Added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 20, 2004

The Bungalow Heaven neighborhood in Pasadena offers the city’s largest, most intact group of smaller craftsman houses. The district’s application for National Register status lists 521 contributing homes in the neighborhood; if you go by the Bungalow Heaven Neighborhood Association’s boundaries, that count is closer to 800.

One house that didn’t make it into the Bungalow Heaven Historic District? The house at 1141 North Chester Avenue. While it’s within the 16-block rectangle that the locals use to define the neighborhood, the north section of Chester Avenue wasn’t included in the NRHP nomination because that tract was subdivided later than the rest of the district. 

I sure hope 1141 North Chester doesn’t feel left out, because it’s every bit as charming as its neighbors to the south and west, and as a rare example of an “airplane bungalow,” it has something unique going for it too. 

While this home’s current estimated market value of $1.6 to $1.8 million might suggest otherwise, Bungalow Heaven represents the more affordable end of the bungalow spectrum. Most of the homes here are modest, one to one-and-a-half story homes built between 1906 (the year that East Pasadena was annexed to Pasadena) and 1918 as middle class housing. Where a wealthier client could hire an architect for a bespoke home, many of the Bungalow Heaven homes were designed and constructed by local builders. Some came from pattern books. 

The House at 1141 North Chester Avenue was designed and built in 1914 by a Norwegian expat named John A. Jergenson for himself and his wife, Jennie. A small notice in The Pasadena Star from 1914 lists the cost at $4000. 

Jergenson’s design hewed closely to the craftsman playbook. On the outside you’ve got a playful, irregular facade, with a low-pitched gable intersecting another roofline that slopes towards the street, its rafters extending beyond the wide eaves like wiggling fingers. The walls are clad in cedar shingles (very dragon scale-like in the 2015 realtor photos) above stucco wainscoting on the first floor, with bursts of casement or pocket windows on nearly every surface. The front porch wraps around to the south side, protected by a short wall of river rock, and punctuated by support columns clad made of the same rock. 

It’s the “airplane” element that makes this home unusual for a craftsman, that smaller section of the house that projects a half-story upward, like a cockpit. Originally the upper floor housed two bedrooms and connected to an outdoor sleeping porch so you could snooze al fresco; in the ‘40s the porch was enclosed, and then a bathroom filled it in around 1987. Pictures from 2015 show some nice period-appropriate rose-themed art glass embedded into the medicine cabinets flanking the bathroom mirror. 

Downstairs we have a living room, dining room, kitchen, laundry and office, all dominated by natural materials. You’ll find hardwood floors of richly-stained oak in the dining and living rooms, doors and windows trimmed in Douglas fir, and more fir in the wainscoting in the dining room. The fireplace still has its original brick arch and hearth (at least it did as of 2015), and built-in cabinet bookshelves on either side, dating from the Jergenson days. 

Does this house express the same level of workmanship and detail that you’d expect from a Greene & Greene or a Louis B. Easton home? Perhaps not, but its free-flowing plan and commitment to natural materials makes it a canonical example of the craftsman style.

Beginning in 1916, the house went through a series of owners in a short span. That year the Fresno Herald reported the transfer of a 150 x 60-foot lot in Fresno, from E.P. and Eleanor H. Lock to John A. Jergenson. This must have been some kind of swap, because as of 1919 we find the Locks listed in the Pasadena city directory at 1141 North Chester, and Jergenson shows up a couple times in Fresno papers. There’s a classified ad from 1917 for a Rauch & Lang electric coupe, sold by someone at 1141 North Chester (assumedly the Locks), and a short story about Mrs. Lock’s son, Lieutenant Edwin P. Lock, Jr., returning to Pasadena after graduating from West Point. 

The Locks stayed at the house on Chester Avenue for only four years, before transferring it to an Iowa farmer named John F. Baughman and his wife Uryetta. Just days later, the Pasadena Star-News shows an exchange of equity in 160 acres of land in Nebraska for the 1141 North Chester Avenue property – that must have been wrapped up in the Lock → Baughman sale. There are building permits as late as 1940 that indicate Baughman is still the owner, though he’s listed as living on Marengo Avenue by that time, so perhaps he was renting it out? 

