Added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 25, 1979

The Holly Street Livery Stable is an exceptional building for a lot of reasons. It’s partly the mottled old brick that surrounds it – at 120+ years old, it predates most of the brick in Old Town Pasadena. It’s partly the old barn and hayloft doors on the north wall, remnants of the days when most vehicles were horsepowered. But the truly unique thing about this building is its trapezoidal shape, forced by the curving alleyway to its east. 

Since 2016, that alley has been known as Big Bang Theory Way, in honor of the eponymous TV show that was set in Pasadena. But from 1887 all the way through 1994, it was a right-of-way for the railroad (first the Santa Fe, later Amtrak) which passed through that narrow corridor on its way to downtown LA. Check out these 1979 photos to see how close the tracks were to the stable. Gotta imagine that spooked more than a few horses – and humans, too! Just imagine stumbling out of Barney’s Beanery on Colorado Boulevard, and immediately coming face to face with a massive passenger train, whizzing by. No thanks! I’ll grab my Pasadena pint at Lucky Baldwin’s instead. 

The story of the Holly Street Livery Stable begins in early 1901, when Jean Cazaurang paid $10 to Pasadena developers Charles and Algeo Legge for that oddly-shaped wedge of land at the corner of Locust Street (later renamed Holly Street) and Legge Alley, just east of Raymond Avenue. His connection to the building is immortalized by the “J. CAZAURANG” sunken into the facade on Holly Street.

Cazaurang was a successful rancher and farmer from the Basque Country. He moved to Pasadena in the late 1800s with his wife Martha, and by 1901 had become “one of the most extensive hay and alfalfa growers in the San Gabriel Valley” according to the Los Angeles Herald. That was a big year for Cazaurang. Just a couple months after purchasing the lot from the Legges, he was struck by an electric trolley while driving a wagon loaded with hay across Fair Oaks Avenue. Then in September, he was arrested for storing 30 tons of baled hay at his warehouse on Mills Alley, three times the 10-ton legal limit allowed for fire safety reasons. Cazaurang avoided jail by paying a $5 fine; I’m sure there’s a “bale bond” joke to be made somewhere in there. 

While we don’t know exactly why Cazaurang built the Holly Street Livery Stable, a 1903 Sanborn Map indicates a “baled hay ware ho.” on the spot, plus two sheds to the south of it. Given his past run-ins with the hay police, it’s probable that this was a storage station for hay that he would sell to local businesses.

By 1906 Cazaurang had sold the stable and purchased the large Rancho Guejito in Escondido, where he lived for many years, ranching and acquiring more property in California and Nevada. He was shot to death in 1929 by a hired man at his Pahrump Ranch near Tonopah, Nevada. The $4 million estate he left behind was the subject of a drawn-out court battle between his estranged ex-wife and his cousin/housekeeper, both of whom produced contradictory wills. 

The stable’s National Register application mentions that it was used for hitching horses that participated in some of the early Rose Parades, and was even a site for constructing floats. During World War I it became a Red Cross Thrift Store, with proceeds going to the war effort. 

The first long-term user of the Holly Street Livery Stable was a prominent Pasadena merchant named John Breiner, proprietor of the City Market butcher shop since the late 1880s. Breiner kept his 22 horses at the stable for daily deliveries from his shop, just two blocks away. Newspaper stories from the 1910s frequently mention Breiner as a petitioner for improvements along Holly Street. For example in 1914, Pasadena mandated that businesses construct brick or cement pits to contain horse manure, and Breiner asked for permission to just clean his horse poop regularly, as he always had. Then in 1920, Breiner signed on to a petition to extend Holly Street all the way west to Orange Grove Boulevard, with the intention of creating more crosstown business streets (little could he have known that this plan would ultimately be abandoned in 1932, after more than a decade of public badmouthing and legal drama). 

John Breiner also merits a footnote in Pasadena’s architectural history, as the man who commissioned the second ever home designed by Greene & Greene. This was in 1894, years before they developed their signature craftsman style, most famously employed at the Gamble and Blacker Houses.

In 1926 Breiner opened a new, much larger market at 682-684 East Colorado Street (later Colorado Boulevard). It’s tough to pinpoint when City Market stopped using the Holly Street Livery Stable, but the City Market eventually switched to cars, and around 1930 Breiner’s son sold the family business. That same year the Holly Street Livery Stable was advertised as a “large storeroom” for “$60 month” in newspaper ads.

The building held a number of businesses from the 1930s onwards. The Pasadena Spring & Bumper Company in the mid-’30s, two separate roofing companies in the 1940s and early ‘50s, a car shop in the mid-’50s, then the Bromley Brown Co. antique warehouse as of the late ‘50s. The National Register application, written in 1979, described its use at the time as a furniture warehouse. Even today, you can see faded ghost signs of past businesses on the brick of the Holly Street side. 

