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Pasadena Heritage Walking Tour

Sunday, July 5th, thirty-one Villagers gathered in front of the Blinn House, now home to Pasadena Heritage, on the Fuller Seminary Campus for a walking tour of historic buildings in the Playhouse District of Pasadena. Thirty-one is a good turnout for most Village Events, especially those involving a fair amount of walking, but there we were, ready to learn about the buildings we pass on an almost daily basis. An equally energetic and enthusiastic Pasadena Heritage tour guide met us. 

Our tour started at our meeting point, the Edmund Blinn House. Built in 1905–1906 for the Blinn family and designed by Chicago architect George Washington Maher, it is the only known Maher residential structure west of the Mississippi River. Its design reflects the Prairie School approach made famous by Frank Lloyd Wright and George Maher, with carefully repeated geometric and floral motifs, while also incorporating features appropriate for its original owners’ Midwestern background. The house later became the headquarters of the Women’s City Club of Pasadena, which acquired it in 1945. When the club dissolved after more than 75 years, ownership transferred to Pasadena Heritage in 2021. 

Our guide moved us next to the former Pasadena Star-News building. The newspaper, published in various forms since 1883, occupied the Beaux-Arts-style office and retail building beginning in 1925. The newspaper remained there until the late 1990s. The building also has an unusual connection to Southern California broadcasting. It once contained radio towers used for Star-News programming under the call sign KPSN. In 1926, KPSN carried the first radio broadcast of the Rose Parade. The towers were later also used by KPPC, an influential underground FM station whose studios were located in the basement of the nearby Pasadena Presbyterian Church. 

Another stop highlighted the former Don Lee Cadillac and LaSalle dealership at Green Street and El Molino Avenue. The dealership illustrates Pasadena’s connection to the rapidly expanding automobile industry of the 1920s. Don Lee became better known as a major radio broadcaster, operating the twelve-station Don Lee-Columbia Network. Still, his broadcasting empire was made possible by the fortune he originally accumulated through making and selling luxury automobiles. The building later became associated with Jacob Maarse, the celebrated Pasadena florist known as the “Rose King.” Maarse, who came from a family of Dutch flower growers, opened his Pasadena shop in 1966 and supplied it with roses and other flowers grown in his three-acre Sierra Madre garden. 

The Singer Building at 520 East Colorado Boulevard demonstrates another aspect of Pasadena’s architectural heritage. Built in 1926 and designed by Everett Phipps Babcock, it is a Spanish Colonial Revival structure distinguished by its red-tile roof, decorative stonework, ornamental piers, and elaborate Mexican Baroque or Churrigueresque details; the expert artistry and expensive materials used in the 1926 construction cost around $105,000. The decorative elements were Mexican Baroque, or Churrigueresque style, typically with intense ornamentation, especially around doors and windows.

Its original occupant, the Singer Sewing Machine Company, initially used the building as its national headquarters and operated a showroom there until 1970. Over the years, the building housed various businesses, including a bookseller and a wig shop. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1985. 

A major focus of the tour was the Pasadena Playhouse, one of the city's most important cultural landmarks. Founded in 1917 by Gilmor Brown, the Playhouse grew from a small theatrical troupe into a nationally recognized center for theater, education, radio, television experimentation, and artistic innovation. The present theater opened in 1925 after Brown raised money from more than 1,000 Pasadena residents. During its golden era from roughly 1920 to 1945, the Playhouse earned the nickname “Star Factory” because so many actors and other entertainment professionals passed through its stages and training programs. Its productions attracted attention from Hollywood studios, while its school trained performers, directors, designers, technicians, and playwrights.

The Playhouse was particularly significant because it helped establish new approaches to theater education and performance. Its School of Theatre Arts, founded in 1927, eventually became a major training institution, offering instruction in acting, directing, stage technology, playwriting, administration, radio, television, and film. The school became an important pipeline into the growing entertainment industry and influenced the development of modern graduate-level theater programs.

The Playhouse later experienced serious difficulties. Following Brown’s death in 1960, the institution struggled with leadership and increasing competition from theaters and universities in Los Angeles. The college closed in 1969, and the theater itself went bankrupt and shut down that same year. Preservationists nevertheless protected the building and its historical collections. After 16 years of closure, the Playhouse reopened in 1986 as a not-for-profit theater. Its subsequent revitalization, including the development of the surrounding Playhouse District, demonstrated how historic preservation could contribute to broader neighborhood renewal.

The final major landmark on the tour was the First Trust Building and Garage, constructed in 1927. Designed by Cyril Bennett and Fitch Haskell, the building combines Mediterranean Revival, Renaissance Revival, and Beaux-Arts influences. Its interior includes murals depicting Pasadena scenes and an elegant coffered ceiling created by artist Giovanni Smeraldi. Particularly noteworthy is its innovative earthquake-resistant construction. Caltech professor R. R. Martel developed a system combining steel beams, girders, columns, and reinforced concrete. The approach represented an important advance in earthquake-resistant construction and eventually became widely accepted.

When we returned to the Blinn House, I did a quick, somewhat limited survey: “What was your favorite building, and why?” Here are the responses: 

Nan Sook Lee liked the jewelry store and the murals in the lobby of the First Trust Building, as well as the Star News Building. In fact, she “liked all the buildings, but especially the sphinx outside the Masonic Temple.”

Mike Zoeller visited the Star-News Building when it was still occupied by the Star-News Paper and found it truly impressive and was “amazed that someone could build something like that in Pasadena.”

Jocelyn Keene was also impressed with the Star-News Building. She “passed by the building many times over many years but never really looked at it.” She also “liked the First Trust Building and the murals in its lobby. “

Suzi Hoge “was surprised to learn that the Singer Building was the Singer Sewing Machine Company’s National Headquarters. She also noticed, for the first time, the enormous size of the Methodist Church across the street.”

My personal favorite was the Don Lee Building. I found it fascinating that Don Lee moved the production of one of our early luxury cars from Cincinnati, Ohio, to Pasadena.

More information about Pasadena Heritage and its various offerings can be found through info@pasadenaheritage.org.