Added to the National Register on August 20, 2004

I gasped the first time I pulled up in front of the House at 1487 Loma Vista Street. In one sense it’s very much in line with all the craftsman bungalows you found all over Pasadena in the 1910s. Shingled walls, wide low eaves, a wraparound porch, bands of casement windows, earth tones, all the craftsman trimmings. But then you look at those chunky rafter tails that swing upwards like the end of a ski. Or the exaggerated peaks atop each gable. Or the wooden sections of the piers that hold up the overhang, also uplifted at the ends – they look like half the column was frozen mid-explosion, or like a blueprint that came to life. That stuff? Not so common.

There’s a pronounced East Asian influence in all of the above. The thick interlocking wooden brackets beneath the eaves? That’s an example of dougong, a practice that the Chinese developed a couple millennia ago. Those exaggerated gable peaks, and curved rafter ends? I’d argue it’s a reference to traditional Buddhist and Shinto temple architecture from China and Japan, which often feature curved rooflines that turn up at the corners to ward off demons (and to help rain and snow slide off).

As I see it, the East Asian design expressions in the House at 1487 Loma Vista aren’t so much deviations from the craftsman template as they are stylized versions of aesthetic moves that craftsman architects were already making in the early 1900s. In the decades after Commodore Matthew C. Perry forcibly opened up Japanese ports to western trade, Japanese design aesthetics became wildly popular in America. Especially as Japan began participating at international expositions. 

The great craftsman architects Greene & Greene first encountered Japanese architecture in person at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, in Chicago, as they were en route to Pasadena where their parents lived. You can see its impact on their work at least as early as 1897, in their house for their relative Howard Longley.

The brothers Greene would become masters at blending East Asian design tropes with local materials for a quintessentially Californian style of home. Here at the House at 1487 Loma Vista you’ll see some of those signature Greene-isms. For example the “cloud lift” motif on the horizontal balustrades, between the porch columns? That same pattern, derived from Chinese furniture, is all over the Gamble House in a million variations. 

For all its clear precedents, the House at 1487 Loma Vista looks fresh in the context of its neighborhood, and very much like it belongs where it is. The colors, the organic materials, the horizontality, it all merges perfectly with its deeply landscaped lot, dominated by a huge sugar pine on the front lawn.

Such a distinctive home must have been the product of an experienced, pedigreed architect with a finger on the pulse of home design, right? Well as I was scouring the Craftsman Homes group on Facebook, I learned that the House at 1487 Loma Vista was most likely chosen from a catalog: it sure does resemble plan No. 440 of the Plan-Kraft catalog, published in 1913 by the De Luxe Building Company, designers and contractors “for progressive people who wish to build homes that are different.” 

De Luxe was founded and owned by Ada Bell Maescher, once described by the Los Angeles Times in 1922 as “perhaps the country’s most successful woman contractor.” Which would have put her in league with one of my favorite women in LA history, Florence Casler, Queen of the Garment District. 

Ms. Maescher was successful enough with De Luxe that she parlayed her financial momentum into a second career as a film producer. Probably her best known contribution to that world was the 1922 silent film Night Life in Hollywood, a light comedy intended to counter Hollywood’s reputation as a “sensual Babylon” (in the parlance of screenwriter Fred Caldwell) by showcasing the kindliness and domestic normalcy of the film celebrity class. Later on Maescher financed a lavish production of Verdi’s Aida at the Hollywood Bowl. Maescher was also a respected bird photographer, and a member of the Southern California Nature Club, Audubon Society and Cooper Ornithological Club.

Back to the house: A couple weeks after I published this article, I received a very helpful comment from Pasadena historian John Ripley which filled in a lot of details about its origin and design. Here’s an excerpt:

The city directories show that the designer who worked for De Luxe in 1912 and early 1913 (at least) was Rex D. Weston (1884-1967), and he is a very good candidate to be the designer of #440. His presence at De Luxe was no accident – in 1908 he married Roxye May Thompson, the daughter of Ada Maescher from her first marriage. In 1914 Weston opened his own office as an architectural designer, and then in 1917 he became manager (and later owner) of the Bungalowcraft Co plan book publishers.

