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The William Thum House

On a tree-lined residential block in northeast Pasadena, near the foothills that define the city’s northern visual horizon, stands the William Thum House at 1507 East Mountain Street. The house was designed in 1925 by Henry Mather Greene, working from his Pasadena office under his solo professional designation Henry M. Greene, Architect, in the fourth year of his independent practice following the formal dissolution of Greene & Greene at the end of 1922. The client was William Thum — born 1862, a student of economics, a civic reformer, and the former Mayor of Pasadena from May 1911 through May 1913. The house is the Mediterranean Revival residence that Henry produced for one of the most consequential figures in early-twentieth-century Pasadena municipal history, in the third year of Thum’s retirement from active civic life.

The house is identified on the City of Pasadena’s Historic Properties List as the William Thum House, attributed to Henry M. Greene, dated 1925, and individually listed with the status code GG (signifying recognition as a Greene & Greene structure). The building falls within the boundaries of the North Pasadena Heights Landmark District, designated by the City of Pasadena on March 13, 2006, covering both sides of East Mountain Street and the surrounding residential blocks of the neighborhood that constitutes one of Pasadena’s most architecturally coherent early-twentieth-century residential ensembles.

William Thum, Mayor of Pasadena

William Thum was, in the early 1910s, one of the most significant municipal reformers in the history of Pasadena civic government. Born in 1862 — making him sixty-three years old at the time he commissioned the 1925 Henry Greene house — Thum had emerged into Pasadena public life through the prolonged and contentious water campaign of 1910 and 1911, which sought to bring the city’s water supply under municipal ownership rather than continue with private utility provision. Thum had been prominent in the campaign, and his nomination as a mayoral candidate in 1911 reflected the campaign organizers’ conviction that he was the figure best positioned to unite the various nonconforming political groups within Pasadena into a coalition capable of securing the water acquisition.

Thum was, by the standards of early-twentieth-century municipal politics, an unusual public figure. He was identified by his contemporaries as a student of economics who held what they described as utopian ideas — a label that suggested a degree of intellectual ambition beyond the ordinary conventions of municipal political life. He had the confidence of his political allies, and his approach to the office of Mayor reflected his economic and administrative preoccupations. His first innovation upon assuming office was to employ Robert S. Allen as the city’s efficiency clerk — a position Thum funded out of his own personal expenses rather than the city budget — with the explicit purpose of systematizing the various municipal departments and introducing greater economies into the city’s operating practices. The hiring of an efficiency clerk paid by the Mayor personally was the kind of administrative innovation that distinguished Thum’s mayoralty from those of his predecessors and successors.

Thum’s two-year administration produced a remarkable list of completed civic accomplishments. The acquisition of municipal water — the cause that had brought him into public life and produced his nomination — was achieved during his term, with the city of Pasadena assuming public ownership of its water supply system. The Colorado Street Bridge, the elegant arched concrete structure spanning the Arroyo Seco that would become one of the most recognizable architectural symbols of the city of Pasadena, was completed in 1913 during Thum’s administration; it stands today as a National Historic Landmark and a contributing structure to multiple Pasadena historic districts. The Columbia Street Bridge was completed during Thum’s term. The Broadway storm drain was completed. The Eastside storm drain was begun. A range of additional civic infrastructure projects, particularly along Orange Grove Avenue and adjacent corridors, were completed under his oversight. Few two-year mayoral terms in Pasadena’s history can claim a comparable record of completed municipal capital projects.

Thum retired from active municipal life at the conclusion of his term in May 1913. The twelve years between his retirement from office and his commission of the 1925 Henry Greene house represent the period during which Pasadena’s civic landscape continued to develop in ways that reflected, in significant part, the foundational infrastructure work of his administration. By 1925, the city had grown around the bridges, water systems, and storm drains that his mayoralty had produced. The Colorado Street Bridge in particular had become a landmark of national architectural significance, photographed and celebrated as an emblem of Pasadena’s distinctive built environment. Thum, as a private citizen by 1925, lived within a city that his municipal administration had materially shaped.

