02/13/2006

Greene and Greene Virtual Archives

"This was the last of the elaborate wooden houses to be designed by Greene and Greene. Mr. Thorsen was a lumberman, and Mrs. Thorsen was the sister of Mrs. Blacker, the Greenes’ Pasadena client of 1907. For the northern California climate the Greenes designed a house with a more vertical orientation as compared with the well-defined horizontality of their Pasadena houses. The L-shaped plan of the Thorsen house was dictated by the shape of its urban, corner lot and by the desire for a private and sheltered garden space."