Famous mapmaker combines Victorian England and Ottoman Turkey to Millionaire’s Row in Altadena

Added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 27, 2007

You may recognize the name of this house from Rand McNally, the famous map publishing company that Andrew McNally co-founded with William H. Rand in Chicago in 1868.

Back in 1887, when this house was built, Altadena was only a few years old. It was mostly agricultural land, but it had started to attract rich folk from the east, several of which built palatial mansions on Mariposa Ave. – hence the name “Millionaire’s Row.” Imagine what it must have been like to walk around Altadena in the late 1800s – acres of citrus groves, with only a few giant homes dotting the expanse, and the Verdugo mountains looming above. 

Designed by Frederick Roehrig (the architect of Hotel Green in Pasadena), the Andrew McNally House is a stately Queen Anne Victorian, all blue shingle and brick. An unusual octagonal structure on the west houses the jawdropping “Turkish room” – an Arabesque room adorned with patterned rugs, wood panels, silks and stencils of Arabic phrases on the walls.

It may seem weird that the house faces away from the street; but consider that at this stage of Altadena’s development, the McNallys would have had an obstructed view of the LA basin. This photo from ~1900 shows an eye-popping garden that seems to stretch all the way to the Pacific!

In a magical bit of happenstance, when we stopped by the McNally House, there was a woman outside the front door, overseeing some landscapers. She invited me onto the property and kindly let me get some more up close pictures. Turns out she and her husband bought the house in late August 2021, but hadn’t fully moved in yet because a film crew had just wrapped up shooting a TV series about pirates, somehow connected to “the guy who directed Jojo Rabbit,” as she explained. A little bit of Google sleuthing would suggest it’s Our Flag Means Death, an upcoming HBO Max series starring Taika Waititi as the pirate Blackbeard. 

Sure hope the new owners are keeping the Turkish room as is (and that they invite me over for a look-see!)

Recommended Reading

+Extensive video tour of the McNally House (Unlocking History with Brett Waterman)

+McNally House @ NRHP website

+LA Times story (with pictures) about the McNally House’s 2020 listing