Zen Monday #235

On Mondays, I leave the captions up to you.

El Alisal

I went to the Lummis House and took about a hundred pictures. Most of them aren't very interesting and it's too bad, because the house and garden are lovely. But I like this shot of the drinking fountain.

Charles Lummis walked to Los Angeles from Ohio, back when there was more than traffic to worry about. Along the way, he filed stories with the Los Angeles Times. When he arrived, he became the paper's first City Editor.

He built his home, El Alisal, with his own hands. It took him twelve years (1898-1910). The house is one of the earliest examples of Craftsman architecture in the U.S. Each door, each window, is different from the last, because they're all made by hand. The house is open Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 12-4, and it's free. You're welcome to make a donation.

And it's okay about the pictures because I intend to go back and take more.

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Please note the poll is up; while you're here, vote for your favorite Week Six entry in the Camelot Where You Are photo contest!

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.

Home Shopping: To the Rescue

John saw an article in the Pasadena Star-News about an unincorporated area of Pasadena called Michillinda Park. A group of neighbors there is trying to save a vintage Craftsman house. We decided to drive over and have a look.

Michillinda Park is a lovely, historic neighborhood where peacocks graze on the median. Too bad it's unincorporated because that means there's no historic preservation ordinance and anyone who has the money can buy one of these...

...and tear it down to put in one of these.

To better illustrate my point, here's a panorama John made of these two houses:

I recommend you click the panorama to enlarge it. It looks like the two houses aren't next to each other, but they are. The reason the McMansion on the right is so much brighter than the Craftsman on the left is that there are no trees in the McMansion front yard. I wonder why, when all the old houses on the block have mature trees in their yards.

Click on the photos in the Star-News article. The house the neighbors are trying to save is a beauty. And the only way to save it is to find a buyer within a week.

Plus I sure hope someone finds that rodwiller.

Update 2/25/11:
According to the Pasadena Star-News, the house will be moved instead of demolished. Not great. A McMansion will be built in its place.

Autumn in Orange Heights

I snapped this just because the light's pretty. Sometimes that's all I need.

If you enlarge the photo you can see the stone pillar on the right and the stone wall at center. Both are typical of Craftsman architecture in Pasadena. In this case I'd guess the pillar at right (part of a gate) is a recent addition and the wall is original to the house. These stones (locally called "river rocks") are everywhere you turn around here.

I've got a busy weekend getting ready for more than one celebration this week. What's to celebrate? So, so much. It has been a hard year for many--including some of my loved ones. Some of it's been tough for me, too. But as a friend told me today, it's easy to look at what's going wrong; she finds it healthier to look at what's going right.

It's blessing-counting time. Can you look around yourself and find the good things? Once I start counting blessings I can't stop.