Friday, May 17, 2013

Marcell Inn - Altadena

As of June, it will be 19 years since I moved to Southern California. Pasadena has been a wonderful place to live for so many reasons. One of them is the colorful history and cultural heritage of the area, which is actively protected and promoted. I was fortunate to work with someone very involved in historic preservation, and she generously gave me tickets to various home tours and other events.

So, even though I'm a transplant, I've learned to appreciate the richness of this area's past. So, imagine my excitement when we found a stash of signs from a Prohibition-era eating establishment that had been used to patch the back of the garage!



My neighbor wrote a blog post about the find here:

When the first sign was uncovered, I ran to the computer to see if there was any information about the Marcell Inn. Indeed, I found a carefully researched blog post about the Inn and its storied history. (See also this excerpt about the Inn from a book published in 1935.)

Today, I had an opportunity to meet the author, a long-time Pasadena/Altadena preservationist and historian. He is going to see what, if any, connection there might be between this address and the Inn. How/Why did the signs end up here?