More on the Durand mansion

As you may have noticed, landscape planner Mayita Dinos (who did indeed design Arlington Garden), left a nice comment on that thread.

She was kind enough to forward several photos of the Durand mansion, which once stood on that site.

The Durand mansion.

It was a massive pile—heavy and ornate, would-be casual yet hopelessly ponderous in a late 19th-century way that the Greene brothers and other Craftsman-era architects strove to clear their (and our) heads of.

A carriage ride in Pasadena's year-round summer.

The house looks like a curiosity from a bygone era in the 1961 photo below, in which I assume it must be playing host (somewhat unwillingly, one suspects) to the Pasadena Showcase House for the Arts. These ladies seem to be regarding it with the same curious air with which they would have studied a dinosaur skeleton at the Natural History Museum.

The house in 1961.

As Mayita explains, "The Durand house had a planting of Cherokee roses all the way down Arlington Drive. We have planted Cherokee roses along the split rail fence [at Arlington Garden] to commemorate the Durand house."

View of Arlington Drive and other large houses on Orange Grove Boulevard.