TOUR: It’s a Short Walk to the Past : Altadena Home Tour Is a Walk to the Past
Altadena Heritage’s 1991 home tour Saturday and Sunday is billed as “The World of Visscher Place” in recognition of a two-block street demarking an Old Altadena neighborhood once inhabited by the likes of newspaper scion William Scripps and novelist Zane Grey.
Altadena Heritage, a community group that identifies and preserves the area’s historic homes, will use proceeds from the annual tour to complete its historic resources survey, said member John Pearson.
Tickets are $15 and will be sold at three sidewalk booths on Visscher Place and Mendocino Street. The self-guided tour of five homes runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. both days.
The turn-of-the-century houses were designed by noted architects and are under consideration by Altadena Heritage for designation as historic homes. Two were built as winter vacation homes by wealthy Easterners. The houses are:
* 209 E. Mariposa St. The largest of the five is now a private elementary school on a street once called Millionaire’s Row.
Originally on five acres, the mansion was designed by Charles Buchanan and was built by William Scripps in 1904 as home for the family that endowed Scripps College in Claremont and the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in La Jolla. In 1913, Scripps also built the Scripps Retirement Home nearby, to which the estate was later gifted.
In 1987, the Waldorf School of Pasadena purchased the remaining 3.5-acre estate, including the 6,000-square-foot Craftsman-style Scripps Hall mansion, on the condition that the estate be preserved. Scripps’ great-grandson, William Kellogg, had led a community battle to save the mansion from destruction by developers, and Altadena Heritage emerged from the effort to become a preservation group.
The forest-green stucco, brick and wood Craftsman-style house has jutting beams, balconies, dormer windows and elaborate beveled glass windows around the front door. A balustraded stairway, wood-paneled walls and ceilings, and wood-and-tile fireplaces are inside.
Upstairs rooms will not be included on the tour.
* 2762 Visscher Place. The two-story, seven-bedroom Craftsman bungalow was built in 1913 by Allen Winter, a physician, for under $5,000. In 1983, it was purchased by its current owner-occupants Grace Camargo, 74, and her sons, Ralph, 34, and Hugh, 32.
Visitors are likely to enjoy the aromas of Grace Camargo’s home cooking, along with delights for the eye: delicate Tiffany glass touches in the front door, chandeliers and beaded wall sconces, the marble-topped French Regency dining room table and buffet, and the gray-peach floral damask that covers the dining room walls.
The Camargos call it the Spaulding House, after the family that lived there for many years. Lois Spaulding-Harmsen, 65, who grew up in the house and will join the tour, still has vivid memories of her childhood in the house.
“I remember how open it was--there were no houses except for the Kellogg estate, on Mariposa. We had tea parties with our dolls underneath the deodars that belonged to the estate,” she said.
“Zane Grey owned a home around the corner. The children used to play with us. It was great!”
* 2709 Visscher Place. Owners Rick Carron and George Widman say they intend to make their two-story stucco and wood Craftsman-Colonial house a showplace.
The pair bought the 5,000-square-foot home--known as Visscher Place--in 1978. Historians say it was probably built in 1915 and designed by architect Elmer Grey. Carron, 44, a contracts manager, said the pair so far has put more than $100,000 into restoration and remodeling.
“We invest in real estate in the area, and we wanted the challenge of restoring an old, large, important place,” Carron said. “This place intrigued us, and we bought it after seeing only two rooms.
“The inside was in very good shape--the grounds were the problem. We spent almost a year clearing and cleaning them, working almost every day.”
In the back yard, Carron and Widman built two fish ponds, complete with waterfalls and a rock garden.
Inside the house, the two are remodeling bathrooms and restoring the home’s many woods. They’ve also upholstered the dining room walls in lime-green satin and installed a sound-surround stereo system.
As in the other homes, not all rooms will be on view.
* 234 E. Mendocino St. Dorothy and Sherwood Hall live a quiet lifestyle in the 7,000-square-foot home known as Welles House. Their children grew up in the seven-bedroom mansion, and the couple now live alone with their two cats, who like to sun themselves in front of the 12-foot cruciform windows.
The house has more than 100 windows, plus--like Carron and Widman’s house--a built-in elevator. The exterior of the 2 1/2-story stucco-and-stone house is reminiscent of a French chateau, but the abundance of wood--mahogany, redwood and quarter-sawed oak--in interior paneling, floors and doors, lends a Craftsman feeling of solidity, warmth and workmanship.
The house was designed by Myron Hunt and built in 1917. The Halls purchased it in 1956 from Anna Welles-Brown who inherited it from her father, an associate of Alexander Graham Bell. Unlike Carron and Widman, the Halls did little to change the house, but in 1965, they took down a separate garage and chauffeur’s apartment and built two small houses that they later sold. Mature trees abound on the remaining two-thirds of an acre, some in what the Halls call their “woodland garden” in front of the circular drive.
* 266 E. Mendocino St. The tour will conclude with refreshments served amid blooming impatiens in the gardens of Jesse Cameron, whose 1925 Dutch Colonial home will not be open to view. The rear yard is tiered with rows of stone steps descending the sloping hill.
