AKA: van Rossem - Neil House, Pasadena, CA; Neil, James W., House, Pasadena, CA

Structure Type: built works - dwellings - houses

Designers: Greene and Greene, Architects (firm); Charles Sumner Greene (architect); Henry Mather Greene (architect)

Dates: constructed 1903

2 stories

Pasadena, CA

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Greene and Greene were hired by mining engineer, James W. Neil, in 1906 to make alterations to the first speculative house they designed for client Josephine van Rossem (1903). According to Greene and Greene scholar, Edward R. Bosley: "Its new owner, James W. Neil...wanted the clapboard siding replaced with shingles, a porch added to the east side, and an entry portico on the north. The living room was expanded to incorporate the space previously used by the entry walk, and a pergola was extended over the driveway. An elaborate brick and boulder retaining wall with immense, buttressing piers was constructed along the sidewalk, joining it thematically to the other Greene and Greene houses along Arroyo Terrace. It was as different a house as it could be from its original form, an example of the dramatic evolution in the Greenes' style over the previous three years." (See Edward R. Bosley, Greene & Greene, [London: Phaidon, 2000], p. 94.)

PCAD id: 11447