Navigation
Buy
Photo unavailable1205 E Loma Alta Drive-$25,000Listing brokerageCOMPASS
Sell
Photo unavailable1369 E Loma AltaPendingListing brokerageKeller Williams Realty
Photo unavailable3268 Fair Oaks AvenueActive Under ContractListing brokerageCOMPASS
InvestPhoto unavailable1205 E Loma Alta Drive-$25,000Listing brokerageCOMPASS
Inspector’s Eye
Vault
Learn
AboutTalk to Zarko
Around Altadena
The neighbourhoods, the daily rhythm and the drive to everywhere else — the part of a home search a listing sheet never covers.
See homes near here →The desk is building a real map of Altadena — outdoors, local flavor, the commute and daily errands — rather than printing a generic list.
Places from OpenStreetMap, September 10. © OpenStreetMap contributors. Distances are straight-line from the city centre, not drive times.
Where Altadena actually breaks down, in the desk's own words.
Full neighbourhood file →A 0.7-mile stretch of Santa Rosa Avenue lined with towering deodar cedars planted in 1885; the trees have been strung with lights as a public holiday display every year since 1920, making it one of the longest-running Christmas light displays in the country.
In 1887 printing magnate Andrew McNally and businessman George Gill Green built mansions on Mariposa Street near Santa Rosa Avenue, kicking off a run of Eastern-money estates; novelist Zane Grey bought a home nearby in the same district in the early 1900s.
Occupying Altadena's central flatlands, this tract of wide streets and ranch-style homes built mostly in the 1940s-1960s was exempt from the redlining that barred Black homebuyers elsewhere in the region, making it one of the first middle-class African American neighborhoods in the San Gabriel Valley.
Roughly 160 homes built between 1924 and 1926 by developer Elisha Paul Janes, known for steep roofs and multiple gables despite Janes's own lack of building credentials; the tract's distinctive character earned it designation as a Los Angeles County heritage area in 2002.
Originally an 1878 hillside ranch and vineyard above Millard Canyon, the site became La Vina Sanatorium in 1911, a nonprofit tuberculosis hospital that burned in a 1935 wildfire before being rebuilt; the land was redeveloped starting in 1993 into today's gated community of roughly 272 homes.
Completed in 1934, this hillside park anchors the surrounding residential pocket, where homes were built across nearly every decade of the early 20th century in styles ranging from Craftsman to Spanish Revival to Mid-Century Modern.
Ordinary life in Altadena, the way it actually runs — not a highlight reel.
Coffee at Coffee Gallery, then whatever the day actually needs.
An hour at Mount Lowe Park, between the errands that never show up on a listing sheet.
Dinner at Miya, then a short drive back to whichever neighbourhood you call home.
Illustrative scenes, not photographs of the places named. Places from OpenStreetMap, © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL.
Real listings live in Altadena right now — not a wish list.
All Altadena listings →
Active listings, as of September 22. Photos are illustrative — not photographs of the address on the card.
Ask the Insider desk what's new, what dropped, and what's worth a look near you.
