Harry Ridgway.
The first architect to open an office in Pasadena, 1878.
Hamilton Ridgway, known as Harry, was a transplanted Canadian who in 1878 became the first architect to open an office in Pasadena. Two National Register documents credit him with designing and building several hundred residences, nearly all of Pasadena's public school buildings and several churches. Few of his buildings remain; this record holds 12 of them, 6 of them houses.
Who opened Pasadena's first architect's office?
Harry Ridgway, in 1878. He worked with Clinton Ripley, described as Pasadena's first contractor and builder, and the two built a planing mill in the 1880s; after the partnership ended, Ripley carried on the mill as the Pasadena Manufacturing Company.
Ridgway's public library of 1890, at Raymond Avenue and Walnut Street, has been demolished, and the Gothic Revival church he and Ripley designed for the Methodists in 1887 was later lost.
Which Harry Ridgway houses still stand?
The county record confirms 659 South St. John Avenue, from 1887, and 651 South St. John Avenue, from 1893, both in Markham Place; Joseph J. Blick was the contractor on the second. 1375 Mountain Street, Hillmont, from 1887, which Pasadena's National Register study says he probably designed, also stands. The 1882 Woodbury House at 2606 North Madison Avenue in Altadena, probably his design for Frederick J. Woodbury, was called the oldest remaining residence in Altadena by its National Register nomination; this record has not confirmed whether it still stands.
What was Ridgway & Klock?
A partnership the Old Pasadena nomination credits, as Ridgeway & Klock, with 44 South Raymond Avenue in 1892 and 38 to 44 East Colorado Boulevard in 1893. The same nomination spells Harry Ridgway's name Ridgeway, which is why the firm is listed with him here, though no document says so outright. In 1929 Bennett & Haskell gave the Colorado Boulevard building a new front, which is why this record keeps the original architects and the later work apart.
Who can tell me if my Victorian is a Ridgway?
I can check. I'm Greg Anderson of Arroyo Casa. Pasadena's houses from the 1880s and 1890s with a documented architect are few, and Ridgway's are among the oldest. Send me the address and I'll tell you what the record says, including whether the credit is documented or only probable.
Every building credited to Harry Ridgway.
Buildings the record credits to Harry Ridgway, Ridgway & Klock, 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.
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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