What comes immediately to mind might be the recent Polytechnic School’s proposed sports complex at Altadena’s Chaney Trail. After two years of detailed planning during which the affluent Pasadena school weathered community opposition, including a petition with several thousand signatures and protests outside the school’s Pasadena campus, the proposed project was withdrawn. It remains unclear what future development that property will experience, if any, but it’s a good example of how neighborhoods are shaped by the might-have-been projects that never came about, either through unexpected circumstances or organized resident opposition.
As a volunteer and former board member of the Altadena Historical Society, I’ve written numerous articles for the ECHO, a newsletter that’s been published on and off since the organization’s founding in 1935. The stories included here about projects that never happened are sourced from the Society’s newsletters and collection of Altadena and Pasadena newspapers going back to 1928.
Altadena wouldn’t be on the map had residents not fought off Pasadena’s efforts to absorb part or even all of the community.
Altadena was a place early Pasadenans often referred to as The Highlands or the North Slope rather than by the name the increasingly independent-loving residents gave their rural community in 1887 — Altadena. Pasadena attempted annexation more than 36 times, succeeding in taking significant chunks from its southern, eastern and western borders, often motivated by its need for more water and a stronger tax base. Pasadena’s last land grab was in 1975 when the city annexed a seven-acre parcel at the northeast corner of Allen and Washington where the Stater Brothers grocery store now stands.
Altadena Drive would be the Foothill Freeway, and Fair Oaks Avenue, Marengo, and Lake Avenue would be on-off ramps.
When the Caltrans plan for the Foothill Freeway was in the works in the 1950s and 1960s, many local businesses were in favor of building the highway along the base of the Altadena foothills. They had jobs and commerce in mind, not traffic congestion and pollution. It would be decades before anyone realized that freeways devastate neighborhoods, spew smog, and replace small businesses with big-box retail. The freeway was eventually awarded to Pasadena. Hundreds of residences were demolished for the 210 corridor, including historically significant Greene and Greene houses.
A county landfill would be at the top of Lincoln Avenue instead of a gated housing community.
In the early 1950s, when backyard incinerators were banned, the county was seeking to install a rubbish disposal site at the top of Lincoln Avenue. In addition to objections about the need to ensure against water pollution and flood control hazards, west Altadena residents were concerned that the site “will intrude upon the community in the form of depression of property values, heavy traffic and a major topographic feature, which will tower as much as 200 to 300 feet above expensive homes and the La Vina Sanitarium only a few hundred yards away.” The landfill was built elsewhere.
The public hiking area, Cobb Estate, at the top of Lake Avenue could have been light manufacturing, a resort hotel, a cemetery or housing.
When Charles Cobb (Cobb Estate) died in 1939, his 107-acre property passed through the hands of several investors interested in commercial rezoning. In 1956, the Marx Brother Family Trust purchased the property for development. Their zoning request was denied. In 1962, the Pasadena Cemetery Association, on behalf of Mountain View Mortuary, sought a zoning change to establish a cemetery. Residents turned down all petitions, mostly complaining about high traffic volume and limited access. In 1971, the estate was put up for auction. Led by Muir High School students, locals raised enough money to purchase the land and turned it over to the US Forest Service for public use, avoiding the installation of hundreds of houses.
Altadena would have had a public swimming pool had it not been for the polio epidemic.
In 1954, the county proposed to establish a public four-acre park and swimming pool on vacant farmland south of Mendocino and east of Maiden Lane. Recreational advocates recommended the idea to enhance Eliot school’s athletic program, improve recreational facilities for east Altadena, and meet the needs of a growing population. In the 1940s and 1950s, polio was paralyzing and killing multiple thousands of people, primarily children, in cities during the summer months. The public was warned not to drink from water fountains and to avoid swimming pools. The County pool project was abandoned in 1955 and is today single-family residences.
Altadena Country Club and the adjacent Los Angeles County golf course would now be the campus of Westmont College, a Christian liberal arts school.
The original country club, founded in 1910 and built on acreage bordered by Mendocino, Holliston, Hill, and Morada, prospered on and off until the 1929 stock market crash. During the depression, public fees from the restaurant, clubhouse, pool and golf course rentals failed to sustain it, and the bank foreclosed. In 1944, Ruth Kerr, heiress to Kerr Glass Manufacturing, purchased the property on behalf of Bible Missionary Institute for $175,000, a plan dependent on rezoning. The public hearing at Eliot School drew 900 residents. More than 700 voted against zoning changes. Her petition refused, Kerr disposed of all the furniture, and sold the east section to developers. The county purchased the remaining land for a public golf course, and a coalition of club members purchased the clubhouse, pool and tennis courts. Today, Kerr’s highly regarded Westmont College sprawls across 125 acres near Santa Barbara.
Had the post-war housing boom not gobbled up farmland west of Lincoln, Alta-Dena Dairy would still be in Altadena.
Well, not likely, but maybe the name wouldn’t have been hyphenated. There really was a local Altadena Dairy, with about 30 cows, that, throughout the 1930s and 1940s, grazed on land near Lincoln Avenue and Ventura Street in west Altadena. It was owned and operated by Charles Sunderland, who advertised, “Modern scientific dairy methods assure you of consistently rich, pure, wholesome, natural raw milk, delivered to your door daily.” In 1945, the Steuve family purchased Sunderland’s dairy, sold the acreage for post-war housing, and moved the operation to Monrovia. At that time, the name was hyphenated to Alta-Dena Dairy. Harold Stueve, like Charles Sunderland, was a raw milk activist who opposed pasteurization. Alta-Dena Dairy eventually became the largest producer of raw milk in California.
Some other might-have-beens.
Had it not been for residents’ opposition in 1990, there would be a McDonald’s restaurant on the northwest corner of Lake Avenue and Altadena Drive and a Los Angeles County animal shelter near Loma Alta Park.
Imagine the impact on the Angeles National Forest just west of JPL had Caltrans bored a 16-mile auto tunnel parallel to Highway 2, an idea proposed in 1953 to connect the planned Palmdale International Airport to the San Gabriel Valley. The airport project never came to fruition but the concept of the auto tunnel, impractical as it may seem, is revived from time to time.
Stay vigilant, friends and neighbors, and know your history. Some may question the wisdom of past decisions; others may praise them. However, few can argue about their effect on our community.
