“Honoring Our Founders: An Evening at Castle Green” will recognize Claire Bogaard, William W. Ellinger III, Katie Harp McLane and James Marrin, and formally open the organization’s 50th anniversary year.
The nonprofit, founded in 1977 to combat the demolition of historic landmarks, credits the four honorees’ advocacy with helping preserve many of Pasadena’s most treasured places. Proceeds, the organization says, support its advocacy, education and preservation work.
The Pasadena of that era the founders describe is difficult to recognize now. Bogaard said many community leaders of the day envisioned “a more ‘modern City’, a smaller version of downtown Los Angeles.”
Those civic leaders supported the 710 and 210 freeways cutting through Pasadena, Bogaard said, approved the clearing of nearby residential neighborhoods, and “spoke of the demolition of the Colorado Street Bridge and Old Pasadena and replacing the YWCA and YMCA buildings in the Civic Center with 10-story buildings.”
Marrin remembers what that era’s demolitions looked like up close.
“In Pasadena, they were bulldozing houses with Grueby tile fireplaces,” he said in written responses provided with his daughter, Emily Marrin. “I went into the wreckage and rescued the tiles.”
Marrin, who designed the organization’s original arch-and-oak logo, traces his path to a 1967 visit to the famous Gamble House.
“The Gamble House got us to Pasadena,” he said.
McLane said a year living in the Boston area, where organizations protected historic neighborhoods from destruction, convinced her Pasadena needed the same.
She recalled the group’s first walking tour through the Prospect Park neighborhood — placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983, she said — and Colorado Street Bridge bridge parties held every other year since 1983.
“What I remember most from the founding days is how much fun we had together and how we were able to pull Pasadenans from all walks of life into Pasadena Heritage,” she said.
Ellinger, a restoration architect who said he came to Pasadena more than 60 years ago, credited a founding board member’s “brilliant idea” — the first Colorado Street Bridge Party — with focusing the community on the bridge’s deteriorating condition and, over years, building commitment to its seismic retrofit and restoration.
Bogaard remembered the young organization set up its office on the two upper floors of 54 West Colorado — the building now occupied by the Apple Store — for $200 a month.
“Old Pasadena was truly on the verge of being torn down,” McLane said. “Now, it’s a thriving hub!”
The biggest challenge facing preservation in Pasadena today? Ellinger pointed to Sacramento.
“Undoubtedly it’s the California Senate Bill 79 (SB79), ‘Transit Oriented Housing Bill’, that will have an unprecedented and continuing negative effect on our historic architectural resources and neighborhoods for years to come,” he said.
SB 79, the Abundant and Affordable Homes Near Transit Act, took effect July 1 and allows qualifying housing projects within a half-mile of certain transit stops to use state development standards that override local height and density limits — in Pasadena, the areas around the city’s six Metro A Line stations, according to city staff presentations.
Bogaard said Pasadena Heritage, the City Council and residents are in continuing discussions about the law, which she said reduces communities’ ability to decide their own zoning regulations.
The anniversary also arrives amid generational change at the organization.
Dr. Bridget Lawlor became executive director Dec. 1; Sue Mossman, who led the organization for decades, retired in spring 2024.
“Sue Mossman built an extraordinary organization and established Pasadena Heritage as one of the most respected preservation organizations in California,” Lawlor said in written responses. “Leading Pasadena Heritage into its 50th anniversary year is both an honor and a tremendous responsibility.”
Lawlor said her priority is ensuring preservation remains part of conversations about the city’s future — that it “is not about preventing change, but about guiding growth in a way that respects and celebrates our shared history.”
The milestone lands a year and a half after the Eaton Fire devastated portions of Pasadena and much of neighboring Altadena in January, 2025.
“The Eaton Fire served as a powerful reminder that historic places are not permanent and can be lost far more quickly than we often imagine,” Lawlor said.
McLane, referring to the January fire, said: “So much was lost in the fires last January, and coming together as a community is critical.”
The Saturday setting is itself part of the story the organization tells. Castle Green, built in 1898 at 99 S. Raymond Ave., according to the city, is “the last surviving and largely intact historic feature of one of the most significant eras in the history of Pasadena, the grand resort hotel era,” Ellinger said.
Marrin has lived inside the building since 1990, according to his daughter, and co-founded the nonprofit Friends of the Castle Green in 1993 to protect, preserve and restore it.
Kyle Grimes, the organization’s operations and development director, said in written responses that Pasadena Heritage holds a preservation easement on the property and that a 1989 grant from the State Office of Historic Preservation helped initiate restoration projects there.
“The vision for Honoring Our Founders was to create a memorable evening that honors and celebrates legacy while also inspiring investment in preservation as we begin our 50th anniversary year,” Grimes said.
Grimes said proceeds will also fund ongoing restoration work at the Blinn House, the organization’s headquarters.
For Marrin, the celebration will unfold in the building he has called home for more than three decades — one whose survival, his daughter said, was never guaranteed.
“Whether in 1977, 1993, or 2026,” Emily Marrin said, “it’s far from certain that these kinds of buildings would survive. Through the hard work of Pasadena Heritage and Friends of the Castle Green, they endure.”
For more visit pasadenaheritage.org.
Get our daily Pasadena newspaper in your email box. Free.
Get all the latest Pasadena news, more than 10 fresh stories daily, 7 days a week at 7 a.m.