The 1925 Commission

In 1925, William Thum engaged Henry Mather Greene’s solo Pasadena practice for the design of a substantial new residence at 1507 East Mountain Street, in the developing residential area of northeast Pasadena that would later be designated as the North Pasadena Heights Landmark District. The commission represented Thum’s late-life decision to commission a custom architectural residence — at age sixty-three, in the third year of his post-mayoral retirement — from one of the city’s most established residential architects.

Henry Greene’s relationship to William Thum’s broader architectural patronage history included at least one earlier Pasadena residence. Thum had been associated, prior to his 1925 commission, with a residence on Pasadena Avenue designed or built by the architect George Lawrence Stimson — a property that the National Register documentation later identified as having been either a speculative venture that Thum acquired or a custom Stimson commission for Thum, with the documentary record uncertain on this distinction. The earlier Stimson-associated Thum residence stood adjacent to a separate Stimson-designed residence occupied by William Thum’s brother Ferdinand, a Pasadena dentist. The 1925 Henry Greene commission represents Thum’s transition from the Pasadena Avenue residential context — close to his brother and within the city’s older residential fabric — to the developing northeastern residential blocks of Mountain Street, in a new custom-designed residence by an entirely different architect.

The selection of Henry Greene for the 1925 commission reflected Thum’s confidence in the firm’s residential capabilities at a moment when Henry’s solo practice was producing some of its most accomplished late-career work. The 1924 portfolio included the Thomas Gould Jr. House in Ventura, the Arthur Savage Duplex on North Marengo Avenue, and the Samuel Z. Mardian Store and Apartment Building on East Washington Boulevard. The 1925 portfolio additionally included the relocation and redesign of the James Swan House from East Colorado Boulevard to North Holliston Avenue in Altadena — the major Henry Greene commission of the same year as the Thum House — and the Mrs. C. P. Daly House in Ventura. Thum, commissioning a residence in 1925, was engaging a firm at a peak moment of late-career productivity.

The Mediterranean Revival Vocabulary

The architectural language Henry Greene employed for the Thum House was Mediterranean Revival — the dominant residential vocabulary of mid-1920s Pasadena and Southern California more broadly. The decision to design in the Mediterranean Revival style, rather than in the Craftsman or Arts and Crafts tradition for which the Greene & Greene partnership had become world-famous during the Pasadena Peak Period, was a stylistic choice that reflected both the broader 1920s shift in Southern California residential taste and the particular preferences of the client. The Thum House represents, in this sense, Henry’s accommodation of his client’s stylistic vision rather than the imposition of the architect’s own signature vocabulary.

This accommodation is worth noting clearly. Henry Greene in 1925 was perfectly capable of designing in the Craftsman vocabulary — he had done so for nearly three decades, and would continue to do so for selected later commissions. The 1924 Thomas Gould Jr. House, completed the year before the Thum House, was an Arts and Crafts residence executed at the firm’s full late-career level of finish. The decision to design the Thum House in Mediterranean Revival rather than Craftsman was not a question of Henry’s stylistic capability; it was a question of the client’s preferences and the broader 1920s residential context in which custom Pasadena residences were increasingly being commissioned in Spanish Colonial Revival, Mediterranean Revival, and related period revival styles.

The architectural critic David Gebhard, writing with co-author Robert Winter in the standard reference work Architecture in Los Angeles: A Compleat Guide, described the Thum House in plain terms as “utterly nondescript.” The characterization is candid, and it is worth engaging with directly: the Thum House does not announce its architectural ambition through dramatic massing, distinctive ornamental detailing, or the kind of immediate visual signature that defines the firm’s better-known Pasadena residences. Within the broader catalog of 1920s Pasadena Mediterranean Revival residences, the Thum House does not stand out as a distinctive example of the period revival vocabulary; it represents, rather, a competent and architectally restrained execution of the Mediterranean Revival idiom for a private residential client whose preferences leaned toward visual quietude rather than architectural display.

The architectural-historical interest of the Thum House lies, accordingly, less in its stylistic signature and more in two related considerations. First, the building documents Henry Greene’s professional flexibility — his willingness and ability to design residences in the period revival vocabularies that 1920s Pasadena clients increasingly preferred, even when those vocabularies were entirely outside the Arts and Crafts tradition that had defined the firm’s reputation. Second, the building documents the particular architectural taste of William Thum, the former Pasadena Mayor whose municipal infrastructure projects had defined the city’s early-twentieth-century built environment, and whose 1925 residential commission represented his personal vision of what an appropriate Pasadena residence should look like in the post-Craftsman era of Southern California residential architecture.