-John Ripley

It’s unclear who commissioned the House at 1487 Loma Vista, but the first occupants I could track down were Reginald & Maud Black, two Canadians who came to Pasadena in 1907, and moved into the house at least as early as 1915. They raised six kids here. According to the 1930 census, Reginald was a chauffeur for a private family (as was one of his sons). Reginald’s obituary states that he was also a member of the Pasadena Presbyterian Church, so chances are that the Blacks opted for this particular home because they liked how it looked, not because it resembled a Shinto or Buddhist temple 😉

The few mentions of this house that I could find in old papers offered small scraps about the family’s life there – marriage announcements for the Blacks’ four daughters, an announcement of their son Robert getting hired by Pacific Air Transport (a Boeing subsidiary) in 1931…and Maud occasionally hosted meetings of the Urbano Club, a combination charitable organization and sewing circle.

Reginald Black died in 1966, and Maud followed in 1979. The first mention I see in building permits of a non-Black owning the house is in the 1980s, so I’m guessing the family sold it after their matriarch passed away. There have been plenty of alterations made over the years, during the Black era and afterwards, but nothing too major aside from the enclosure of an original sleeping porch on the second floor, now used as bedrooms. The original chimney was clad in stucco, the kitchen was remodeled, the roof was redone multiple times, and the whole thing was seismically retrofitted in the early ‘90s. The current owners added a pool and installed solar panels.

While I haven’t tracked down any photos of the inside, the National Register application for the House at 1487 Loma Vista offers some insights. It has the standard assortment of roomage: a living room, dining room, kitchen (with a breakfast nook!), laundry and office. At least as of 2004, there were oak hardwood floors and Douglas fir trim, plus an original “roll-out bed that is encased in a built-in secretary/bookshelf assemblage” in the office downstairs. 

It’s okay if I never get to see the interior with my own eyes. The fact that the House at 1487 Loma Vista looks so immaculate from the street after 112 years, and nearly 30 years of ownership by its current occupants? That suggests that it’s in the right hands. We should all be so attractive and full of personality at 112. 

Resources & Recommended Reading

+ “Andrew Reginald Black” (familysearch.org)

+ “Arrow presents an A.B. Maescher productions: “Night Life in Hollywood” (AD – via San Pedro News-Pilot

+ Binheim, Max, editor in chief: Women of the West (Publishers Press, 1928 – via Internet Archive)

+ “BLACK – Andrew R. Black obituary” (Pasadena Independent, Oct 25, 1966 – via Newspapers.com

+ “Church Wedding Is Selected By Bride” (Pasadena Star-News, March 19, 1928 – via Newspapers.com)

+ “Hollywood ‘Night Life” (Los Angeles Times, May 3, 1922 – via ProQuest)

+ “Japanese Influence On Western Architecture Part 1: The Early Period (Pre-Edo To Craftsmen Movement)” (NakamotoForestry.com)

+ “Japanese Influence on Western Architecture Part 2: The Early Craftsman Movement” (NakamotoForestry.com)

+ “Maud Black in household of Reginald A. Black, US Census, 1930” (familysearch.org)

+ Mermilliod, Jennifer M.A. & Janet Hansen M.A., revised from nomination by Christy McAvoy, Historic Resources Group: House at 1487 Loma Vista Street’s NRHP nomination form

+ “Mrs. A.B. Maescher Enters Movie Production Field” (Los Angeles Evening Express, Sep 16, 1922 – via Newspapers.com)

+ “Nuptial Vows Taken at Home Rites (Pasadena Star-News, June 8, 1933 – via Newspapers.com)

+ “Plan-Kraft: Two Story Houses” (De Luxe Building Co., 1913 – via Internet Archive)

+ Sanborn Map Company: “Vol. 3, Sheet 375 of Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Pasadena, Los Angeles County, California” (1931 – via ProQuest)

+ “Simple Service Marks Nuptials” (Pasadena Star-News,·August 11, 1930

 – via Newspapers.com)

+ Supports Opera “Aida” At Bowl (Los Angeles Evening Citizen News, September 11, 1923 – via Newspapers.com)

+ “The Urbano Club is meeting…” (Pasadena Star-News, December 1, 1915 – via Newspapers.com)

+ “With Air Line” (The Pasadena Post, May 30, 1931 – via Newspapers.com)