Charles W. Buchanan.
Born 1852, died 1921. Pasadena architect from the mid-1880s.
Charles W. Buchanan came to Pasadena in the mid-1880s and began a design and construction business there. He trained in carpentry and the mill supply trade in Indiana and studied architecture for more than six years. His work ran from Foursquare houses to Craftsman bungalows, the Braley Building and, with Leon C. Brockway, Reinway Court, a bungalow court. This record credits him on 28 buildings, 18 of them houses.
Who was Charles W. Buchanan?
Born February 15, 1852, he moved to Pasadena in the mid-1880s for his health; he died in 1921. The documents disagree on where he was born: one nomination says Indiana, another calls Illinois his native state. His work was featured in The Craftsman and the Ladies' Home Journal, and he also designed and built speculative houses on smaller lots to sell. He was president of the Pasadena City Railway, and one account credits him with Pasadena becoming known as the City of Beautiful Homes.
From 1916 he kept an office in the Chamber of Commerce Building and practiced with Leon C. Brockway as Buchanan & Brockway, whom the bungalow court nomination counts among the leading Pasadena architects.
What did Charles W. Buchanan design?
In this record: Foursquare houses on North Raymond Avenue and Bellefontaine Street, the Ford Place houses at 120, 130 and 150 North Oakland Avenue from 1903 to 1905, Markham Place houses at 753 South St. John Avenue and 276 Markham Place, the Craftsman bungalow at 1112 South Pasadena Avenue, and two 1911 bungalows at 742 and 750 North Chester Avenue in Bungalow Heaven.
Did Buchanan design ordinary houses or only grand ones?
Both. His speculative houses on smaller lots were built to sell, and his two 1911 houses on North Chester Avenue are one-story Craftsman bungalows in Bungalow Heaven. His name turns up on many different streets.
Who can tell me what the record says about my Buchanan house?
I can. I'm Greg Anderson of Arroyo Casa. If you own a house on one of these streets, send me the address and I'll show you which document credits Buchanan, and what it says about the house, before you decide anything.
Every building credited to Charles W. Buchanan.
Buildings the record credits to Charles W. Buchanan, Buchanan & Brockway, in the order they were built. Commercial buildings and courts are included here because they are part of the maker's work; the neighborhood, city and year pages list houses only.
Where to look next.
- Markham Place · 3 of these houses
- Bungalow Heaven · 2 of these houses
- The Lower Arroyo Seco · 1 of these houses
- La Cañada Flintridge
- Pasadena
- South Pasadena
How this record is built.
This record is compiled by the Arroyo Casa Archive of Records from public documents: city and county historic resources surveys and inventories, National Register nominations, landmark designation reports and council records, planning documents and preservation groups' publications, plus the building notices of 1917 to 1930, printed as houses were permitted, contracted or announced. Where a house was matched to the Los Angeles County Assessor's record at the same address in the same city, the page says whether the county confirms it standing. A house is shown only when one of those documents names its architect, and the builder and the first family are shown beside the architect where a document names them. Each house carries the kind of document behind it, and a credit the document itself calls likely, probable, possible or attributed is marked attributed. The methodology and every source document are on one page.
Find who designed your house.
Every house has a birth year. Start with the owner's guide: how to find who designed and built your house, who lived in it first, and what this record already holds.
ArroyoCasa.com · (310) 402-8430 · greg@arroyocasa.com
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