Pasadena Showcase House Opens This Weekend

Pasadena and surrounding cities are not short on homes that are both historic and easy on the eyes.  

When in doubt, enter the Pasadena Showcase House of Design, which opens Sunday after months of renovation from over 50 noted interior designers and landscape artists.

This year’s home—in the Upper Rancho neighborhood of Arcadia—is a 10,433 square-foot, two-story Monterey Colonial-style home on Hampton Road that was built in 1941 and designed by architect Roland Coate. It also boasts a pool, spa, 982-square-foot pool house and an asphalt tennis court.

Barker Brothers furniture store founder Lawrence Barker once owned the home.

The Pasadena Showcase is one of the oldest, largest and most successful house and garden tours in the United States. Each year, Southern California’s most prominent interior and exterior designers renovate an estate of architectural significance using the latest design products and concepts.

The event regularly draws 30,000 visitors.

The showcase also includes a bazaar and a pop-up restaurant set up underneath a tent on the tennis court.

Proceeds support the arts in the San Gabriel Valley and Los Angeles.

If You Go: 

• The Showcase takes place from April 21, 2013-May 19, 2013.
• Shuttle service will provide pickups from Gate 6 of Santa Anita Park as the neighborhood does not allow event parking.
• Tours are 9 a.m.-3:30 p.m. on Tuesdays, Saturdays and Sundays, and 9 a.m.-7:30 p.m. on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. There are no public tours on Mondays.
• Tickets, which cost $35-$45, go on sale February 4, 2013 and may be purchased online, by phone at (714) 442-3872, or by mail order.
• Showcase property is not suitable as a handicap accessible or child safe venue. Children under 12, including infants, are not permitted on Showcase House property.

Are you planning to go to this year's Pasadena Showcase House of Design? Why or why not?