The Holly Street Livery Stable was added to the National Register at a transitional time for both the building and for Old Town Pasadena. The area was a commercial deadzone by the 1970s, its aging buildings slowly decaying and the vacancy rate hovering around 70%. The city’s new Pasadena Redevelopment Agency adopted a policy of demolition and rebuilding, with one plan calling for the total demolition of the historic area surrounding west Colorado Boulevard, aside from a three-block themed shopping area on Holly Street. 

That never happened thanks to pushback from the local community. The newly-formed Pasadena Heritage worked with a small urban planning/architecture firm The Arroyo Group to develop a plan to rehabilitate Old Town into a commercially viable corridor that would combine retail, entertainment and residential options. The city changed its tune, passing an Urban Conservation Overlay Zone in 1979 that barred many of the old buildings from destruction, and built a framework for future growth. 

The Holly Street Livery Stable was part of that early wave of Old Town’s new era. In February of 1980, the Los Angeles Times announced that a new branch of the Josephina’s restaurant chain was set to open there, after a $500,000 renovation. One of the owners was Dick Krell, former VP of Security Pacific National Bank, who left the banking world to operate Josephina’s; investors included a Dunkin Donuts advertising executive and a gold medal-winning Olympic pole vaulter.

During renovation, the Josephina’s crew preserved whatever wood that they could – the stable and hayloft doors, and one of the original window frames – but they had to replace the timber roof, and removed decades of paint jobs and whitewash from the brick walls. The inside ended up far swankier than it was during its livery stable days, with wood paneling, a huge fireplace from Chicago’s famous Stockyard Inn (which had just been demolished in 1979), and long bars taken from a Wisconsin bank and an old English barbershop. Art and antiques lined the wall, and lounge musicians played ‘til the wee hours. The Monrovia News-Post complimented Josephina’s “interesting menu of fresh fish, steaks, veal and pasta dishes plus pizza” in 1981, calling it “one of the most delightful restaurants in San Gabriel Valley.”

By late 1985 Josephina’s had rebranded as Harper’s Livery. Owner Dick Krel remained onboard, and the general thrust of the menu doesn’t seem to have changed that much; the South Pasadena Review singled out the fettuccine alfredo, veal with forest mushrooms and cream of vegetable soup for special kudos. Then in 1989 restaurateur Bill Maldonado opened a high-end Mexican restaurant called Tecolote in the old livery stable, which had a three-year run slinging mole, tamales, sopes and cactus salads. An ad from 1996 shows an art dealership with the bizarre name “MUS 9e=ch,” offering a three-day-only sale of “abandoned, relinquished & repossessed” works by Ed Ruscha, David Hockney, Willem de Kooning, Jenny Holzer, John Baldessari and others. 

During the ‘90s and early 2000s, the livery stable was converted into office space. Building permits show a whole variety of businesses working out of it as tenants. A car broker, a software company and a credit reporting agency all spent time in the space where horses were once housed and saddled. As of 2014 the stable was up for sale by Berkshire Hathaway. 

Finally in 2022 it was sold to its current owner for $6 million. While the specifics about the new business aren’t clear, permits from 2024 and 2025 suggest that it’s turning into a “recording sound studio and private office space,” with improvements to include new “landscaping, accessibility and seismic upgrades, exterior work [including] new windows and doors, new roofing, and masonry repointing.” Inside, they’ve planned work on the foundation, new partition walls and ceilings.

I checked in on the Holly Street Livery Stable in October 2025 and May 2026, and both times the patio area to the south was filled with trucks and long wood beams, waiting to be installed. Gone was the patio landscaping, tiled floor and south door pictured in this 2022 LA Business Journal article.

In May 2026 there was a trench running down the east side of the patio, presumably for plumbing or electrical wires. The easternmost barn door on the Holly Street side, replaced at some point with a contemporary door/window combo, is now filled in with a new wooden barn door to match the older one on the west. 

With all the fencing up, it’s impossible to tell how the inside is going to turn out. The new owner did request a variance in 2023 to allow for a lowered ceiling, so that’s something. But as long as that mottled brickwork stays intact, and the barn doors, hayloft doors and “J. CAZAURANG” signage are still visible, this old livery stable will still evoke plenty of its horse-’n-buggie origins. Just…maybe move the high-tech porta potty once the work is done.

Thanks to Nick Lewis and Robert Ross for their assistance with my photo research.

