John Norton House

Architect: Buff, Smith and Hensman
Style: Mid-Century Modern
City: Los Angeles, CA

The John Norton House is a 1954 Modernist home at 820 Burleigh Drive in Pasadena, designed by the firm of Buff, Straub, and Hensman. Built down in an arroyo below street level, the house is threaded around a stream that runs past its front door, and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 10, 2009.

the building

Post-and-beam structure. The house is built on a post-and-beam frame, which frees the interior into a single open plan and lets large groups of windows and a big deck open the living spaces to the stream and arroyo below.

the style

The house works in a Modernist idiom that prizes integration over separation: rather than clearing its arroyo site, it lets a stream run past the front door and builds its structure around the terrain.

the architect

Buff, Straub, and Hensman was a notable Los Angeles firm of the mid-century Modernist scene; the John Norton House is one of its documented residential commissions in Pasadena.

significance

The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 10, 2009.

nearby

Case Study House 10 0.2 mi · Mid-Century Modern · 1947
Constance Perkins House 0.4 mi · Mid-Century Modern · 1955
Richard and Mary Alice Frank House 0.4 mi · Mid-Century Modern
Henry A. Ware House 0.8 mi · Craftsman / Bungalow
James Fielding Cosby House 0.9 mi · Queen Anne
Judson Studios 1.1 mi · Shingle Style · 1890

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