Madison Heights, Pasadena, CA

Madison Heights is where the south side of Pasadena keeps its older houses a block or two from its busiest shopping corridors. Restored Craftsman, Colonial Revival and Tudor Revival homes fill the interior streets, while Arroyo Parkway and Fair Oaks Avenue carry the grocery stores, drive-thrus and traffic. The streets were platted as one subdivision in 1906, and houses here carry the work of Wallace Neff as well as Charles and Henry Greene. Many of those homes have been carefully kept up, with mature trees and wide sidewalks out front. Closer to the commercial streets, townhomes and condo buildings fill in between the older houses. Jones Coffee Roasters on South Raymond Avenue roasts its own beans in a warehouse room with no Wi-Fi, and it shares the space with The Crush Pad, which pours wine and beer from small producers. Jones also runs The Hut, a drive-thru on Arroyo Parkway. Allendale Park on Marengo Avenue has pickleball courts and shares its site with a branch of the public library. Central Park is a short walk north into Old Pasadena for a bigger lawn. Errands are easy here. Whole Foods sits on Arroyo Parkway and Vons is on California Boulevard, and light-rail trains stop at Fillmore and Del Mar for rides to downtown Los Angeles. Huntington Hospital's campus sits along the same boulevard, which adds steady traffic. The tradeoff is noise near the corridors. Arroyo Parkway and Fair Oaks move a lot of cars, and houses closest to them hear it. In most of Madison Heights, a block or two in is enough for the sound to drop away.