The basic idea of the bungalow court is simple: detached units surrounding a central courtyard or walkway. That’s it. There are 30 Pasadena examples on the National Register of Historic Places. When I first embarked on this project I thought that was overkill, but I’ve come around on the idea. Visiting 30 of a single type of building, you come to appreciate how architects and builders adapt different styles to a basic format. You see the entire range of early-20th-century design tropes in the bungalow courts of Pasadena, from craftsman to tudor style, colonial revival to mission revival, even an art deco court. 

I also love the story that these bungalow courts collectively tell about Pasadena. The city’s court craze hit its peak between 1910 and 1930, at a time when Pasadena was transitioning from a tourist refuge for the wealthy to a sizable, diverse city. The bungalow court was a low-cost alternative for young couples, elderly folks, middle-class workers and single women who couldn’t afford a single-family home. They offered the privacy of a detached house, and the community you’d expect when your neighbors are just across the walkway. They were attractive to developers too – you could squeeze more cash out of a single lot if you built multiple units, as opposed to a single house.

Many of the Pasadena bungalow courts I’ve covered so far come with fun names, like Kosy Knook or Marengo Gardens. For part 4 of my grand tour of all of them, we’re looking at the courts that are known only by their addresses. I call them, THE NAMELESS.

#224: Court at 275 North Chester Avenue

Added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 15, 1994

I will grant you that 275 North Chester could use some TLC (I mean “tender loving care,” not the R&B group – everyone can use some of them). When I visited in late 2023, the stucco walls were dingy, the gray paint on the back staircase was peeling, and the cheap replacement aluminum windows looked very much like cheap replacement aluminum windows. 

Look past the surface grime, and you’ll find a unique one in the bungalow court annals. Stylistically, these six buildings (divided into 11 units) aren’t any one thing – they’ve got the red tiles and white stucco of mission revival, the multi-terraced layout of a Mediterranean village, even some aspects of pueblo design, with the round corners of the chimneys and the short wall at the entrance. Squint your eyes and you can even see some Irving Gill-style modernism in here. Flat roofs, arched corner porticos, unadorned walls. Simple lines, stacked in 3D layers.

Also check out the funky walkway, with misshapen concrete pieces connecting and curving to each doorway. Lined by small shrubs, it’s a heck of a promenade.

This court was built in 1928 by an unknown contractor, and designed by an unknown architect for the original owner, Fern Parlee. Structurally, it looks much the same as it did. It really is a shame about those windows though, the original wood frame casement windows look just gorgeous in the black and white photos included in its National Register application. And the Spanish colonial-style iron lighting fixture that once hung between the two duplex units at the back has more recently been replaced by a fire extinguisher. Safety first! 

See inside pics of one of the units on Zillow.

#225: Court at 497-503 ½ North Madison Avenue

Added to the National Register of Historic Places on July 11, 1983

The three one-story buildings in this 1928 court are divided into eight total units. Architect A. Ritter designed a fun one here, each on a different plan, harmonized through their detailing. Clay tile roofs, wrought iron light standards, window grilles and arched doorways all connect with the Spanish colonial style that sprouted up all over Los Angeles in the 1920s. Love me an air vent made out of red tiles! 

The walkway’s narrow here, you’re definitely rubbing elbows with your neighbors. But it’s enlivened by some colorful plantings and beautiful brick chimneys attached to the front two units. They’re particularly striking against the current light gray paint job. 

It can be tough to reconstruct the stories of the countless normal people that have lived in a bungalow court over the years, but I was able to dig up one bit of info: on June 7 of 1945, the Los Angeles Times printed the names of 45 American soldiers freed from war prison camps in Germany. Among them was 2nd Lt. Harold F. Morrison, a resident of 497 ½ North Madison Street. 

If you visit, make sure to visit Cypress Court just up the street at 623 North Madison, and the granddaddy of them all: Bowen Court, right around the corner on Villa Street.

See interior pics on Zillow.

#226: Court at 533-549 North Lincoln Avenue

Added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 15, 1994

Here we have a great example of a late craftsman bungalow court. The small craftsman bungalows from this era tended to be less detailed than their earlier counterparts – nobody’s going to confuse these units for a Greene & Greene or a Sylvanus Marston – but they still retain the signature wide porches and rafter tails, low-pitched roofs and window bands of the classic stuff. This one’s also unique because of the driveway that runs right down the middle to the parking area in the back, where a walkway would normally be.

In their current incarnation, the four units of the Court at 533-549 North Lincoln Avenue are united by the symmetry of their layout, a cohesive color scheme and continuous upkeep by its current owner. The cohesion is all the more impressive because these four buildings were constructed in three phases, by two different contractors.

