Harold J. Bissner.
Harold J. Bissner and Harold J. Bissner Jr., Pasadena architects from the 1920s into the 1960s.
Two Pasadena architects share this name. Harold J. Bissner designed the Broadway Building at 24; built in 1924, it is what the Old Pasadena Historic District nomination calls his first work. He went on to Spanish Colonial Revival and Mediterranean houses in Pasadena and San Marino, alone and as Bissner & Howard. Harold J. Bissner Jr., born in 1925, became a well-known Pasadena architect who went on to acclaim as a modernist. This record holds 20 houses credited to the two of them and the firm.
Who was Harold J. Bissner?
A Pasadena architect whose first work, according to the Old Pasadena Historic District National Register nomination, was the Broadway Building, designed when he was 24. That nomination credits the building to Harold J. Bissner, Sr. and Howard, and this record also holds an earlier Bissner credit, a 1923 house at 703 North Chester Avenue, so the two documents do not agree on which came first.
In 1924 and 1925 he practiced as Bissner & Howard: a Tudor-influenced cottage on South Pasadena Avenue, a Mediterranean house on Armada Drive that Cyril Bennett later enlarged, and a Monterey-influenced Spanish Colonial Revival house on Wigmore Drive. In 1927 and 1928 he was designing Spanish Colonial Revival houses on Glen Summer Road, where the city's 2015 report on the landmark district names him a significant architect with designs on five properties; this record holds three of them, at 119, 128 and 136 Glen Summer Road. The 1927 building notices add San Marino houses, among them 2717 Fleur Drive and 1460 Saint Albans Road.
Who was Harold J. Bissner Jr.?
Harold J. Bissner Jr. (1925 to 2020) became a well-known Pasadena architect and went on to acclaim as a modernist. With Harold B. Zook he designed the windmill and folded plate prototype for Van de Kamp's coffee shops in 1967. A 2014 city landmark report on 833 to 861 South Orange Grove Boulevard, a group of buildings from 1958, credits Harold Bissner with 843 to 853, Harold Bissner Jr. with 833 to 841, and James G. Resh with 855 to 861.
Which houses did the Bissners design?
They run from the 1923 English Revival house at 703 North Chester Avenue in Bungalow Heaven to postwar ranch houses on Prospect Boulevard in 1946 and Rosemont Avenue in 1954. For those two, the nomination prints Harold Bissner without saying whether it means Harold J. Bissner or Harold J. Bissner Jr., and the table below keeps the name as printed. The county record confirms 16 of these houses standing.
One credit does not fit. An Arcadia landmark record credits Harold J. Bissner Jr. with the house at 1230 Oakwood Drive, and both that record and the county date it 1941, when he was 15 or 16. No document here resolves it, and the record keeps the credit as Arcadia gives it and marks it unresolved.
Who can tell me if my house is a Bissner?
I can look. I'm Greg Anderson of Arroyo Casa. If you think one of the Bissners drew your house, send me the address and I'll tell you what the record shows, and which Bissner it names.
Every building credited to Harold J. Bissner and Harold J. Bissner Jr.
Buildings the record credits to Harold J. Bissner, Harold J. Bissner Jr., Bissner & Howard, Harold Bissner, 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.
- Prospect Park · 4 of these houses
- Bungalow Heaven · 1 of these houses
- Alhambra
- Arcadia
- Pasadena
- San Marino
- The 1927 Valley House Record
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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