Resources & Recommended Reading

+ “$4,000,000 Crux of Estate Fight” (Pasadena Post, July 27, 1929 – via newspapers.com)

+ “Antique Sale” (AD – Pasadena Independent, December 12, 1958 – via newspapers.com)

+ “A Rare Art Opportunity” (AD – Los Angeles Times, May 18, 1996 – via newspapers.com)

+ Aushenker, Michael: “Pasadena Livery Stable Sells for $6M” (LA Business Journal, January 2, 2023)

+ Barasch, Stephen B.: Holly Street Livery Stable’s NRHP nomination form (March 1, 1979)

+ Berkshire Hathaway: California Properties (AD – Los Angeles Times, June 15, 2014 – via newspapers.com)

+ Clapp, W.B.: “Legge’s Central Tract, Pasadena. Cal.” (LA County Land Records, recorded January 7, 1896)

+ Craig, Jason M.: “The John Breiner House” (greeneandgreenesites.com)

+ Custance-Baker, Alice: “110 East Holly Street, Pasadena, CA, AKA Holly Street Livery Stable” (Building Stories blog, August 11, 2014)

+ Day, Eleanor: “Night by Day” (Monrovia News-Post, May 14, 1981 – via newspapers.com)

+ Dixon, Jim: “Ownership of Ranch Traced” (Daily TImes-Advocate, September 5, 1974 – via newspapers.com)

+ Finken, Marge: “Munchin’ with Marge” (News-Pilot, January 6, 1989 – via newspapers.com)

+ “Genuine Eastern Sweet Pickled Pork…” (AD – Pasadena Star, March 16, 1911 – via newspapers.com)

+ “Guejito Ranch Sold.” (Weekly Times-Advocate, May 3, 1907 – via newspapers.com)

+ “Harper’s Livery: A Historical Landmark” (AD – MOnrovia News-Post, July 23, 1986 – via newspapers.com)

+ “History of Old Pasadena” (oldpasadena.org)

+ “Holly Street Improvement Is Ordered” (Pasadena Star-News, August 3, 1920 – via newspapers.com)

+ Hubbard, Harold: “Transformed from Livery to Eatery” (Monrovia News-Post, January 18, 1981 – via newspapers.com)

+ “Jean Cazaurang Killed” (Daily Times-Advocate, June 17, 1929 – via newspapers.com)

+ “Jean Cazaurang Slayer Caught” (Daily Times-Advocate, June 18, 1929 – via newspapers.com)

+ Khrustaleva, Marina: “Pasadena Historic Building: From Hay to Heyday, and Back” (coloradoboulevard.net, March 1, 2022)

+ “Large Storeroom, $60 Month” (AD – Pasadena Post, June 6, 1930 – via newspapers.com)

+ “Lee & Associates – Pasadena Sells Pasadena’s Holly Street Livery Stable for $6,000,000” (Lee-associates.com, December 21, 2022)

+ Masters, Nathan: “CityDig: When the Railroad Rumbled Through Old Town Pasadena” (lamag.com, May 14, 2014)

+ “Object to Pits Made of Bricks” (Pasadena Star-News, October 30, 1914 – via newspapers.com)

+ “Old Livery Stable to Be Restaurant” (Los Angeles Times, February 3, 1980 – via newspapers.com)

+ Old Pasadena Continuation Committee: “Old Pasadena Property Business Improvement District Plan, Appendix 1: History of Efforts in Old Pasadena” (PDF – cityofpasadena.net, April 2005)

+ Park, Andrea: “‘Big Bang Theory’ gets street named after show” (CBSnews.com, February 26, 2016)

+ “Pasadena Brevities.” (Los Angeles Times, April 30, 1901 – via newspapers.com)

+ Pasadena building permits (cityofpasadena.net)

+ “Pasadena Hearing Officer to Decide on Historic Building Conversion, Restaurant with Live Entertainment, and Other Cases” (pasadenanow.com, August 14, 2023)

+ “Pasadenans Throng to Big Opening” (Pasadena Post, September 10, 1926 – via newspapers.com)

+ “Pasadena, Sept. 21. – John Cazaurang, a wealthy Frenchman…” (Los Angeles Herald, September 22, 1901 – via newspapers.com)

+ “Pasadena Spring & Bumper Co.” (AD – Pasadena Star-News, July 5, 1934 – via newspapers.com)

+ Perry, Charles: “RESTAURANT REVIEW : Tecolote: Mexican With an American Accent” (Los Angeles Times, April 7, 1989)

+ “Quejito Ranch Brings $150,000” (Los Angeles Evening Express, May 23, 1906 – via newspapers.com)

+ “Real Estate Transfers.” (Los Angeles Times, February 8, 1901 – via newspapers.com)

+ “Restaurant Is Historic Place” (Los Angeles TImes, October 19, 1980 – via newspapers.com)

+ “Rites to Be Held” (Pasadena Star News, October 2, 1933 – via newspapers.com)

+ Rivera, Eddie: “Cover Story: Building a Future on History, The Story of Old Pasadena” (pasadenanow.com, November 4, 2024)

+ “Round in Fight for Riches Won” (Los Angeles Times, July 27. 1929 – via newspapers.com)

+ Sanborn maps (via ProQuest)

+ Turnbull, Martin: “Looking north across Colorado Blvd at the back end of the Santa Fe Chief train, Pasadena, California, circa early 1950s” (martinturnbull.com, July 13, 2022)