Ambassador Gardens Recognized by the City of Pasadena

On May 25th, the City of Pasadena held their 2017 Historic Preservation Awards.  City Ventures’ Ambassador Gardens was recognized, alongside eight other recipients, at the prestigious ceremony.  After welcoming comments by Mayor Terry Tornek and Councilman Andy Wilson noting the City’s dedication to preservation, Leon White, Principal Planner, and Kevin Johnson, Senior Planner, presented the awards in the courtyard of one of the award-winning projects, Evanston Court.

Evanston Court is an interesting project that repurposes a once boarded-up historic Victorian inn into ten condo units and locates a new podium building of flats and townhomes in a sympathetic design that wraps the historic building.  Several of the units were opened for attendees and the imaginative combination of historic fabric with modern kitchens and baths was very well done.

Other projects included several charming Craftsman and Bungalow homes (one of which suffered a devastating fire that occurred while the family was on vacation!) that had been beautifully restored.  Another was the masterful rehabilitation of the former office of the architectural firm of Buff, Straub & Hensman.  This influential firm, whose work included “Arts & Architecture” magazine’s experimental Case Study House #20 (1958) built for noted graphic designer and Academy Award-winning filmmaker Saul Bass, were among the architects that defined Southern California modern design for homes in the late 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s.  Their office was a large study model for their thinking about space, volume, and mass.  The building had suffered from decades of neglect since the firm closed.  One former partner, Dennis Smith, reminisced about his late partners and his experience with the building.

Ambassador Gardens is a 70-unit luxury condominium project built amid historic mansions and gardens in four increments on the grounds of the former Ambassador College Estate on Orange Grove Ave, once known as Millionaire’s Row.  The City specifically recognized the rehabilitation of the Italian Gardens, originally built with the Merritt Mansion in 1908 and renovated by famed landscape architect Garrett Eckbo in the early 1960s.  During the design of the new development, the Italian Garden was transformed into the central community recreation center.  The shallow reflecting pool was reconstructed utilizing the historic tiles and transformed into a swimming pool, while otherwise retaining the historic features.  New pool toilets, pool equipment, and disabled access facilities were carefully inserted so as not to detract from the historic fabric and other features of the gardens which were restored to their former glory.  After more than a decade of abandonment, this beautiful asset has come back to life as the centerpiece of the estate.  The landscape was designed by C2 Collaborative and was completed by Peter Duarte of Studio PAD.

Additionally, I was personally recognized by Anthony Portantino of the California State Senate for the design effort of Ambassador Gardens.  After a seven-year design, approval and construction effort, the last of the seventy units was recently sold!