Robert R. Blacker House

Architect: Greene and Greene
Style: Arts and Crafts
City: Los Angeles, CA
Collection: greene & greene’s pasadena

The Blacker House was built in 1907 in Pasadena for Robert Roe Blacker, a retired Michigan lumberman, and his wife Nellie Canfield Blacker, whose father ran the Canfield & Wheeler lumber mill in Manistee. Designed by Charles and Henry Greene of Greene and Greene, it was a lavish commission that cost more than $100,000, roughly $3.46 million today, and stands as one of the defining houses of the American Arts and Crafts movement.

the building

Custom-made throughout. Nothing in the house was off the shelf: the Greenes custom-designed even the teak escutcheon plates on the upstairs mahogany panel doors and the linen closets, whose keys were adorned with ebony clouds, the kind of obsessive, handcrafted detail that defines the Greenes' Arts and Crafts work.

the style

The Blacker House is treated as a defining example of the Arts and Crafts movement in America, the style's emphasis on handcraft and natural materials carried down to the smallest hardware in the house.

the architect

Charles and Henry Greene led the renowned Pasadena firm of Greene and Greene, and the Blacker House was among their most lavish commissions, funded by a lumber fortune and built to showcase the firm's custom, handcrafted approach to residential design.

significance

The Robert R. Blacker House is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

nearby

Cordelia A. Culbertson House 350 ft
Spinks house 0.2 mi · Arts and Crafts
Katherine Emery Estate 0.3 mi · Tudor Revival · 1928
El Molino Viejo 0.6 mi · Spanish Colonial · 1816
Rose Court 0.7 mi · Spanish Colonial Revival
Court at 744-756½ S. Marengo Ave. 0.8 mi · Art Deco

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