The Gamble House

David Gamble of Procter and Gamble wanted a winter house, and in 1908 Charles and Henry Greene gave him one built like a piece of furniture — teak, maple, oak and Port Orford cedar laid in sequences chosen for grain, joinery left exposed on the staircase, a hidden panel in the entry hall opening to the kitchen. It survives intact, with the furniture the brothers designed for it, largely because of a threat: when the family considered selling in the 1960s, buyers talked about painting the woodwork white. They gave the house to Pasadena and USC instead.

What the plaque says

Built in 1908, the David B. Gamble House is a tribute to the genius of architects Charles Sumner Greene and Henry Mather Greene. Its design represents a unique California lifestyle and is a masterpiece of American craftsmanship. In 1966 it was made a gift by the Gamble family to the City of Pasadena in a joint agreement with the University of Southern California.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Colorado Street Bridge — 0.5 mi
  Beaux-Arts concrete arches curving 150 feet above the Arroyo Seco, opened in 1913 and later a link in Route 66.
• Mission San Gabriel Arcangel — 4.9 mi
  The fourth Alta California mission, built on Tongva land with Tongva labor, rebuilt after arson and now telling that story straight.
• Santa Monica Pier — 22 mi
  Where the Mother Road runs out of continent, and where the End of the Trail sign gives the drive somewhere to finish.

More markers nearby

• Pacific Asia Museum (Grace Nicholson's Treasure House of Oriental and Western Art) — 1.2 mi
• Pasadena Playhouse — 1.4 mi
• Governor Stoneman Adobe, Los Robles — 2.9 mi
• Old Mill — 2.9 mi