[photo credit: Pasadena Heritage]
Pasadena Heritage, the preservation nonprofit that nominated the district to the National Register of Historic Places in 2013, is leading docent-guided walking tours through those streets this Saturday, March 28, with departure times at 9 a.m., 10 a.m., 11 a.m., and 5 p.m. Tickets are $25.
The neighborhood is one of the oldest in Pasadena. According to Pasadena Heritage’s event materials, 94 percent of the district’s residences were built between 1891 and 1933 — a construction window that began just five years after Pasadena incorporated in 1886 and ended before the Depression fully halted residential building. The result is a neighborhood where the full progression from Victorian excess to Arts and Crafts simplicity to the Spanish Colonial Revival that came to define Southern California can be traced block by block, house by house.
The district’s homes are the documented work of prominent architects of the period. According to Pasadena Heritage, that roster includes Harry Ridgeway, Charles and Henry Greene, Frederick Roehrig, Myron Hunt, Sylvanus Marston, and several others whose work defined the residential styles of early-20th-century Southern California.
The district takes its name from Henry Harrison Markham, California’s governor from 1891 to 1895, who moved to Pasadena in 1879 and was known in his time as “the dashing colonel from Pasadena.” His original home, at 703 S. Pasadena Ave., was demolished in 1939, though the street he lived on still carries his name. Markham is buried at Mountain View Cemetery in Altadena.
The City of Pasadena designated the Governor Markham Landmark District on July 15, 2005. Pasadena Heritage, founded in 1977, led the nomination that placed it on the National Register of Historic Places in 2013. The organization, headquartered at the historic Blinn House at 160 N. Oakland Ave., describes the tour as offering “a clear and engaging introduction to the chronology of Pasadena’s architectural styles and how they evolved alongside the city itself,” according to the event listing on the Pasadena Heritage website.
Pasadena Heritage members receive a discount by entering the code MEMBER at checkout. Tickets are available at pasadenaheritage.org or directly through the event’s Zeffy ticketing page. For information, contact Pasadena Heritage at (626) 441-6333 or info@pasadenaheritage.org.
The meeting point for all tours is 659 S. St. John Ave., Pasadena.
