“The Center Building is of Moorish design, six stories in height, and is constructed entirely of steel, stone, and brick, being absolutely fireproof. The two building are connected by a covered steel archway 200 feet in length which crosses Raymond Avenue.

“The West Building is six stories, in which is located the European Café, Dutch and Colonial Dining Rooms and Romanesque Parlor.

“[The Hotel] has over 500 sleeping rooms – 350 with baths, and numerous parlors and card rooms. There are nine and one-quarter acres of floor space, over one mile of halls leading to rooms, a roof garden measuring 50 by 225 feet, a portion of which is enclosed by glass and filled with tropical plants. In the main hotel is a great central room with many restful lounging chairs; opening from this is the reception room, billiard-room, refreshment-room, dining-room, reading-room, and in easy reach are elevators and a graceful puente connecting the main building with the west building. The power house and all machinery are located 600 feet from the building.”

The western part of the Hotel Green is still standing today in Old Town Pasadena. It has been turned into condominiums and housing for seniors. It is used a lot now for filming movies and TV shows.
 
Back to 1908 – the Taylors are impressed with their first-class accommodations and, after freshening up, spend the rest of the afternoon exploring this magnificent palace. Mrs. Taylor doesn’t feel particularly tired and is looking forward to a good dinner – perhaps the fabled fresh air of Southern California is already working its magic. Since they are on the American Plan, their meals tend to be generously proportioned. The menu that evening, from which they can pick and choose, consists of hors d’oeuvres of grape-fruit supreme, essence of chicken l’Epicure, ripe olives, celery, and salted pecans. Entrees include Catalina sand dabs on Papilotte, with potato chips and cucumbers a al Jones, creamed lamb sweetbreads a la king washed down with California punch, and potted squab chicken. For “afters” there is fruit salad, frozen Nesselrode pudding, small assorted cakes, Roquefort cheese with toasted crackers, and bon bons.  Liquid refreshment consists of demitasse, haute sauterne, apollinaris, and Mumm’s Extra Dry Champagne. The Taylors take their after-dinner coffee in one of the reception rooms and then waddle off to their room to retire for the night.

The next morning dawns sunny and mild. At this point, although too polite to say so, the Taylors are sick of the sight of each other after having been cooped up together in the train for almost 66 hours, and decide it would be good to have a day of separate activities. But first, it’s time for Breakfast. There’s nothing like travel to work up an appetite. If they had been on the European Plan for meals they would simply have coffee, rolls, and boiled eggs. But the American Plan gives them hot-house grapes or blood oranges; a choice of bread, rolls, corn muffins, or scones; hot chocolate and/or coffee; boiled salmon with creamed potatoes, an omelet with mushrooms, or a porterhouse steak with grilled sweet potatoes; or perhaps just hot waffles with maple syrup. Those were the days when breakfast was breakfast.

Mr. Taylor, who prides himself on his horsemanship, decides he’ll hire a steed from the hotel’s livery and take a ramble through the surrounding countryside. Mrs. Taylor wants to explore the nearby downtown and perhaps pick up a few souvenirs.
 
With a lunch of sandwiches and coffee provided by the hotel, Mr. Taylor, feeling like a Vaquero of old, sets off in quest of the great outdoors. The city limit of Pasadena stretched out as far east as Meredith Avenue by 1908, and some rural tracts of land were beginning to get that slightly-abandoned, soon-to-be-developed look we have gotten so used to seeing in our own day. But, still, it wasn’t difficult to find open country to explore. Jennie Hollingsworth Giddings in her book I Can Remember Early Pasadena describes well the experience of galloping over the hills. Although she was reminiscing about the 1880s, and things had changed somewhat by 1908, I’m sure Mr. Taylor had some of the same basic impressions:

“Horseback riding in the great natural expanse was a new thrill to most of us. The beauty of the great sloping poppy fields held us breathless while platystemon, baby blue eyes, alfilaria and many other varieties of flowers dotted the acres below. Galloping over the plains there was nothing to distract our attention from the bright carpet of bloom and the clear, blue sky…The only danger was badger holes which might ensnare my pony’s hoofs and break her legs. No matter which way we rode, the miles ahead of us were legion even on the canyon trails. The word traffic was not even heard in regard to transportation.”

