West’s biggest.
This has left him with a display packed with favorites, such as a sway-backed 1946 chemical car valued at $1,200. The car’s sausage shape shows that manufacturers hadn’t quite figured out how to properly formulate plastics, Jack says.
Another favorite is the Sputnik-era rocket train. To demonstrate, Jack hits a solenoid switch that launches a rocket into an exploding boxcar, eliciting a big smile from the owner.
“I can come here in the evening and just get lost in it,” he says.
The Lantzes’ love for music has also endured. Jack, a music composition major at Yale, leads a 17-member big band that plays functions throughout Southern California.
Now, all that has come together under one roof, in big sweeping spaces where the Ming dynasty meets Bedford Falls.
That’s a lot of sparkle. That’s a lot of glow.