Pasadena Ca

Writer Colleen Dunn Bates, a friendly Pasadena woman nearing 50, thought she had a good idea: to put together an upscale guidebook about her city -- a kind of travel book for people who live there. And given the intensely local focus of the project, rather than dealing with a big New York publisher, she decided to publish it herself, producing it out of her den and delivering it to stores from the back of her car.

A lavish hilltop estate boasting 165 rooms, an ocean view and a palatial pool fit for a publishing magnate would end up her most famous work. But Hearst Castle was just one of hundreds of buildings designed by Julia Morgan, believed to be the first female architect to practice independently in the United States. And although she had a flair for opulence, Morgan dedicated much of her time to projects intended for working-class women. It was Morgan who conceived the three-story YWCA building with the red-tile roof and arched windows on Marengo Avenue in Pasadena.

Barber-neat hedges buffer the Valley Hunt Club from the world hurrying by on Orange Grove Boulevard, the busy Pasadena street known as Millionaire's Row before condos began displacing its deep-lawn mansions. No signs bordering the Valley Hunt grounds identify it by name. But staked beneath the hedges are discreet markers that label the property private.

Before the trendy apparel chains, frozen yogurt shops and fusion eateries arrived, Old Town Pasadena was a bohemian neighborhood where the rent was cheap, the bars were dives and one could peruse the Free Press bookstore after attending a folk dance class. It was here that an irreverent parade named after a campy British rock group known as the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band was born. And for the last three decades, it's where the Doo Dah Parade has stayed, drawing thousands to watch the offbeat and flamboyant entries -- the BBQ & Hibachi Marching Grill Team, the Church of the Ornamental Lawn Decorations, Human-Powered Cupcakes and Martinis in the Morning.

The landmark Ritz-Carlton Huntington Hotel & Spa in Pasadena is being sold for $170 million to a Hong Kong real estate investment firm that may drop the name Ritz-Carlton. Great Eagle Holdings, which owns office, retail, residential and hotel properties in Hong Kong, North America and Europe, announced the purchase in a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange Tuesday.

Andrew Cherng remembers pacing through his Chinese restaurant in Pasadena wondering whether any customers would show. It was a difficult time. He had borrowed from family members and the Small Business Administration to open the eatery and had debts to pay. "People would stick their heads in and leave," Cherng recalled. His mother went out and sprinkled the sidewalk with salt, a Chinese custom to expel negative energy. It worked. Thirty-five years later, Cherng, 61, and his wife, Peggy, control one of the largest family-owned fast-food empires in America.

A double killing early Friday in Pasadena is the latest in a string of gang-related shootings over the last year that has officials and residents in the city's northwestern district on edge. The shootings have occurred in a relatively small section of Pasadena and involve what officials believe is a gang clash.

The shuttered St. Luke Medical Center, a northeast Pasadena landmark, has been sold by the California Institute of Technology to a Beverly Hills developer, the university announced Monday. DS Ventures' plans for the 13.4-acre site on Washington Boulevard at the Altadena border have not been revealed, but some neighbors are pressing for an emergency medical facility to be included. St. Luke opened in 1933 and served generations of Pasadena and Altadena residents before closing in 2002.

A high-end psychiatric hospital in Pasadena where four patients died and one was raped in recent years is facing renewed scrutiny after inspectors learned of several recent escapes and near suicides. Aurora Las Encinas Hospital has been notified that it risks losing federal financial support after the latest incidents, one of which involved a woman known to be suicidal who was able to remove a battery from a TV remote-control device and swallow it. Several days after that, she broke a mirror and swallowed glass.

A husband and wife have been arrested and charged with operating a high-end prostitution ring out of two upscale apartment complexes in Pasadena and Irvine, authorities said Wednesday. Thanh Ly, 35, and Li Chen, 32, are accused of managing two dozen women, who charged clients $200 per encounter in the discreet residential buildings, said Lt. Tom Pederson of the Pasadena Police Department, which worked with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on the case. The couple, who were arrested Dec. 16 after a two-year investigation, are being held in lieu of $2-million bail pending a preliminary hearing on charges of pimping and pandering, Pederson said.

