Louisiana Fish

Have you been there? Please report. Sure looks funky. I can't tell from the outside if I mean that in a good way or a bad way. But I'm intrigued.

Corner of Washington and Catalina, north end of Bungalow Heaven, west end of East Washington Village.

(Update: A well-liked spot. Bellis sends this link.)

Picture Walk

I liked the red and green of yesterday's photo, so I'm continuing the theme.

We're having a walk in Bungalow Heaven. It's a famous neighborhood, so you'd think tourists would be taking pictures there all the time.

Okay, well, that's what I would think.

But I'm usually the only one there taking pictures. I've seen tourists there only on Bungalow Heaven Tour day, which can be super-crowded. Otherwise, it is a pleasant sector of Pasadena for perambulation.

Wreath

I like walking in Bungalow Heaven because:
It's quiet (no main drags);
It's got big trees;
It's nicely-groomed, for the most part;
It's historic;
Folks are friendly, if and when you see folks;
It's not far from my neighborhood, but far enough that I feel like I went somewhere.

Twenty years ago I was happy to live in Hollywood near Fairfax and Beverly, close to a TV studio and a popular shopping district. Now I crave quiet, serene calm.

Welcome to middle age.

Musical Driveway

Its Art Weekend in Pasadena, so a musical driveway is appropriate. There's a lot going on in town, most of it free, so click the link and take advantage.

I'm in the middle of:
putting finishing touches on the audiobook of Belinda's Birthday (to be uploaded to Amazon next week);
having the inside of Camelot & Vine designed and created by the soon-to-be-famous Kate Wong;
figuring out the outside of Camelot & Vine, which I finally have in my head, and now must translate to the book cover;
editing a short story, on deadline;
proofreading every little thing;
and a bunch of other things I've decided not to bore you with.

I actually got one thing finished: I hope you'll check out (or, you know, just read) my review of Margaret Finnegan's The Goddess Lounge on Hometown Pasadena. While you're there you can tweet it, Facebook it, comment on it, or Like it with a capital L. Or, like I said, you can read it.

Before you click away, do vote for your favorite contest entry from this week's Camelot Where You Are contest (rules here). The poll is at the upper left.

Too Charming

Bungalow Heaven is a Pasadena Landmark District. Many homes there fit the description of a Craftsman bungalow, a style that was hugely popular (and economical) in Pasadena in the early 20th century. We have bungalows all over town. My own home has many Craftsman bungalow characteristics. But there's an especially high concentration of charming bungalows in Bungalow Heaven.

The Bungalow Heaven Neighborhood Association sponsors a home tour each spring. I finally went this year. So did everyone else. Surely you were there, and your brother and your aunt and your third cousin's cousins and their kids and pets. By noon the lines outside the eight featured homes were as long as the lines at Disneyland on a temperate summer Saturday.

So I saw five of the homes. They were lovely, and the gardens were lovely, but the lines, well, the lines were not lovely and I couldn't bring myself to wait in three more of them. (If you look closely at this picture you can see lines of people on both sides of the street.) The docents did a great job (and I hope they at least got a free lunch for their pains) but there were just too many people. If I want to see inside more Bungalow Heaven homes I'll have to meet more people who live in them and get invited over. Do you live there? Hi! What's up?

I'm glad Bungalow Heaven is popular. It's becoming more popular all the time, and that's well deserved. That being the case, however, I wonder how they'll handle the amusement park crowds next year.


Reminder: tomorrow's post will be a little different: it's a contest entry, consisting of a pitch for my novel and the first 250 words. There will be a photo, as usual, but the copy will be, uh, unusual. Feel free to comment! We'll see how it goes.

Heaven

Just a quick snapshot I took while walking in Bungalow Heaven yesterday. I mean it--just a quick shot--in case you were wondering why they call it heaven.

There are restrictions when you own a home in a Landmark District. You can't just slap on aluminum siding whenever you want to. (Hallelujah, I say.) In Bungalow Heaven, you cannot "change any exterior feature (except painting)" without a permit and perhaps a Certificate of Appropriateness from the city, whatever that is.

Living in a neighborhood like Bungalow Heaven isn't for everyone. I think those who do take pride in it, and I don't blame them. It's a beautiful part of Pasadena, a pleasure to stroll its tree-lined streets.

Zen Monday: #112

Zen Monday is the day you experience the photo and give us your thoughts rather than me telling you what I think the photo's about.

I look for a photo worth contemplating or, failing that, something unusual or silly. And unless I absolutely must say something I stay out of the comments box to avoid influencing the discussion.

There's no right or wrong. We're here to have fun.

Tour Heaven and Return

This weekend's pretty much taken care of. Whatever I meant to do yesterday has been put off long enough and I have to do it today. That includes planning next weekend.

Maybe, just maybe, this will be the year I take the annual Bungalow Heaven Home Tour. It's next Sunday, April 26th. If you go, you'll get a peek inside this one, the home of Sarah Hilbert, who ought to know a thing or two about bungalows. She's even written about them for American Bungalow magazine. I'll bet you still have your copy with her article in it.

Sarah sent me an email a couple of weeks back reminding me about the Home Tour and inviting me to take a picture of her house. Her garden won the Pasadena Beautiful Golden Arrow award two years ago, which is the only reason I can think of that she didn't win it this year.

Our little Heaven is more than a local landmark. This year it celebrates placement on the National Register of Historic Places. Not too shabby, no, not these bungalows.

Home Shopping #2

I spotted this cutie in Bungalow Heaven and had to pull over. "Hey baby, whatchya doin' on this gray day? You look like a charmer to me." I took a picture, brought it home and brightened it a little to cheer it up.

Of course you can't tell a book by its cover, and location is everything. Let's see, what other cliches might apply here? Oh yeah: you'll have to look under the hood to find out if this house has good bones. Ouch.

Bungalow Heaven is a neighborhood, for those who don't know. The whole 'hood is on the National Register of Historic Places, which can be good and bad if you're a homeowner. If you're considering buying a historic property it's worth knowing everything you can about the National Register. In some ways it restricts you; in some ways it protects you.

I'm not in the business of selling houses, but I figured I'd post the contact information in case you're in the business of buying.

Bungalow in a Box

It's legal to take photos from the street, but I feel awkward taking pictures of peoples' homes. I'd feel weird if I saw someone taking a picture of my house. Go to Google Maps, type in your your address and click on "street view," and you'll know what kind of weird I'm talking about. So I was lucky when I found the owner of this house pulling into his driveway, because I wanted a photo of his home and I wanted his permission to take it.

This house, in Pasadena's Bungalow Heaven, is special because it was made from a kit. Kit houses were popular in the 1920s, and Pasadena sports several good examples. (There's one on my block; according to the owner it was ordered from a Sears catalogue.) The one you see here is from Pacific Ready-Cut Homes. It was built in 1924 and first used as a model by the Gregg and Beaman Company, distributor of the kits in Pasadena.

Here's an article by Rosemary Thornton about kit houses. The first picture looks like the house above. Thornton co-authored a book about kit houses with Dale Patrick Wolicki. (You can try Pasadena Public Library, too.)

When ordering your kit, you could choose from among several home styles. The kit came with everything you needed: doors, windows, wood, cabinets— even light fixtures. And instructions, of course.

The homeowner I spoke to yesterday said he'd had his house bolted to the foundation, and he was going to do some work on the roof. Show me a southern California house where that never happens, kit or no kit.