Added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 9, 2011

What a difference a single letter can make! The National Register application for the home at 423 Lincoln Avenue in Pasadena calls it the John S. Hartwell House, after its first owner, “an early Pasadena citizen who owned and subdivided land and later assisted in the founding of Mountain View Cemetery.” 

A guy with that kind of impact should be all over the public record, right? Well I couldn’t find anyone by that name in newspapers or directories from the couple decades after the house was built, but there is evidence placing a John L. Hartwell in Pasadena, as early as 1882. John L. oversaw a ton of real estate transfers in Pasadena through the late 19th and early 20th centuries, he co-led an effort to establish a toll road between the Sierra Madre & Antelope Valley in the 1890s, co-founded the Mountain View Cemetery in Altadena, and to top it all off, his brother was Calvin Hartwell, mayor of Pasadena from 1896 to 1898 (and LA County Coroner from 1908 to 1920). 

Plus, a Pasadena City Directory from 1909 lists “Heartwell [sic], John L.” as residing at 423 Lincoln, there’s an undated building permit that lists “Est. of John L. Hartwell” as the owner of the house at that address, and later articles list his niece as living there (more on her in a bit). So: I think we have our man!

Built in 1887, the John L. Hartwell House is on the National Register as an example of a Queen Anne-style Victorian home, of the kind you’d often find in this part of Pasadena in the late-1800s. Despite its modest, 1,578 square-foot size, this one packs in a generous helping of visual fun. The bay windows that bulge forwards in the asymmetrical facade, the fishscale shingles on the front gable, the lathe-turned posts and spindlework lining the wraparound porch – all of them help to elevate the style quotient on an otherwise unassuming home.

While I haven’t found any historic photos of the interior, these recent shots on Zillow show some unique features on the upper floor that resulted from its conversion into a separate rental unit. The kitchen and living spaces conform to the original rooflines, which means you’ve got a multi-angled panel looming over the stove, a bedroom in the triangular space formed by the front gable, and a cute little workspace behind the dormer window on the north side.

The John L. Hartwell House is on a fairly deep lot that seems even larger because the lot just north of it is vacant and featureless, aside from a few trees and a weathered picket fence. There was once a house there, but the permit record indicates that it was gutted and unoccupied as of 1970, and demolished soon after. Google Street View snapshots from the last decade show the same vacant lot as far back as 2007, the only change being a mailbox added in 2017.

The Hartwell House went up during a wave of residential construction in the northwest section of Pasadena. This was land owned and subdivided by some of the city’s first white settlers, who organized as the San Gabriel Orange Grove Association (SGOGA). It’s situated in between three historic neighborhoods – the Bristol-Cypress, New Fair Oaks and Raymond-Summit Historic Districts – that are full of small Victorians and vernacular cottages from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Most of the homes in the area were built for the middle and working-class folks that poured into Pasadena in the late 1880s, after the Santa Fe Railroad had completed its transcontinental line from Chicago.

Though they’re not relevant to the historic significance of this house, the people who have lived here are a colorful lot, so we’re gonna take a quick survey of their stories as told through various newspaper articles.

From the evidence I could piece together, it would seem that John L. Hartwell lived here until his death in 1915. From 1912 on, he was housemates with his niece Ida Mellish Montalboddi (an instructor in the art department at Throop Polytechnic Institute, the forerunner to Caltech), Ida’s Italian husband Baron Raffaello Montalboddi, and their kids Donatello and Beata. 

Raffaello (sometimes spelled “Rafaello,” “Raffaele” or “Raphael”) was an artist of some repute back in Italy. After moving to Pasadena, he and Ida directed a free fine arts program at the Stickney Memorial Art School, an early precursor to the Norton Simon Museum located just south of the Hartwell House, at the corner of Lincoln and Fair Oaks.

The Stickney building was demolished long ago, and the triangular lot it occupied doesn’t exist anymore either, having been swallowed up by the construction of the 210 freeway. But reports from 1915 suggest that the Montalboddis housed an insane collection of treasures from around the world in their studio at Stickney, including paintings by Titian and Van Dyck, Japanese vases, thousand-year-old coins, a prayer rug from Constantinople, antiquarian books, wood carvings, even a tea service used by Pope Gregory XVI. Much of this stuff was passed down through generations of Raffaello’s noble ancestors, one of whom was reportedly knighted by the Italian monarchy for throwing open his grain stores to the poor. Both Raffaello and Ida frequently exhibited their work, along with various pieces from their collection. 

