Notable for its annual Tournament of Roses Parade and Rose Bowl football game, as well as for its academically brilliant California Institute of Technology, Pasadena is also a community of stately homes, prized art and architecture, and a trendy retail district.

With a location at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains, and about 15 minutes north of downtown Los Angeles, Pasadena first came to light as a sought-after resort town in the 1880s. the area had briefly been settled earlier, in 1873, as a farming community by a group of expat Hoosiers, who initially sent teacher-turned-journalist Daniel M. Berry out West to find a climate less harsh than that of Indiana.

Citrus groves, rose bushes, and vineyards soon gave way to the railroad, which brought a steady onslaught of wealthy Easterners who wanted to escape the cold winters back home. Elegant hotels sprang up, real estate boomed. New residents included top-level tycoons and industrialists such as William J. Wringley, Henry E. Huntington, and Adophus Busch.