La Casita Del Arroyo Prepares for Fundraising With an Artistic Flare: ‘Paint Out’ Set for October 22

La Casita del Arroyo, a cultural heritage landmark in Pasadena, is hosting a “Paint Out Sale” on Sunday, Oct. 22, featuring the works of approximately 20 local artists who have painted in and around La Casita in preparation for this sale to benefit La Casita Foundation. 

The paintings for sale will showcase the Arroyo and surrounding areas by a local group of Southern California artists. In addition to the featured paintings, the building and surrounding gardens will be open for your enjoyment as well. 

Tom Siefert, board member of the  La Casita Foundation and director of the art program of La Casita Del Arroyo, said the Paint Out Sale opens at 10 a.m. and will continue through 3 p.m.

“It’s one of our major fundraising events,” he said. “We have 28 artists coming – top artists, plein air artists from around the local area. They’re all outstanding. Most of them have participated with us for the full eight years that we’ve been doing this, and they’re outstanding.” 

La Casita Del Arroyo was designed in 1933 by Myron Hunt, renowned architect and a member of the Pasadena Garden Club, to be a community meeting house. A joint venture by the Pasadena Garden Club which supplied the funds and the City of Pasadena which supplied the land, La Casita was built as a public works project to provide employment during the Great Depression. 

The original building was built of materials salvaged from the Arroyo Seco and the wood velodrome built for the 1932 Olympics.

“All of the stones that were used in the building came out of the Arroyo,” Siefert said. Most of the wood came from a velodrome built within the Rose Bowl for the Olympic bicycle racing that year.

“And after the Olympics were over, they dismantled the velodrome and brought the wood down to the Arroyo and used it for the building,” Siefert said. “So there’s a lot of history.”

The garden was maintained exclusively by the Pasadena Garden Club until 1994, when the La Casita Foundation was formed and took over the responsibility for the maintenance of the garden. It continued to be a community project of the Pasadena Garden Club, and was designated by the Garden Club of America at its centennial as one of the five most important garden club projects in the United States.

La Casita is a designated Pasadena Cultural Heritage Landmark, is on the National Register of Historic Places, and received a Historic Preservation Rehabilitation Award from the City of Pasadena in 2015. The garden at La Casita offers great examples for water-wise and ought-tolerant plants.

The Paint Out Sale on Oct. 22 is an opportunity to celebrate the beauty and history of La Casita Del Arroyo. The event will take place at 177 S. Arroyo Blvd. in Pasadena.

For more information, visit www.lacasitadelarroyo.org/.