The Interior

The interior of the Thum House, as documented in contemporary real estate records and visible on careful examination, contains a number of architectural details that reflect Henry Greene’s careful attention to the residence’s interior character. The house is a two-story structure of approximately five bedrooms and five bathrooms in current configuration. The principal floor includes a graceful entry, a spacious living room with a fireplace, a formal dining room, and a library or family room with built-in bookshelves of Australian gumwood — a particularly distinctive interior detail that reflects the early-twentieth-century practice of using imported eucalyptus species for high-end residential cabinetry. Australian gumwood, with its rich grain and warm tonal range, was a material of choice for sophisticated interior carpentry in the 1910s and 1920s; its specification for the Thum House library indicates that Henry’s design did not stint on the quality of interior materials despite the building’s overall stylistic restraint.

The principal-floor public rooms feature tall ceilings, hardwood floors, crown moldings, French doors connecting interior spaces to the surrounding gardens, and a built-in window seat that provides a discrete moment of architectural detail within the broader interior composition. The kitchen has been updated in subsequent years and now features a center island; the breakfast area adjacent to the kitchen offers views of the landscaped garden through the building’s window walls.

The upper floor includes four bedrooms and three bathrooms, including what contemporary real estate descriptions identify as an opulent primary suite. An office or den on the upper floor offers views of the San Gabriel Mountains to the north — a viewing orientation that takes advantage of the building’s northeast Pasadena siting and the natural topographical relationship between the residential blocks of Mountain Street and the San Gabriel foothills.

The combination of restrained Mediterranean Revival exterior and well-detailed interior — with Australian gumwood library shelves, hardwood floors, crown moldings, French doors, and built-in window seats — represents the kind of late-career Henry Greene residential interior detailing that, while not approaching the elaborated Arts and Crafts integration of the Pasadena Peak Period, demonstrates the firm’s continued attention to interior architectural quality even within a stylistic framework outside its core Craftsman tradition.

The North Pasadena Heights Landmark District

The North Pasadena Heights Landmark District was designated by the City of Pasadena on March 13, 2006, recognizing the residential blocks of northeast Pasadena including East Mountain Street and surrounding streets as a coherent early-twentieth-century residential ensemble worthy of formal landmark protection. The district’s designation encompasses both sides of the principal streets within its boundaries, and the William Thum House at 1507 East Mountain Street is one of the contributing properties within the district’s protective framework.

The district’s architectural character represents the residential development of northeast Pasadena during the period when the city was expanding outward from its older central residential blocks. The neighborhoods within the district contain examples of multiple early-twentieth-century residential styles — Craftsman bungalows, Mediterranean Revival residences, Spanish Colonial Revival homes, and Period Revival examples — reflecting the eclecticism of 1920s Southern California residential development. The Thum House contributes to this district as a Henry Mather Greene-designed example of the Mediterranean Revival vocabulary, attached to a former Pasadena Mayor with significant historical associations to the city’s early-twentieth-century civic development.

Henry Greene’s Stylistic Range in 1925

The Thum House is one of several 1925 commissions that document Henry Mather Greene’s late-career stylistic range. The 1925 portfolio included the Mediterranean Revival Thum House for William Thum in northeast Pasadena, the Mediterranean Revival relocation and redesign of the originally Shingle Style James Swan House from East Colorado Boulevard to North Holliston Avenue in Altadena (House 16 in this directory), the Mrs. C. P. Daly House in Ventura, and continuing work on the Mrs. Carrie Whitworth House in Altadena and the Jennie Crocker Whitman House in Pebble Beach. The geographic and stylistic distribution of these commissions — Pasadena, Altadena, Ventura, Pebble Beach; Mediterranean Revival, Period Revival, miscellaneous late-career residential — indicates that Henry’s solo practice in 1925 was working across the full range of Southern California’s coastal residential markets and across multiple period-revival stylistic vocabularies.