A high-end psychiatric hospital in Pasadena where four patients died and one was raped in recent years is facing renewed scrutiny after inspectors learned of several recent escapes and near suicides. Aurora Las Encinas Hospital has been notified that it risks losing federal financial support after the latest incidents, one of which involved a woman known to be suicidal who was able to remove a battery from a TV remote-control device and swallow it. Several days after that, she broke a mirror and swallowed glass.

A long-delayed real estate development on the site of the former Ambassador College in Pasadena has been revived by the sale of a 10-acre portion of the campus to a builder that plans to start construction on housing in 2011. City Ventures bought the property on New Year's Day for about $15 million from New York hedge fund Fortress Investment Group, which had foreclosed on the previous owners in 2008. Santa Ana-based City Ventures plans to develop the site following plans previously approved in principle by the city.

A husband and wife have been arrested and charged with operating a high-end prostitution ring out of two upscale apartment complexes in Pasadena and Irvine, authorities said Wednesday. Thanh Ly, 35, and Li Chen, 32, are accused of managing two dozen women, who charged clients $200 per encounter in the discreet residential buildings, said Lt. Tom Pederson of the Pasadena Police Department, which worked with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on the case. The couple, who were arrested Dec. 16 after a two-year investigation, are being held in lieu of $2-million bail pending a preliminary hearing on charges of pimping and pandering, Pederson said.

Even as idyllically warm weather greeted huge crowds in Pasadena on Saturday, it also was busy hastening the demise of what they had come to marvel at: 42 flower-festooned floats. In response to the oft-asked question -- What happens to all these roses when it's over? -- some of the white-suited volunteers gave the standard, reassuring answer: They will be donated to hospitals and other worthy places. But that seemed increasingly unlikely a day after the 121st Rose Parade as temperatures in the mid-70s lingered during the winter afternoon and hundreds of thousands of blooms -- nourished by vials artfully concealed on the floats -- imperceptibly began to wilt.

The 121st Rose Parade offered up a message befitting the bright, sunny skies as it celebrated heroes of all kinds, from the steely nerved pilot who guided a US Airways plane to a safe landing in the Hudson River to a troop of soulful-eyed pack mules that helped train U.S. Marines to survive in the mountains of Afghanistan. After a tough year that left many wishing for uplifting news and more champions, spectators along the Pasadena parade route said they appreciated the presence Friday of so many role models -- some in the flesh and some made of poppy seeds.

Quetzalcoatl and Tlaloc were supposed to live together for at least five years on a Pasadena street corner, coexisting on the side of a Fair Oaks Avenue grocery store. The Aztec deities had come together at the hands of a local artist who -- with the help of a $2,500 city grant -- painted them on a bursting-with-color mural complete with the San Gabriel Mountains and the Arroyo Seco. But last month, in an apparent mix-up, the 60-foot-long, city-sponsored mural was whitewashed out of existence.

A half block from the intersection of Colorado and Orange Grove boulevards, the launching point of the Rose Parade, is Pasadena's secret garden: the sprawling grounds of the former Ambassador College campus.

A long-delayed real estate development on the site of the former Ambassador College in Pasadena has been revived by the sale of a 10-acre portion of the campus to a builder that plans to start construction on housing in 2011. City Ventures bought the property on New Year's Day for about $15 million from New York hedge fund Fortress Investment Group, which had foreclosed on the previous owners in 2008. Santa Ana-based City Ventures plans to develop the site following plans previously approved in principle by the city.

Tucked amid some of Pasadena's most opulent estates in the South Arroyo neighborhood is a rare post-and-beam home that has undergone extensive remodeling yet remains faithful to its architects' experimental vision. Walls of glass, simple materials, wide-open interiors and seamless transitions between indoor and outdoor spaces are the distinguishing characteristics. The effect is a home that rests delicately upon the landscape and seems to glow with a soft, warm light in evening hours.

Pasadena has a fork in the road. And it's 18 feet tall. Where south St. John and south Pasadena avenues divide, there's a towering wooden silver fork in the traffic median. The utensil has a black steel skeleton and is rooted in 2 1/2 feet of concrete. The art was originally intended as a surprise for Bob Stane of Altadena, who celebrated his 75th birthday Oct. 29. But Caltrans, which owns the median, and Pasadena, which maintains the land, are deciding whether to keep it up for a while as an impromptu piece of street art. "It was just the best birthday present I've ever had," said Stane, who owns the Coffee Gallery Backstage, a coffeehouse and showroom in Altadena, with the fork's artist, Ken Marshall.