Added to the National Register of Historic Places on July 21, 1977

For my entire life, the Pacific Asia Museum has been “that cool-looking building in Pasadena with all the Asian artifacts.” I always had some vague sense that it was old, but when you’re a kid, the institutional history of a place matters a lot less than what’s there now. The stuff that stuck in my memory was the koi pond, some Buddha figurines, and the group of Tibetan monks pouring colored sand onto an intricate mandala. 

Turns out the Pacific Asia Museum has a story every bit as interesting as the exhibits they curate. It was the vision of a young woman named Grace Nicholson, a Philadelphia transplant who had endured a lifetime of personal tragedy in her young life. Her mother had died from complications following Nicholson’s birth; her father died when she was 13, leaving her under the care of her paternal grandparents, who passed away themselves in 1901. 

Pasadena, Full of Grace

Nicholson moved west by herself, at the age of 23, with a small inheritance that her grandparents left her, and set up a curio shop inside an old paint store on Raymond Ave. Some early customers inspired her to begin collecting Native American art and artifacts, and within a few years Nicholson had become one of the pre-eminent collectors and dealers of baskets, weaving, beadwork and other Native American handicrafts. 

There was always something different about the way that Grace Nicholson did things. She frequently traveled to Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington and throughout California to buy directly from Native American basketmakers and weavers. She had a great eye for what was beautiful and salable, and established relationships with collectors, dealers and museums around the country. But she also had an anthropologist’s interest in the people that made these crafts, and the meanings that they attached to them. Nicholson took detailed notes and photos of the tribes and craftspeople she encountered. She documented the techniques they used to make all the baskets and rugs she sold, and developed enough of an expertise that she was elected to the American Anthropological Association in 1904. 

It’s tempting to read Nicholson’s adventures as a form of cultural & economic imperialism. Certainly she was learning about the people she encountered in the context of a clientele that perceived “authentic” artifacts as more valuable. The detailed background she was able to give her buyers certainly helped her business flourish. I’d argue that Nicholson also demonstrated great respect for the craftsmanship of the indigenous artisans she met, and compassion for them as humans. According to Nicholson scholar Jeanne Perkins, “She never said, ‘I’ll give you this much money.’ She always said to the weaver, ‘How much do you want for that piece?’ And whatever they wanted, she paid.” Nicholson became close with many of them, and even paid for the eye surgery of a Pomo basketweaver named Mary Benson.

Looking East

By 1907, Nicholson’s business had outgrown the small curio shop on Raymond. She bought a nearby property at 46 N. Los Robles, just down the street from the fashionable Hotel Maryland.  In the coming years, the collectors’ market for Native American artifacts slowed, and her own interests shifted to the art of the Far East. She was soon dealing in fine art objects from China, Japan and Korea, selling an estimated half a million dollars’ worth of art a year and amassing one of the country’s most abundant collections of Asian art.

In 1924, Nicholson hired the local architectural firm of Marston, Van Pelt and Maybury to build a new home for her Asian art collection. The firm was well-established in Pasadena, with historic landmarks like the Fenyes Estate, the Home Laundry Company building and the Vista del Arroyo Hotel (now the Richard H. Chambers U.S. Court of Appeals) on their resume. But they had never been asked to design something quite like what Nicholson requested. 

The Treasure House

Called “The Grace Nicholson Treasure House of Oriental Art,” the new building was based on the traditional Chinese imperial palace courtyard style. The mirrored, symmetrical halves; the recessed entranceway; the staircases at each corner of the interior; the large courtyard, exposed to the elements; all of these elements had been employed for 1000 years to create an easily-defended retreat for Chinese emperors. This being California and not Beijing, earthquake and fire were more likely foes than distant warlords, so the Treasure House swapped out the traditional stone construction for steel beams and concrete. Nicholson supplied detailed notes and photographs to the architects, and imported roof tiles, carvings and bronze work where possible to ensure their authenticity. The distinctive arched entrance is apparently a replica of the Buddhist library in Beijing.

