Who Built Orange Heights?
George F. Thompson's 1906 tract and the architects named for its houses.
George F. Thompson subdivided the Orange Heights tract in 1906: 106 lots between Los Robles and El Molino Avenues, from Jackson Street south to Mountain Street, described in a newspaper that year as high ground among orange groves near the Madison School. He sold 21 lots the first year. Most of the district's 61 contributing buildings went up in the following decade. For most of the Orange Heights houses on this record the documents name a builder, David M. Renton most often, but no architect; this record shows the 6 whose architect a document names. The library's Orange Heights page covers the neighborhood today.
Who designed the houses in Orange Heights?
On this record: Architectural Designing Co. (architect, 1), DeForrest Howry (architect, 1), J. Cyril Bennett (architect, 1), Kenneth A. Gordon (architect, 1, all attributed), P. H. Frohman (architect, 1) and Sylvanus B. Marston (architect, 1). Renton built seventeen buildings in the district, by the nomination's count, the largest group of his work anywhere in Pasadena.
When was Orange Heights built?
Mostly in the decade after the 1906 subdivision, with the district's period of significance running to 1930. On this record, 5 of the 6 dated houses fall between 1906 and 1916. The nomination counts 53 of its contributing buildings as Craftsman bungalows.
Who can tell me who designed my Orange Heights house?
I can. I'm Greg Anderson of Arroyo Casa. In Orange Heights a buyer can walk past the work of one builder, Renton, who built seventeen of the district's contributing buildings, and the documents name an architect for only a few of its houses. I can tell you whether the record names one for yours.
Every house on record.
Houses the record places in Orange Heights and the Barnhart Tracts whose architect a document names, in the order they were built. Credits marked attributed are the record's own word.
Who designed here.
Architectural Designing Co. (architect, 1), DeForrest Howry (architect, 1), J. Cyril Bennett (architect, 1), Kenneth A. Gordon (architect, 1, all attributed), P. H. Frohman (architect, 1) and Sylvanus B. Marston (architect, 1)
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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