Monrovia's Midwest mystique

It's is a quintessential slice of Southern California, snuggled against soaring San Gabriel peaks, a place where deer graze in frontyards and bears are known to wander by. It's a town known for exquisitely maintained and highly admired homes that exemplify the best of Craftsman and Victorian design. An old-fashioned main street -- home to idiosyncratic and independent retailers -- thrives. Summer nights are hot; winter days are cool. Old Route 66 runs through it.

Pasadena? Hardly.

This is Monrovia, the town that time forgot. (Well, almost. The soaring real estate market keeps Monrovia rooted firmly in the present.) Monrovia's Old Town is the anti-mall, an antidote for those who are tired of worshiping at the indistinguishable retail temples of newly contrived downtowns. You probably won't spot any celebrities here, and good luck trying to buy a pair of $200 jeans. Monrovia's not like that. It's a little bit slow and a little bit square -- a place to spend an afternoon or evening shopping, eating, appreciating architecture and generally recalibrating the speed of life.

Monrovia's pervasive small-town feeling is deliberate. There are no "big-box" retailers -- and only a scattering of chain stores for that matter -- in the heart of Old Town, the five block stretch of Myrtle Avenue between Foothill Boulevard and Olive Avenue.

"We don't have anything faddish," says Monrovia Mayor Rob Hammond, who owns three pawnshops, including one on Myrtle Avenue. "Our downtown is not ever going to be geared to chain stores. We don't have everything for everybody. We have absolutely preserved the character of the community, absolutely preserved the atmosphere of Rockwellian Americana. There is no Old Navy looking to come here. It's just not going to happen."

Instead, Old Town has singular book and gift stores; clothing stores; art galleries; antiques stores; old-fashioned toy, records and comic-book emporiums; a tea parlor; bakeries; a newsstand; and restaurants. Huge caramel apples gleam in the window at Sir Walter Nuts and Candy. Even the multiplex was designed to minimize its effect on the aesthetic of Myrtle Avenue.

"I think what you find about Monrovia that's rather unique is that they really have a family atmosphere, versus a community like Pasadena that is attracting yuppies or Gen-Xers," says Tina Carey, who owns Mystic Sisters, an eclectic Old Town book and gift store with an expansive mission that includes weekly signings for local authors, a weekly Native American prayer circle, a grief support group and regular meetings of the Bahai faith.