La Casita del Arroyo

In 1933 the Pasadena Garden Club sponsored the construction of this house and garden as a public works project during the Great Depression. Architect Myron Hunt designed the small structure, which was constructed out of boulders from the nearby Arroyo Seco and lumber from a bicycle track built for the 1932 Olympics. By the 1980s, the wedge-shaped property was at risk from erosion, perched precariously on a cliff above the creek. Landscape architects Isabelle Greene and Yosh Befu were engaged to design a new garden, but while work was underway a fire destroyed everything except the stone walls of the house. With funds raised by Los Angeles County and the Pasadena Garden Club, the house was rebuilt, and the new landscape was completed in 1988. Greene and Befu’s gardens are defined by river-rock walls, large granite boulders, perennial planting beds, and winding paths paved in decomposed granite. Native plants from California and the Mediterranean are used throughout, serving as a horticultural resource for the surrounding community. The drought-tolerant plantings were placed beside popular xerophobous species as a demonstration of the former’s equal attractiveness and utility. The Butterfly Sanctuary, which overlooks the Arroyo Seco, is planted with mature oaks, poppies, blue-eyed grass, columbine, and coral bells. The property is separated from the traffic of Arroyo Boulevard by a low stone wall and iron gates, as well as a band of evergreen trees, shrubs, and oakleaf hydrangea. The Pasadena Garden Club managed the house and grounds until 1994, when the La Casita Foundation was established as the proprietor of the site. The property was listed in the National Register of Historic Place in 2001 as part of the Lower Arroyo Seco nomination.