Friday, July 31, 2026

The Novelist Who Called Altadena Home Gets a Second Life — in a Lecture

[photo credit: Pasadena Heritage]

Heritage leader Hans Allhoff examines Zane Grey’s foothill connections 18 months after the fire that destroyed the author’s estate

Zane Grey wrote Westerns about the frontier, but the place he chose to live for the last 19 years of his life was no dusty outpost. It was a concrete mansion on East Mariposa Street in Altadena, set against the San Gabriel Mountains, where he produced the bulk of his later novels before dying in 1939 at the age of 67.

On Friday, July 31, the next installment of the Altadena Revealed lecture series will explore Grey’s life and his ties to the foothill community. The talk, titled “Zane Grey, the Open, and Altadena,” will be delivered by Hans Allhoff, chair of Altadena Heritage, at the Eaton Fire Collaboratory on West Woodbury Road. Grey’s estate — a Mediterranean Revival landmark listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 2002 — was among more than 9,400 structures destroyed in the January 2025 Eaton Fire, according to Cal Fire.

Grey, born Pearl Zane Grey in Zanesville, Ohio, in 1872, wrote more than 80 books over his career, according to Encyclopaedia Britannica. His 1912 novel “Riders of the Purple Sage” remains his most widely known work. He and his wife purchased the Altadena property in 1920 and added a rooftop studio and library. The house itself predated Grey — designed by architects Myron Hunt and Elmer Grey (no relation) and built in 1907 for Chicago businessman Arthur Herbert Woodward, it was constructed entirely of reinforced concrete. Woodward’s wife, Edith Norton Woodward, a survivor of the 1903 Iroquois Theater Fire in Chicago, had insisted the home be fireproof, according to published histories of the property. The house stood for 118 years before the Eaton Fire left only its concrete walls.

Allhoff, a criminal defense and civil litigation attorney who moved to Altadena’s Rubio Canyon area in 2022, is himself a fire survivor who lost his home on Sunny Oaks Circle, according to the Los Angeles Times.

“Everyone loved Altadena in his or her own way, but the wildness of it and the freedom of it is something that is deeply important to people,” Allhoff told the Times in February 2025, weeks after the fire.

The Altadena Revealed series is a monthly lecture program presented by the Foothill Catalog Foundation, a nonprofit that describes itself as dedicated to rebuilding and restoring communities affected by the Eaton Fire, in collaboration with Pasadena Heritage, Altadena Heritage, Bungalow Heaven Landmark District, and the Altadena Historical Society.

“Altadena Revealed: Zane Grey, the Open, and Altadena” takes place on Friday, July 31, 2026, from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at the Eaton Fire Collaboratory, 540 West Woodbury Road, Altadena, CA 91001. A $10 donation is requested with registration; free admission is available upon request by contacting info@foothillcatalog.org. Parking information was not available at press time. For more information, call Pasadena Heritage at 626-441-6333 or email info@pasadenaheritage.org. Registration: https://givebutter.com/altadenarevealed12.

Grey once wrote of his Altadena home, “In Altadena, I have found those qualities that make life worth living.” The estate is gone. The words remain.