The Thum and Swan commissions, both completed in 1925 and both executed in Mediterranean Revival idiom, document Henry’s particular fluency in this stylistic vocabulary. The Swan commission was a relocation and exterior redesign that transformed an 1898-99 Shingle Style mansion into a 1925 Mediterranean Revival residence; the Thum commission was a new-construction Mediterranean Revival residence for a former Pasadena Mayor. The two commissions, taken together, represent Henry’s most concentrated 1925 engagement with the Mediterranean Revival vocabulary that would soon — by 1926 — also produce his own personal residence, the Henry Dart Greene House at 1405 La Solana Drive in Altadena, which was designated as a Los Angeles County Landmark in 2024.

The Building’s Place in the Greene & Greene Story

The William Thum House occupies a particular position within the Greene & Greene catalog as a documented late-career Henry Mather Greene Mediterranean Revival commission for a client of significant Pasadena civic-historical interest. The building is not, in the strict architectural-historical sense, one of the firm’s distinguished residential designs; the candid critical assessment of Gebhard and Winter places the Thum House outside the category of stylistically distinctive Greene & Greene buildings. The building’s interest derives, instead, from three related considerations.

First, the building is a documented example of Henry Greene’s ability to work in stylistic vocabularies entirely outside the Craftsman tradition that defined the firm’s reputation. The Thum House documents Henry’s Mediterranean Revival fluency at a moment when Pasadena residential architecture was substantially transitioning away from Craftsman and toward period revival styles, and it represents the firm’s professional adaptability across that stylistic transition.

Second, the building is associated with William Thum, one of the most consequential figures in early-twentieth-century Pasadena municipal history, whose two-year mayoralty produced the acquisition of municipal water, the completion of the Colorado Street Bridge, the completion of the Columbia Street Bridge, and a range of additional civic infrastructure projects. The architectural-historical interest of the Thum House is enhanced, in this sense, by the civic-historical significance of the client.

Third, the building is individually listed on the City of Pasadena’s Historic Properties List with formal recognition as a Greene & Greene structure, and it is a contributing property within the North Pasadena Heights Landmark District. The combination of individual GG-listed status and contributing-property status within a designated landmark district provides ongoing preservation protection for the building.

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Closing Reflection

A house that was, in the candid evaluation of one of the most authoritative architectural guides for Southern California, “utterly nondescript” is a house that is not going to be on anyone’s tour itinerary of distinguished Greene & Greene buildings. The William Thum House, by the standards of architectural connoisseurship that have shaped the appreciation of the firm’s work, falls outside the category of buildings that justify a special trip to see them. It is, in its 1925 Mediterranean Revival exterior, restrained almost to the point of architectural anonymity. The library’s Australian gumwood bookshelves and the upstairs office’s view of the San Gabriel Mountains are interior compensations for an exterior that does not announce itself.

But the Thum House has its own kind of importance. It documents that Henry Mather Greene, in 1925, was working as the kind of architect who could accept a commission from a former Mayor of Pasadena who wanted a stylistically restrained Mediterranean Revival residence and could deliver exactly that — without imposing the Craftsman vocabulary that had defined the firm’s reputation, without insisting that the building announce its architectural pedigree. The Thum House is the work of a sixty-three-year-old architect serving a sixty-three-year-old client. Both men had reached the points in their careers where architectural display was less interesting than appropriate accommodation, and the building they produced together reflects that mutual disinclination toward architectural drama.

William Thum had spent two years of his life completing the Colorado Street Bridge — a structure of dramatic architectural and engineering display, a masterwork of arched concrete spanning the Arroyo Seco, photographed and celebrated as one of the most distinguished civic structures in California. His own private residence, commissioned twelve years after the Bridge’s completion, was something else entirely: a quiet Mediterranean Revival house on a residential block of northeast Pasadena, designed by a competent architect, with a comfortable interior, a good library, and a view of the San Gabriel Mountains. The contrast between the public works he had built and the private residence he commissioned for himself is, in its own quiet way, a kind of architectural-historical portrait of the man.

The bridges he built are still standing. The house he commissioned is still standing. Both are there, on different sides of the city, in their respective conditions of architectural preservation. The bridges proclaim themselves. The house, more quietly, holds.

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