Meanwhile, Mrs. Taylor has discovered the commercial center of Pasadena. She is amazed how such a small town can support such a variety of upscale shops, but remembers how so many of them cater to the tourist trade, which is especially heavy so close to New Year’s Day and the Tournament of Roses. As the horse-and-buggy age drifted into the automobile age, Colorado Street was a noisy, somewhat dangerous amalgam of pedestrians, people on horseback, backfiring automobiles, jitneys, and some old carriages, buggies, and tally-hoes. She buys some stationary at the A.C. Vroman Company at 60 East Colorado and tries on some hats at Fred E. Twombley’s at 102 East Colorado. She can’t resist purchasing a new long coat on sale at Meyer’s Department Store for $3.98, regularly 7 to 9 dollars. She buys a few souvenirs and knickknacks at John Bentz Japanese and Chinese arts goods store on South Raymond and remembers to make an appointment to have her hair done later in the week at the Waldorf Hair Store, also on Colorado. Mrs. Taylor enjoys a light lunch at Skillen & Skillen, Pasadena’s finest bakery and confectionary shop where, as their sign says, “purity is paramount.” After a nap in her room back at the hotel, Mrs. Taylor writes some postcards to loved ones back home.
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The Taylors meet up again for afternoon tea served at the hotel from a steaming samovar. Tea is the drink, so the Edwardians say, “that cheers but does not inebriate.”  They take their tea on the porch of the Green sharing their day’s adventures and watching the peculiar lighting effects as the mountains change from purple to rose and the colors and texture of the surrounding vegetation take on those visual effects that before then the Taylors had only seen in paintings by Arroyo School artists.

The weather on the morning of New Year’s Eve is ideal, with a high of 73. The Taylors are starting to believe the travel literature they read before starting their trip that promised Southern California’s confortable and healthful all-the-year climate would make no extraordinary demand upon their energy and vitality. The hotel has arranged a tour of Pasadena for its guests. The Taylors are surprised to see waiting for them not the modern conveyance they expected, but an antique carriage with a six-in-hand team of horses. They marvel at the driver’s skill with whip, lines, and brake as they set off along a mixture of macadamized and dirt roads. The air is alive with the snapping of the tourists’ Kodaks. For the sake of argument, let’s say the rather breathless description of Pasadena supplied by George Wharton James was the reality the Taylors experienced on their tour: There exists “so many elaborate and ornate residences, located in such extensive and exquisitely beautiful grounds. Wealth, refinement, culture, here hold sway, for Pasadena has gathered to herself the best from all parts of the world. Hence there is no wonder that her added attractions, in the way of streets, avenues, residences, grounds, gardens lawns, and conservatories have so much heightened and enhanced her natural beauties and charms, and that all who come within her magic confines are charmed beyond the power of words to describe. Orange Grove Avenue, the Raymond Hill, California Street, Terrace Drive, and Marengo Avenue are especially delightful to our Eastern visitors, and when the saw bushes upon which fifty thousand, a hundred thousand, or even more, roses could be counted at one time, their delight grew into amazement and astonishment at the prolific nature of the soil.”

In any case, I’m sure the Taylors were just as impressed as today’s visitors are with the natural beauty of Pasadena. James lists the variety of trees along the streets: eucalyptus, pepper, palm, umbrella and magnolia; fruit trees of all types: apples, peaches, figs, guavas, plums, apricots, and of course citrus. Even bananas grew in abundance in residential gardens. Easterners were amazed to see blooming flowers in the winter, seeming to flourish without much human intervention. In season you could see roses of all colors, calla lilies, poinsettia, geraniums, violets, heliotrope, chrysanthemums, fleur des lis, flowers of paradise, mariposa lily, alyssum, and marguerite.  In addition, James comments that “in the country and on ever side and growing even within Pasadena itself, are orange groves, and the air is full of their pungent sweetness.” Sudafed anyone? Not the place for someone with hay fever!

