Kaonashi Ga Suki

Ah, Pasadena. So much history. So much culture. So much to explore.

After coming home from work, my bf and I have gotten into the habit of taking walks around town. We’d pick a nice looking neighborhood and start walking. So far we’ve seen lots of old but very nice looking houses. Many are in the Craftsman style or Greene and Greene. Many are well-preserved, with deep, rich green and brown tones on the shingles and rooftops.

Although some of the houses we’ve seen were relatively small or of average size, during our walks we’ve seen many, many large houses as well- downright mansions, if you will. The size of the houses rival those found in Beverly Hills, or in Bel Air. However, unlike the gaudy, “Look at me! I’m wealthy!” mansions that are common in the 90210 zip code, most of the ginormous houses in Pasadena are tasteful. You don’t see many obnoxious Greco-Roman statues in the front yards of Pasadena estates, and there is very little use of hideous white pillars as there would be in Beverly Hills mansions.

As I mentioned, there are plenty of houses in Pasadena and surrounding areas that are as big as Beverly Hills style mansions. Some take up 2 or 3 lots, meaning that they’re roughly the size of 2 or 3 houses combined! You have your enormous front yard, enormous back yard, your 3 car garage, your guest house, your pool, your basketball or tennis court, and your separate servants’ entrance.

It’s mind boggling to see houses this big. Who lives in these houses? My bf and I often wonder what kinds of jobs one would need to be able to afford such places. Politicians? Doctors? Lawyers? Movie stars? Rock stars? Athletes? Drug dealers? Probably all of the above.

In some cases, the houses are very private, usually covered by a wall of hedges, sometimes in addition to an iron or chain link fence. The hedges can be downright annoying, especially since they tend to creep out towards the sidewalk, and it’s annoying to have to brush against the hedges as you walk. God knows what bugs and other things are hiding in the hedges!

Since hedges or fences can obstruct our view of some houses, my bf and I try to guess the size of the house by observing how far a certain set of hedges or fences go until they end or are replaced by a different looking set of hedges or fences.

During one of our walks, we stumbled across something somewhat unusual. We suddenly found ourselves staring into a very, very tall chain-link fence covered with hedges. We couldn’t really tell where it began- it just seemed to come out of nowhere. Another odd thing was that we couldn’t see the house at all- not even a hint of a rooftop, not a chimeney. All we could see were trees, and it seemed to go on forever. I surmised that it may be a small plot of land owned by the city, perhaps an old park overgrown with weeds and trees. My bf however, insisted that there was something inside, not just a bunch of trees, since it was fenced off.

Curious, we followed the fence for what it seemed like forever.

“This can’t be a house,” I said. “It seems that it’s taking up this entire block!”

“But some houses can be this big,” said my bf. “I think I see a car.”

“But it’s waaaaaaaaaaaay too private,” I insisted. “It seems like there’s nothing in there but trees. Who’d want to live this secluded? Barbara Streisand?”

We were dying of curiosity. What on earth is behind this very tall fence? Is it just trees? Does someone live back there? If so, who?

We finally saw an opening. A gate.

It led into a driveway. A very wide driveway.

We saw a huge sign under the gate.

It said:

The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens

We couldn’t believe it! It turned out that during our walk, we had left Pasadena and wandered over to San Marino. Furthermore, we had inadvertently found the BACK of the Huntington library; hence, the large fence and trees that obstructed our view.

Our speculations about what was beyond the fence was just too wild. We laughed at ourselves for being so silly and felt like such total dorks .