Confoundingly, a story in the Pasadena Star-News from July, 1920 mentions Mrs. Sylvia J. Thompson as a recent buyer of the house, with the sale handled by the prolific developer, the Frank C. Platt Investment Company. Just three months later, the House at 1141 North Chester Avenue is offered “completely furnished” for $15,000 with “owner on premises,” and by 1922, Mrs. Ida G. Platt (wife of Frank C. Platt) is the contact person for an offer on the property. 

Building permits show a succession of owners from the ‘40s through today. They’ve all put their mark on the house at 1141 North Chester Avenue, but preserved what makes it itself. The original two-car garage had a hobby room added to it in the 1940s; the brick patio and U-shaped pergola that covers it are both later additions. Originally, the concrete driveway had a thin strip of grass running down the middle, which was at some point replaced by the current layout, with concrete patches alternating with thick bands of brick every few feet.

Small freshenings and modernizations are par for the course for a more-than-century-old house – permits describe a window box added to the kitchen, French doors added as access to the side porch, roof replacements and plumbing upgrades, chimney repair, etc. But aside from the aforementioned sleeping porch enclosure and the addition of the hobby room to the garage, all these adjustments were minor. The house at 1141 North Chester Avenue is still substantially as it was over 100 years ago. 

Honey, who cares if you’re not officially part of Bungalow Heaven? The fact that you’re individually listed on the National Register, and not just as part of a 500+ home district, makes you all the more special. And speaking of which, whoever chose to use that hyper-stylized old Pasadena font for this home’s National Register plaque deserves a plaque of their own! Gorgeous. 

Thank you to Sarah Rogers and Adriana Ortiz of the Sarah Rogers Group for tracking down the photographer of these shots.

Resources & Recommended Reading

+ “Asks Some Questions About Bible” (The Fresno Morning Republican, August 18, 1925 – via Newspapers.com)

+ Bricker, Lauren, Robert Winter & Janet Tearnen for the City of Pasadena: “The Residential Architecture of Pasadena, CA, 1895-1918: The Influence of the Arts and Crafts Movement” (PDF – NPS.gov, 1998)

+ BungalowHeaven.org

+ “Capable middle-aged woman…” (Pasadena Star-News, January 3, 1924 – via Newspapers.com)

+ “Completely Furnished $15,000” (AD – Pasadena Star-News, July 22, 1920 – via Newspapers.com)

+ Grimes, Teresa & Leslie Neumann, revised by Mary Jo Winder: Bungalow Heaven’s NRHP nomination form (PDF – 2007)

organization City of Pasadena, Design & Historic Preservation

+ Home Telephone & Telegraph Co. of Pasadena: “Pasadena City Directory, 1919” (Internet Archive)

+ “Is Recovering” (Pasadena Star-News, December 20, 1917 – via Newspapers.com)

+ “John Axel Jergenson” (Ancestry.com record) 

+ “Late Model R. & L. Electric Coupe.” (AD – Pasadena Star-News, February 2, 1917 – via Newspapers.com)

+ “Many Houses Sold in Last Six Weeks; Big Demand in Pasadena” (Pasadena Star-News, July 22, 1920 – via Newspapers.com)

+ “Maryland Guest Remodeling Home (Pasadena Star, July 30, 1914 – via Newspapers.com)

+ Mermilliod, Jennifer, MA & Janet Hansen, MA: House at 1141 N. Chester Avenue’s NRHP nomination form (2003 – revised from nomination by Christy McAvoy. Historic Resources Group)

+ “Pasadena Personal Briefs” (Pasadena Star-News, November 6, 1914 – via Newspapers.com)

+ “Real Estate Exchange: Equity in 160 acres land…” (Pasadena Star-News, February 7, 1920 – via Newspapers.com)

+ “Real Estate for Sale: Buy Your Lot Now” (AD – Pasadena Star-News, June 11, 1921 – via Newspapers.com)

+ “Realty Transfers” (Fresno Herald, May 27, 1916 – via Newspapers.com)

+ “Realty Transfers” (The Long Beach Telegram and The Long Beach Daily News, February 2, 1920 – via Newspapers.com)

+ Redfin listing for 1141 North Chester Avenue, Pasadena (Redfin.com)

+ “Three Story Apartment House” (Pasadena Star-News, October 22, 1915 – via Newspapers.com)

+ “Want Offer” (AD – Pasadena Star-News, January 24, 1922 – via Newspapers.com)