87 S San Marino

Every New Year’s Day the Rose Parade turns east onto Colorado Boulevard and runs the length of it, one block north of this home's front porch. Twin front gables with bracketed eaves. A brick chimney. A deep covered porch on square tapered columns, wide enough to sit out on and soak in the Pasadena lifestyle. Inside the front residence, the living room takes the morning light, with a fireplace set between built-in bookshelves. The dining room keeps its Craftsman buffet, and a pair of French doors opens onto the porch. The kitchen runs cabinets to the ceiling. Two bedrooms sit off a central hall with a full bath between them. Behind it, a second address, 87 1/2, with its own entrance off the driveway: a studio with an efficiency kitchen and a three-quarter bath. Two addresses, two entrances, one parcel. Live in the front and let the studio help carry it, or put both to work. Then the land, and the land is a lot to dream about. The parcel runs 8,328 square feet and lies flat corner to corner, carrying only about 1,240 square feet of building. A private drive runs the full depth of the lot to a detached garage with a sliding barn door and a workshop behind it. Everything past that is open. Room for a garden that is not an afterthought, room for the structure you have been sketching, room to simply leave it alone and own the sky above it. Lots this size, this flat, this close to Colorado, do not come up often. And then there is Pasadena itself. Old Town for dinner, the Rose Bowl and its flea market out in the arroyo, the Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens a short drive south. Pasadena City College sits a few blocks up Colorado. Saturday mornings the certified farmers market has been setting up at Victory Park for forty-two years. Some mornings, though, you will just want the coffee on that porch simply basking in Pasadena glory instead - and this home is all set up for you to do so.