Evanston Court is a 24-unit residential development located in central Pasadena, California. The project includes the conversion of the National Register Evanston Inn into residential units, the addition of new housing around the historic structure, and a parking garage below.
Situated in a medium density residential neighborhood, Evanston Court is surrounded by houses and apartment buildings mostly from the first half of the 20th century. The site is in Pasadena’s “City of Gardens” zone, which requires compatibility with neighborhood character and prescribes courtyards for size and visibility. Additional oversight was given to the design from the city architectural review board and historic preservation advocates.
The site comprises the entire grounds of original hotel property, which included an 1895 Victorian inn structure, a Transitional Craftsman addition from 1897, two 1930s bungalows, and a circa 1895 cottage—all of which were dilapidated. The site has a 13-foot elevation change from the street to the rear property line. Evanston Place is a private street at the south side of the site that historically was used to access the lower rear yard of the inn. Two palms original to the inn remained in its front yard.
The final design includes: 1) rehabilitation of the primary inn structure, divided into 10 units; 2) the demolition of the cottage and bungalows; 3) the construction of three structures totaling 14 units in an L-configuration around the inn; and 4) construction of a subterranean garage set into the slope beneath the historic inn and new residential units, accessed via Evanston Place.
The primary narrative that informed the design was imagining how the hotel might have evolved after 1897, had it been successful (in actuality, the allure of Pasadena winter hotels quickly faded after 1910). The design team looked at examples of wood framed structures from the era that were efficient models of stacked housing that might have been used to accommodate the influx of imagined guests. Triple deckers, an iconic staple of New England worker housing, provided the prototype of practical and simple architecture, characterized by box massing and non-articulated rooflines to avoid competing with the historic inn’s complex roofs, massing, and projections. This served as a model for the two new rear buildings. The structure to the north sought to fit into historic pattern of single family housing along Marengo Avenue, with a traditional front house and an elongated “el” at the rear with three townhouses in a mews configuration.
Design features include:
• Simplified traditional details in the porches, rafter tails, eaves, horizontal divisions, clapboard and shake siding, and window surrounds.
• A central courtyard, viewable from the street that creates a historically appropriate space between the old and new structures on a human scale.
• A podium with a deep layer of soil under the central walks and open spaces, allowing for 5-foot deep planters to accommodate larger trees, pavers set in sand and flush planting, which preserved the historic inn’s relationship to the earth.
• Reconstruction of the dilapidated back of the inn to match its historic character of an informal series of stairs, porches, and sheds.
