Theodore Parker Lukens House, Los Angeles: style and history

Built in 1886–87 to a design by architect Harry Ridgway, the Theodore Parker Lukens House is among the oldest standing houses in Pasadena. Its first owner, horticulturalist and real estate dealer Theodore Parker Lukens, was a charter member of the Sierra Club, a friend of John Muir, and led California's first reforestation efforts in the 1890s, earning him the nickname "Father of Forestry" — Lukens Lake and Mount Lukens are both named for him.

the building

Stickwork and bargeboards. The Victorian house is mainly Stick and Eastlake in structure, with Queen Anne touches layered on top: deep gables and gabled dormers hung with decorative stickwork, and a two-story front porch on carved posts topped by bargeboard patterned to look like hanging curtains.

the style

Though catalogued today under Queen Anne, the house is really a mix of Stick and Eastlake subtypes with Queen Anne detailing folded in, typical of how California builders of the 1880s freely combined Victorian vocabularies rather than sticking to one.

the architect

Harry Ridgway designed the house for Theodore Parker Lukens in 1886–87; no other details of his career are recorded here.

significance

The house is individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places at 267 North El Molino Avenue, its significance resting as much on its first owner — dubbed the "Father of Forestry" for his reforestation work — as on its architecture.

nearby

Edmund Blinn House 0.2 mi · Prairie School · 1905
Odd Fellows Temple 0.2 mi · Spanish Colonial Revival · 1918
First Trust Building and Garage 0.3 mi · Mediterranean Vernacular · 1927
Singer Building 0.4 mi · Spanish Colonial Revival
Pasadena Playhouse 0.4 mi · Spanish Colonial Revival · 1925
Colonial Court 0.4 mi · Colonial Revival

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