This Old Find: The Grey Gardens Estate Sale of Pasadena, California

Let's Tour an Abandoned Mansion in Pasadena, California Together

To me, there is nothing more comforting than the PBS classic home renovation show This Old House. Watching people meticulously glue wood together in their home garages, sand and restore treasured family heirlooms, and repair a broken water pipe with one of those tiny metal saws puts me in a trance I like to live in for 30 minutes at a time.

Along the same lines of treasures and garages, I’ve been a lifelong estate sale attendee. My mom and I once drove to the “world’s longest yard sale,” and she taught me the art of dumpster diving. Back in the day, the home store Pier One would toss away its decor every Sunday if it had scratches on it. We would dive and come out with baskets, new plates, decorations, and bruised knees, all in the name of rescuing these treasures. This has led me to present-day estate sale hunting, which is a major source of inspiration, and it fires up my creative neurons for my design work.

Which brings me to this new Substack series I’m calling This Old Find. I’ll be sharing with you the homes I dig around in, the archives I’ve weaseled my way into, and the dumpsters I dive into to this day.

The Grey Gardens Estate Sale of Pasadena

Last weekend, I drove 10 minutes East to the Prospect Historic District in Pasadena, California, to see about a listing I saw on estatesales.net. If you’re not familiar with Pasadena, think big coastal oak trees, old money, and some of the most beautiful homes in America with incredible charm and details. And for all of you Father of the Bride heads, this house listing was 3 miles from the home of George and Nina Banks.

530 Prospect Blvd. Pre-disrepair

I rolled up to 530 Prospect Blvd, not knowing what to expect… except that the listing stated it was a “hoarder situation.” This large 6-bedroom, 5-bathroom home, built in 1928, felt like the Grey Gardens of Pasadena. The house had been abandoned for over 20 years, and the number of items and, sadly, signs of critters inside, showed its wear and tear.

Present Day

From my investigations, this 97-year-old house has had 2 owners. The first being H. Grandin. The second Mrs. Doreen Lawson Edwards and her daughter, Amy.

Let’s Start With the Home Exterior…

Look at this pool area. Can’t you just imagine the 1930s parties thrown here? I loved how perfectly round the pool is.

The Basement

In the listing, it mentioned that “the attic and basement were open for viewing”. I knew I had to get into that basement. As I marched down the old wooden stairs into the dark basement, I was immediately greeted with “old basement-y things”. Jars and jars of honey. Bottles of old scotch and canned green beans. Stacks of old magazines and doll clothes. As I went further into the basement’s multiple (!) rooms, I saw a man with a flashlight and asked, “How is it?!” He just replied, “scary!”. Wonderful.

Vintage Brands Seen in the Basement:

• Springfield Soda: I was unable to find info about this food brand, except that they were mainly distributed in the western U.S. from the 1940s to the 1990s

• Yosemite Mountain Honey: Local!

• El Rancho’s Blended Scotch Whisky: Made specifically for the local supermarket chain El Rancho’s in Southern California

The Rooms

The Kitchens

This house had a kitchen. And then another kitchen. And then a large pantry for that kitchen. While in the pantry, I saw a small black notebook and opened it to find the most beautiful penmanship.

Should we make this recipe together and have marmalade for days?

Lemon Orange Marmalade

• 4 oranges and 3 lemons

• 4 pints of water. Boil for 1.5 hours

• Add 5 lbs of sugar. Boil for 45 minutes longer

The Bedrooms

As I mentioned, the house was built in 1928 and has had two sets of owners. My guess is that the second, the Edwards family, moved in during the early 1950s, around the time they began having children. I picked up on this from letters and schoolwork found in one of the children’s bedrooms.

Each bedroom had an adjoining bathroom. My favorite thing about this whole house was how the bedroom wallpaper coordinated with the tile and curtain motifs in the bathrooms. Each space had its own personality.

Bedroom #1: Perhaps Amy Edwards’ Bedroom (Oh no, am I a creep masked as being an estate sale attender?!)

This wallpaper had to have been custom, since the same print was used for the bathroom curtains and the bedding.

The Primary Bathroom

Someone truly knew what they were doing with this bathroom design. See how the wallpaper takes color notes from the tiles.

Bathroom #3:

This bedroom/bathroom combo also appears to feature wallpaper from the same creator as Bedroom #1. It’s another geometric pattern, but with a different color palette. I loved the ruby tile details in the bathtub. Imagine implementing that kind of care and detail in every room.

The Lighting Fixtures

Let’s take a brief pause to appreciate a few of these light fixtures. The lantern on the left makes me think it was installed in the 1970s, around the time that textured brown wallpaper was added in the foyer. What do you think the original 1928 staircase chandelier looked like?!

The Grand Finale: What I Came Home With

For a total of $10, I left with a few pieces of vintage first-aid kit packaging as inspiration and the recipe notebook as seen above.

• Vintage 1930 McKesson's First Aid in Emergencies booklet

• This vintage Rexall Plastic Quik-Band Adhesive Bandages tin from the 1960s-70s

• 1950s gauze packaging

Thank you for joining my first issue of This Old Find!

Love,

Beth