John L. Hartwell died on March 3, 1915, and soon after we start seeing 423 Lincoln Avenue listed as “for rent” in classified ads. Ida died of a protracted illness in late 1916 at just 43 years old. According to her profile on Findagrave.com, the wealthy Giddings family (whose patriarch Levi Giddings co-founded Mountain View Cemetery along with John Hartwell) took in Ida & Raffaello’s daughter Beata, and raised her at their home on Colorado Boulevard. The Giddings used to summer at the old Holly Hill House on Catalina Island, a gorgeous Queen Anne Victorian that the Giddings family bought from its builder Peter Gano in 1921. 

In the 1920s we find the McElroy family living at 423 Lincoln Avenue. Just judging by the newspaper clippings, it would seem the McElroy boys were prone to theft and accidents: Within a three-year span, RJ McElroy had his electrical tools stolen from the house, then Steve McElroy got a splinter in his arm, then Elmer McElroy and his brother EJ (perhaps a mis-spelling of “RJ”?) both fractured bones when their car overturned on East Villa Street, then RJ suffered from a dog bite near a different home on Penn Street. In December 1928, we find Steve chasing away a peeping tom in a black overcoat who’s prowling around the house at 423 Lincoln. Clearly, the universe did not want the McElroys living there.

The McElroys must have been renting, because in a 1929 issue of the Pasadena Star-News, we once again find Raffaello Montalboddi living at 423 Lincoln Avenue, this time with “D. Cinelli,” when an overheated water heater causes a fire that damages the roof and walls of the home. Then in 1936, a spark from the chimney ignites a fire on the roof, during a particularly cold snap. Just underneath that the article about the blaze is another one about a toddler eating ant paste. That one isn’t related to 423 Lincoln Avenue, I just thought it was a funny idea.

It’s unclear when exactly Raffaello Montalboddi sold the Hartwell House, but by the 1950s it’s owned by an apparently neglectful steward. In November of 1951 a group of health, sanitation and fire officials from the City of Pasadena sent him a letter outlining a number of code violations that required correction:

• “Unsafe buildings are being maintained in violation of section 203 of ordinance [# unclear]. Correction requires that the garage, the building in the southwest corner of the property, and the unused pens be demolished…”
• “Rat harborages on the property are a violation…correction requires that all lumber, wood, and other materials that may become a harborage for rats be elevated…above the ground and that all openings to the underside or into the walls of the building be protected by screening or other means.”
• “Burning outside of an approved incinerator is a violation…Correction requires that burning be done not less than 25 feet from any building, 10 feet from the outer circumference of any tree or shrub and 30 feet from any grass, weeds or other flammable vegetation.”

But the most, uh, eye-opening newspaper coverage of the Hartwell House comes in 1952, in a Pasadena Star-News story about a tenant named Mrs. Bernard Pennino. Her family was destitute enough that she was considering selling one of her eyes to cover the cost of a $500 operation to fix a persistent hemorrhoid that, doctors said, could be an indication of cancer. Fortunately local organizations and neighbors stepped in and pitched in with funds for the surgery; presumably Mrs. Pennino was able to stay bi-eyed. The Star-News story describes 423 Lincoln Avenue as a “forlorn old house.”  

Permits from the 1980s and ‘90s find a new owner, Elizabeth Wittry, doing a bunch of upgrades to the old Hartwell House: new fencing, chimney repairs, that kind of thing. In 2006 Wittry’s husband David, who taught electrical engineering and materials science at USC, quite literally “tears the roof off” and installs a new one of composition shingles. Coincidentally, Wittry is listed on the building permit as living at the Friend Lacey House in Pasadena – another Pasadena Victorian listed on the National Register.

At some point, the back porch was expanded, the front door was replaced, and the old tongue-and-groove skirting below the porch was replaced with some ho-hum latticework. The 1903 Sanborn map also shows an auxiliary building at the back of the lot which no longer exists – perhaps a result of that early 1950s spate of code violations.

As of 2025, the two floors of the Hartwell House are divided into two separate rental units. The 2 bed/1 bath upper floor is currently available to rent for $2,150 per month. 

Thanks to Kevin Johnson with the City of Pasadena and consultant Lea Kolesky for their assistance in verifying the original owner of 423 Lincoln Avenue.