Original owner T.G. Grabham commissioned architect G.W. Tombleson to build the two southernmost units in 1922, the same year that Tombleson’s Kosy Knook Court was completed. Contractors Whitescarver & Pieton are listed on the building permit for both of those initial units, plus a third one, finished in 1923 without an architect. Finally in 1925 the northeast unit was built, with Joseph G. Roth listed as contractor, and again no architect. It’s possible that the third and fourth units were designed by their contractors, based on the first two. But there’s another intriguing explanation, proffered by the National Register application: two of the units closely resemble style 79 in a Pacific Ready Cut catalog printed in 1923, suggesting they may have been kit homes. 

This court was dangerously close to demolition in the late 1970s. Rusnak Auto Group, one of the big luxury car dealers in Pasadena, had bought it along with a bunch of other properties in the “Lincoln Avenue triangle,” defined by Lincoln Avenue, Orange Grove Boulevard and the 210 freeway. Rusnak and a few other dealers wanted to build an 18-acre auto center there, a plan that would have displaced over 100 families, mostly minorities and lower-income people, plus an elementary school and the Japanese Cultural Institute. As you can imagine, local homeowners and preservationists were none too happy with this idea. Ultimately the plan fizzled after the US Department of Housing and Urban Development rejected Pasadena’s request for $3 million in funding. 

After visiting the Court at 533-549 North Lincoln Avenue, I had a long phone chat with its affable owner, Peggy Names. As it turns out, Names has personal connections to the art and architecture of early 20th century LA. When she was younger, Names lived above the garage of a craftsman home that her great-grandparents had built, on South Normandie. Her great aunt was Vivian Stringfield, a respected painter working in Pasadena in the early 1900s.

She purchased the court in 2001, at a time when Rusnak was finally selling off a bunch of the houses they had bought 20+ years earlier. Years of deferred maintenance and low-quality alterations resulted in sagging porches, falling ceilings and an underpowered electrical system for the whole complex. The original roofs had been replaced by ugly composition mats, and hardwood floors were covered over. Windows were broken and built-ins were busted. One unit had suffered a fire, and needed both its drywall and all of its external siding replaced.

Names soon got to work rehabbing the units one by one. She modernized the electrical and plumbing systems, ripped up linoleum and carpet to expose the original hardwood underneath where she could, and installed new hardwood flooring where that wasn’t possible. All the roofs were redone, and the old hollow slab doors were replaced with custom-made wood ones. Where siding needed to be replaced, Names replaced it with high-quality redwood; to fix the broken glass, she spent extra for authentic wavy glass, like they would have used in the 1920s. She also had to close off the basement on the northeast unit, after a skunk found its way inside through a trapdoor!

Clearly, this is the kind of landlord you want at a historic property. Keeping it nice is a family matter for Names: her son and granddaughter live in one of the units, and in previous years, her boyfriend’s dad and son lived in two other units. But she prides herself on treating her other tenants with dignity, too. She told me the sad story of one woman she had to kick out, because her son fell in with a bad crowd and would deal drugs at the property. Names waived the last month’s rent, and drove the mom around to check out new places to live. 

So what does she look for in a prospective tenant? Names tells me that she likes people who appreciate the craftsman era, and care about the community aspect of bungalow court life. They need to “know what front porch culture is,” in her words. And they need to enjoy gardening.

It seems like some strange cosmic twist of fate, or something out of a Pynchon novel, that someone named Peggy Names would own a nameless bungalow court. For her part, Names refers to the Court at 533-549 North Lincoln Avenue as simply “Lincoln Court.”

Thank you to Peggy Names, owner of the Court at 533-549 North Lincoln Avenue, for supplying all of the interior photos of her lovely court and giving me the whole background on its evolution.

#227: Court at 638-650 Mar Vista Avenue

Added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 15, 1994

The fabulously-named Karl Valentine moved to Pasadena in 1924, and was soon designing and building bungalow courts like this one from 1927, a pretty standard U-shaped situation with four single-story units facing each other across the courtyard, plus a duplex in the back. The bungalows cost a tidy $1,500 each to build, with the duplex running him $3,000.

The National Register application calls it “simplified colonial revival,” and I suppose there’s something of the 18th century in the clapboard siding and columned porticoes. But it also reads as craftsman here, with its overhanging eaves and square columns that mirror the vertical muntins of the doors. Each of those doors has a sidelight in similar style, very typical of craftsman architecture. 

Interior pics show some mouthwatering details for the craftsman lover: crown moldings and paneled wainscoting, hardwood floors and a handsome (sadly-filled-in) fireplace.

The Court at 638-650 Mar Vista Avenue is more spacious than a lot of the courts of the late ‘20s, which tended to pack in more units into narrower lots. At this one there’s enough room for two parallel concrete walkways, and even a small soccer goal in between them, as I saw when I visited.