Every corner of the building is loaded with symbolic details. The familiar upturned corners of the roof are intended to keep the bad spirits away. If they make it inside, the zigzagging bridge in the courtyard is there to confuse ‘em, and the scowling stone “foo dog” sculptures are stationed at the bottom of the staircase to bite their heads off. Cloud and lotus flower imagery on the second-floor balustrade symbolize the path to heavenly enlightenment (I’m reminded of Carnegie’s inclusion of staircases and prominent lighting fixtures on all of his libraries; see Etan Does LA visit #88). 

The courtyard garden is carefully calibrated to promote a sense of harmony with the natural world and the universe. The four elements are all represented, and as the USC Pacific Asia Museum’s website points out, there are a number of other symbolic touches:

• Taihu rocks: Their naturally eroded look symbolizes longevity
• Pine, bamboo and plum: These three trees symbolize endurance, flexibility and resilience, respectively
• Dragons sit on the roof and are carved around the courtyard doors. Dragons symbolize fertility, rank and power
• Peonies, symbolizing beauty and productivity, are shown superimposed on a square on the windows, a symbol for the world
• Carp/koi fish: According to Chinese myth, a carp that can cross the rapids of the Yangtze River will transform into a dragon. Cool!

The main building of the Treasure House was opened in 1925 as a gallery and Asian art shop, and the courtyard was completed four years later. Upon opening, it was immediately praised as an architectural marvel – Southland Magazine called it “far and away the most beautiful and interesting commercial building that Pasadena can boast,” while House Beautiful magazine stated said that it was “like a dream, and dreams are usually indescribable, but even grossly exaggerated praise would do the place scant justice.”

From its early days, the Treasure House was as much a cultural center as it was a place of commerce. Nicholson sold Native American and Asian art on the first floor, and held showings by local and international artists. The auditorium on the second floor often hosted lectures and exhibitions by music and film associations, and teachers held art and music lessons in the classrooms there. Nicholson herself lived in an apartment on the upper floor. 

Post-Nicholson Era

In 1943, Nicholson gave the building to the city of Pasadena, which in turn leased it the Pasadena Art Institute, the progenitor of the Norton Simon Museum. The Pacificulture Foundation moved in in 1971, and purchased the building in 1987, changing its name to the Pacific Asia Museum. USC officially took over in 2013, expanding the museum’s audience and financial support.

The current USC Pacific Asia Museum holds some 15,000 art objects, spanning four millennia and a vast geographic range, from Persia to the Pacific Islands. Interestingly enough, Nicholson’s own collection is mostly held by other institutions. After her death in 1948, Nicholson’s 12,000-piece Asian art collection was purchased by a businessman named Edker Pope; a docent told me that some of it ended up at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. Nicholson’s remaining Native American art collection is now part of the National Museum of the American Indian at the Smithsonian.

Today, you can see incredible examples of ancient Japanese art, Korean ceremonial clothing and Polynesian carvings here…there were contemporary paintings from China on display when I went, and a fascinating exhibit about how art from Bali shaped western understanding of the Balinese people, and was in turn shaped by the west. You can come hear free lectures and conversations at the USC Pacific Asia Museum, and yes, take home an artifact of your own from the gift shop. I consider it a minor miracle that nearly 100 years after Grace Nicholson first opened her Treasure House, and after a revolving door of occupants over the last 75 years, the Grace Nicholson still serves much the same purpose as it did in 1925.

Sources & Recommended Reading

• Grace Nicholson Building’s NRHP nomination form
• “History: The Grace Nicholson Building” (https://pacificasiamuseum.usc.edu)
• “Nicholson (Grace) Papers and Addenda” (Catalog Description, Online Archive of California)
• Boehm, Mike: “USC absorbs Pasadena’s Pacific Asia Museum in friendly takeover” (Los Angeles Times, 2013)
• Leibowitz, Ed: “Token of Appreciation: A grateful Pomo Indian’s gift to a friend exemplifies the brightest form of Native American artistry” (Smithsonianmag.com, 2004)
• Oatey, Suzanne: “A Life of Adventure” (Verso blog, huntington.org, 2014)
• Rothman, Hal K, editor: The Culture of Tourism, the Tourism of Culture: Selling the Past to the Present in the American Southwest (University of New Mexico Press, 2003; accessed via Google Books)