Back behind all this verdure could be found both pretentious residences (remember that “pretentious” was a positive word in those days) and the omnipresent bungalow, which James called “a synonym for the comfortable and homelike in architecture.”
  
Suitably impressed, the Taylors alight from their carriage and hurry to their room to prepare for the New Year’s Eve celebration at their hotel that night.
 
Now, as the title card in the silent movies might say, “later that evening…”

Glad that they had toted their finest evening wear with them from the East, the Taylors enter the hotel rooms devoted to the holiday celebration. They are mesmerized by the “beautiful, charmingly-gowned women, a tropical profusion of flowers, a witty, spirited company, and an ideal setting.” The tables are set with the “finest napery, silverware, shimmering  glasses and delicate china.” The menu is sublime. (And this is the last one I will bore you with): vermouth cocktails accompanied by appetizers of California oysters and clear green turtle aux champagne; Sunnyslope sherry followed by timbales of chicken a la Talleyrand, salted almonds, celery, and olives. Barracuda a la hoteliere, potato croquettes, and cucumbers washed down with Cresta Blanca Sauternes. Larded tenderloin…oh my heart…that’s larded tenderloin of beef aux truffles, stuffed tomatoes a la Creole, sweetbreads in cases a la Conti, and new peas, washed down with Cresta Blanca Margaux. Then how about Asparagus a la Hollandaise, roasted squabs, barde with cresses, mayonnaise of fresh shrimps, washed down with G.H. Mumm’s Extra Dry?  Just to fill those still-empty corners of the tummy we finish with fancy forms ice cream, fruit, assorted cake, camembert cheese, coffee, and cognac. Digest while you listed to operatic arias and some old Spanish airs from the local talent, or perhaps some lively renditions of “I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls” and “Rings on Her Fingers and Bells on Her Toes” by the hotel orchestra. Join in toasts such as his one: “May the best day you have seen be worse than the worse to come.” And on a full stomach go a few rounds of the Turkey Trot or the hesitation or Boston Waltz. Just to tide you over til morning you may find distributed around the room tempting presentations of long-stemmed fresh fruit with powdered sugar in bowls. All in all, a nice way to end the year.
 
Mr. and Mrs. Taylor are up early the next morning, New Year’s Day. They are told the mercury dipped to 36 degrees last night, and are amused how Southern Californians consider this to be close to Arctic conditions. After a simple breakfast (for once), they debate whether to watch the 19th annual Tournament of Roses parade from a hotel window or join the throngs that are beginning to line Raymond Avenue and Colorado Street. In those days the parade route was very convoluted. It began, as now, on South Orange Grove, went east on Colorado, south on Fair Oaks to Vineland Street, north on Raymond, back west on Colorado, north on Fair Oaks, east on Holly, south on Raymond, east on Colorado again to Wilson, south on Wilson to San Pasqual and thence to the finish line at Tournament Park. This mean that the parade was visible from at least two side of the Hotel Green and, in fact, the hotel rented rooms to groups for the sole purpose of viewing the parade.
 
Mr. and Mrs. Taylor opt for joining the crowd on the street along Raymond. Since the parade doesn’t start until 11:00 a.m. they don’t have to hurry. People those days dressed up to go anywhere. It’s interesting to look at photographs of the parade crowds right up into the 1930s and see ladies in dresses, hosiery and high heels and men in coats, ties, and hats. Everyone standing, nobody sitting or much less lying down at curbside. I’m sure they would be aghast at today’s slovenly ways. It is a glorious day weather-wise, in the 70s – the kind of New Year’s Day many of us now look on with divided feelings. How many of us have watched the floats going down Colorado in the blazing sunshine, knowing that untold numbers of snowbound people in the East are seeing the same thing? “Oh God, here come another million people to California” is our less than boosterish observation.  But let’s face it, the whole idea of the Rose Parade back in those years was to attract visitors and new residents. And of all the sights and attractions that Mr. and Mrs. Taylor enjoyed in 1909 Pasadena, the only ones that still hold universal appeal after all these years are the Parade and the weather.

(continued)