In the back of this bungalow court you’ll find two additional buildings, formerly a garage and storage building, now both used for parking. They’ve lost a lot of their original features, so they’re no longer considered part of the historic fabric of this court.

PS: Karl Valentine and his wife lived in unit 642, and celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary here in 1959!

See interior pics of unit 636 on the Compass website.

#228: Court at 732-744 Santa Barbara Street

Added to the National Register of Historic Places on July 11, 1983

Yes it’s another Spanish colonial! But this five-unit court is more eclectic see, because of the uncharacteristic Doric columns that support the gabled porch roofs at the entryways, and a very questionable rock veneer lining the bottom 60% of the facades on the front two units. Kind of a hybrid of craftsman-style river rock and…boba? It’s unclear when those additions were made, but I would bet my last bungalow bux that the rock veneer isn’t original. There’s plenty of arroyo river rock to be found in OG craftsman bungalows, but the stucco + rock layer cake is too bizarre a combination for 1922.

There’s a set of apartments way in the back of this property, called unit #738, which  was apparently constructed In 1956 and isn’t part of the historic fabric of this bungalow court. 

#229: Court at 1274-1282 North Raymond Avenue

Added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 15, 1994

Here is another nameless court from Karl Valentine, the same architect/builder behind 638-650 Mar Vista Avenue. It bears some resemblance to that later court, including its basic five-unit, U-shaped layout, and the mashup of craftsman and colonial revival styles. Seems like Valentine favored a raised concrete foundation and an entry portico supported by thin square columns.

This 1925 court shows the wear and tear of its near century of existence. Much of the clapboard siding is splotchy and the window frames are falling apart. And in this visitor’s humble opinion, some of the minor alterations to the place have made it less inviting. The dark trim around the windows, doors, porticos and corners were repainted white, detracting from some of the craftsman details of the place. Metal security doors cover the original wooden doors, and a strip of grass in the central walkway, visible in photos from 1993, was covered over in brick at some point.

Still, when I visited back in December 2023, the Court at 1274-1282 North Raymond showcased its use as a vibrant, communal living space. Some men were chatting in a small brick-lined open space in front of #1282. Tables, folding chairs and brooms leaned against the siding, and a kid-size Jeep sat in a dirt patch in front of the back unit. A big sunshade was hung over the courtyard between the middle two units. Signs of community, signs of life. 

Sources & Recommended Reading

+ Anderton, Frances: Common Ground: Multifamily Housing in Los Angeles (Angel City Press, 2022)

+ Anderton, Frances & David Kersh: “Awesome and Affordable: Great Housing Now!” (FORTLA.org, 2024)

+ “Bungalow Courts: LA’s Best Housing No One Builds Anymore” (Video – @metamodernism on YouTube, Mar 1, 2024)

+ “Bungalow Courts in Pasadena” (Pasadena Planning & Community Development Department)

+ City of Pasadena: Permit Center Online (cityofpasadena.net)

+ Court at 497-503 ½ North Madison Avenue’s NRHP nomination form

+ Gish, Todd Douglas: “Bungalow Court Housing in Los Angeles, 1900-1930: Top-down Innovation? Or Bottom-up Reform?” (Southern California Quarterly, Vol. 91, No. 4, Winter 2009-2010)

+ Kliwinski, Leonard & James C. Wilson, Thirtieth Street Architects, Inc.: Court at 275 North Chester Avenue’s NRHP nomination form

+ Kliwinski, Leonard & James C. Wilson, Thirtieth Street Architects, Inc.: Court at 533-549 North Lincoln Avenue’s NRHP nomination form

+ Kliwinski, Leonard & James C. Wilson, Thirtieth Street Architects, Inc.: Court at 638-650 Mar Vista Avenue’s NRHP nomination form

+ Kliwinski, Leonard & James C. Wilson, Thirtieth Street Architects, Inc.: Court at 1274-1282 North Raymond Avenue’s NRHP nomination form

+ Mann, Bert: “Report of Funding Denial Kills Pasadena Auto Center” (Los Angeles Times, March 2, 1978 – via ProQuest)

+ “Names of 45 Freed From Nazis Released” (Los Angeles Times, June 7, 1945 – via ProQuest)

+ Pacific Ready-Cut Homes: “125 Pacific Homes: California’s Choicest Designs” (via Internet Archive, 1923)

+ Sicha, Richard J., Pasadena Heritage: Bungalow Courts of Pasadena NRHP nomination form

+ “WEDDING JUBILEES: Karl Valentine” (Los Angeles Times, November 8, 1959 – via ProQuest)