CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL RESOURCES INVENTORY DATABASE
City of Pasadena
 
Home   |    Search   |    Help   |    Contact Us   |    Acknowledgements    |    Admin   |   
Resource Summary
820 BURLEIGH Dr
Resource Summary
Address: 820 BURLEIGH Dr APN: 5716-003-009 [print]

This property is listed individually in the National Register of Historic Places.
This property has been determined eligible for designation as a contributing structure to an eligible landmark district. *
 
RESOURCE OVERVIEW
Address: 820 BURLEIGH Dr
City: Pasadena State: CA
Zip Code: 91105 County: Los Angeles
County Code: 37
Historic Name: Norton House Common Name: Norton House
APN: 5716-003-009 Zoning: RS-4
Building Sq. Ft: 1584 Site Size (Acres): 0.280
Year Built: 1954 Documented District: Laguna Road Landmark District
District: Laguna Road Landmark District (surveyed)
Property Status: Designated
Contributing Status: C    
Resource Description:
The Norton House is one of Buff, Straub and Hensman masterworks, distinguished by a mature, sensual sophistication and an elegance calibrated not with fancy but humble materials, including Formica that is still in use on kitchen countertops and rough concrete block, seen in the fireplace. The wood-and-glass one-story house was nominated because it reveals yet another way the architects resolved the issues of a unique and difficult site. It is distinguished from other Buff Straub and Hensman houses of the period because the one-level house is a deceptively simple rectangle parallel to Burleigh Road with a few bump-out volumes cantilevered from the main box. Here, extensive terracing, stepping stones and broad staircases animate the relationship between house and slope, instead of the house stepping down the hill in articulated volumes as in other Buff Straub and Hensman designs, or in houses that are pinwheel in plan. The result is a superbly composed house that nestles in mature and copious trees and plantings, virtually below road grade at the intersection of two small, quiet roads in southwest Pasadena.

The house is unusual in the Buff Straub and Hensman canon in following a 10’ (rather than their more oft-used 6’ or 8’ module) structural rafter/beam span; however, custom dimensions frequently occur, seen in the French doors on the east end of the house, leading from the living room to the terrace, which are 35” x TO each; the doors themselves appear to be centered but are not, as are other transparent/opaque relationships throughout the house. The house features extensive wood terracing, steps, landings and balconies around the house and leading up to street level and down to the garden below. The original paint color, an orange-red, is applied to much exterior trim and certainly serves to unify the composition so it reads as one piece. Just as importantly, the color of the trim, dancing through the composition, ties it to the colors of flowers abundant around the house, while the more neutral earth tones applied to the majority of the wood work, lightly anchors the house to the trees and the earth.

The strict application of the module in this long, narrow “box” results in a series of solids and voids: for example, the east-most module is open to nature and defines part of a broad deck leading to very broad stairs that connect the house to the lushly landscaped area below. The front door, situated under a covered porch, is located in the middle of the house, so that one turns to public space (the living room) on the east or to private space (the bedrooms) on the west. The concrete block fireplace (whose hearth faces east in the west end of the living room) acts as the primary spatial divider here, and low-cost plywood and Formica shelves attached to the north side of the fireplace are convenient places for keys, knickknacks, etc. The living room itself contains a long, low, built-in sofa with storage below and open bookcase shelving above. A long skylight above the sofa and cleverly placed windows and storage provide different kinds of light throughout the day. Kitchens and bedrooms in the 2,000 sq. ft. house are small but capacious with storage.

Elements that can be read as modernized or traditional Japanese elements abound. These include the stair and rail detailing, the use of horizontal banding at the tops of doors and windows that again unify the interior of the house in the use of a consistent interior band. Plastic panels inset into wood panels (like an updated shogi screen) are used as translucent privacy panels which border and contain a landscaping plot beyond the all-glass wall (the north wall) of the bathroom. This three-room linear space is comprised of a “barbell” of two rooms, each containing a vanity and toilet, flank the inset shower and bathtub. These three rooms are connected with doors and all share the full-height glass wall, located closest to the road above. Thus, the updated “shogi” screen creates transitions between indoors and outdoors, landscape and interior, as well as conferring privacy for those in the extant and original bathroom. The bathroom and the house were first published by Sunset magazine in 1956, and the bathroom continued to be featured prominently in Sunset publications thereafter.

This house features several clever spatial and storage strategies, seen in the living room, where a large section of the north living room wall features an orthogonally organized “painting” of sliding, lightly stained wood panels whose simple “handles” of long pieces of wood (exactly like an identical detail found in some early Schindler and Neutra designs), create an ornamental field but in fact serve as a large storage area.
Legal Description:
SAN RAFAEL HEIGHTS TRACT # 8 0.28 MORE OR LESS AC SAN RAFAEL HEIGHTS TRACT #8 0.28 ORE OR LESS AC COM AT MOST N COR OF LOT 78 TH S 25c01' w 135.58 FT TH S 51c00'20" E 81.09 FT TH N 38c59'40" E 125 FT TO NE LINE OF SD LOT TH NW THERREON 114.16 FT TO BEG PART OF LOT 78
RESOURCE DETAILS
Primary Architectural Style: International /Modern Style
Secondary Architectural Style: Post-and-Beam
Architect: Buff & Hensman
Builder: John W. Norton
Contractor: John W. Norton
Context: Recent Past 
Original Owner: John W. Norton
Original Use: SINGLE FAMILY RESIDENCE
Original Location:
Demolished: no
Notes:
Moved: no
Date Moved: n/a
Designation Date: 04/10/2009
Mills Act: A contract and work program
was recorded in

* This is a simplified statement of the property's status. Please review the NRHP Status Code field on the search screen for official, adopted status language.