Resources & Recommended Reading

+ “423 Lincoln Ave, Pasadena, CA 91103” (Zillow.com)

+ “Attention, F. & A.M.!” (Pasadena Star, March 4, 1915 – via Newspapers.com)

+ “Fire Brings Warning” (Pasadena Star-News, March 27, 1936 – via Newspapers.com)

+ Goldschmidt, Mark: “The Giddings Family and Mountain View” (AltadenaHeritage.org) 

+ Grimes, Teresa with Laura Vanaskie, Galvin Preservation Associates: “Late 19th and Early 20th Century Development and Architecture in Pasadena” (PDF, 2010)

+ “Historical Pageant Given Next Week Will Have Notable Setting” (Pasadena Star, April 12, 1913 – via Newspapers.com)

+ Historic Resources Group for City of Pasadena: “Historic Context Statement Chapter 6: Industrial Development (1873-1979),” public review draft (PDF – CityOfPasadena.net)

+ “Ida M. Mellish Montalboddi (19 May 1873 – 19 Nov 1916)” (Findagrave.com, added September 20, 2011)

+ “Injured As Car Turns Turtle” (Pasadena Star-News, November 28, 1925 – via Newspapers.com)

+ “John L. Hartwell Called by Death” (Pasadena Star, March 4, 1915 – via Newspapers.com)

+ Johnson, Kevin, City of Pasadena: John S. Hartwell House’s NRHP nomination form (PDF – 2010)

+ “Library Election Date Set” (Pasadena Independent, April 21, 1967 – via Newspapers.com)

+ “Local News Notes: Splinter in Arm” (Pasadena Star-News, November 28, 1924 – via Newspapers.com)

+ “Local News Notes: Tools Are Stolen” (Pasadena Star-News, January 15, 1924 – via Newspapers.com)

+ Maxwell, Everett C.: “At Montalboddi Studio” (Pasadena Star-News, September 28, 1912 – via Newspapers.com)

+ “Miniature Harbor Being Built in Pasadena” (The Pasadena Post, March 20, 1940 – via Newspapers.com)

+ “Mrs. Montalboddi Is Called by Death” (Pasadena Star-News, November 20, 1916 – via Newspapers.com)

+ “Mural Painter Scores in Equestrian Exhibit” (Los Angeles Times, August 28, 1948 – via ProQuest)

+ “New Art Studio” (Pasadena Star-News, January 18, 1912 – via Newspapers.com)

+ “Notice for Publication” (The Daily Commercial, July 18, 1882 – via Newspapers.com)

+ “Notice to Creditors.” (Pasadena Star, April 16, 1915 – via Newspapers.com)

+ “Old Frame House Damaged by Fire” (Pasadena Star-News, November 16, 1929 – via Newspapers.com)

+ “Pair Recite Vows During Chapel Rite” (Pasadena Independent, July 20, 1955 – via Newspapers.com)

+ “Pasadena Is Treasure Store” (Pasadena Star-News, December 24, 1915 – via Newspapers.com)

+ “Pasadenans Won’t Let Woman Sell Her Eye” (Pasadena Star-News, June 6, 1952 – via Newspapers.com)

+ “Police Fail to Nab Prowlers at Night” (The Pasadena Post, December 12, 1928 – via Newspapers.com)

+ “Portraits Are Vivid” (Pasadena Star-News, October 12, 1913 – via Newspapers.com)

+ “Real Estate Transfers [Reported by the Abstract and Title Insurance Company]” (Los Angeles Times, July 27, 1887 – via Newspapers.com)

+ “Roman Artists Is In Love with Pasadena” (Pasadena Star, December 30, 1911 – via Newspapers.com)

+ Sanborn Map Company: “Image 17 of Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Pasadena, Los Angeles County, California” (1903 – via Library of Congress)

+ Spitzzeri, Paul R.: “From Point A to Point B: A Stock Certificate for the Sierra Madre and Antelope Valley Toll Road Company, 16 January 1896” (The Homestead Blog, January 16, 2020)

+ Stovall, Margaret: “Mother of 3 Would Trade Eye for Operation” (Pasadena Star-News, June 5, 1952 – via Newspapers.com)

+ “To Make Home Here.” (Pasadena Star, November 29, 1911 – via Newspapers.com)

+ “Two New Enterprises.” (Los Angeles Evening Express, January 15, 1896 – via Newspapers.com)

+ “Wanted – Houses” (Pasadena Star-News, August 26, 1916 – via Newspapers.com)