City Council to Consider Ordinance Allowing Alcohol at the Popular City-Owned La Casita del Arroyo

Pasadena’s City Council will consider approval of a draft ordinance that will allow the serving of alcohol at La Casita del Arroyo, a city-owned rental facility for private and public functions located within the Arroyo Seco Natural Park.

“Permitting the serving of alcohol at this venue is essential to keep this unique, important, and historic community asset competitive in the local special event rental market,” explained City Attorney Michele Beal Bagneris said in an Agenda Report.

Bagneris had been instructed by the City Council during its March 7, 2016 meeting to prepare the ordinance.

On Monday, the draft will be presented for first reading at the City Council’s meeting.

“It has been the practice of the Human Services & Recreation. Department to allow private event sponsors to serve alcohol at Casita del Arroyo, with the permission of the Department Director,” Bagneris said.

Bagneris said the Spanish-style community center generates up to $20,000 annually, and the ability to “continue to permit alcohol at this location is imperative to retaining this revenue stream.”

Section 3.24.090 of the Pasadena Municipal Code lists other city-owned properties where alcohol may be served if approved by the City Manager, but does not currently include La Casita del Arroyo. The ordinance will add this location to the existing list.

La Casita del Arroyo was a public works project built by the Pasadena Garden Club in 1933. Architect Myron Hunt designed the structure out of out of boulders from the Arroyo Seco and lumber from a bicycle track built for the 1932 Olympics.

In the 1980s, a fire destroyed most of the house – except the stone walls – just as landscape architects Isabelle Greene and Yosh Befu were working on a new garden design.

Eventually, with funds raised by Los Angeles County and the Pasadena Garden Club, the house was rebuilt in 1988 and the new landscape completed.

The garden design features river rock walls, large granite boulders, perennial planting beds, and winding paths paved in decomposed granite, says a description by The Cultural League Foundation (TCLF).

Native plants from California and the Mediterranean abound, serving as a horticultural resource for the surrounding community.
La Casita has a Butterfly Sanctuary, which overlooks the Arroyo Seco and is planted with mature oaks, poppies, blue-eyed grass, columbine and coral bells.

The Pasadena Garden Club managed the house and grounds until 1994, when the La Casita Foundation was established as the proprietor.

Casita del Arroyo was listed in the National Register of Historic Place in 2001 as part of the Lower Arroyo Seco nomination.