An estimated 800 people turned out for Pasadena Heritage's 2011 spring tourThe Legacy of Wallace Neffon Sunday March 27.

Wallace Neff was born on the family ranch in La Mirada in 1895 in a house designed by well-known architect Frederick Roehrig who had also designed the 1887 Altadena winter home of Neff's grandfather Andrew McNally (founder of Rand - McNally map company). At age 14 he went with his family to live in Europe for five years. While there he took drawing lessons which proved invaluable later on.With the outbreak of WW1 the family returned to Altadena and he decided to pursue architecture in earnest. Turned down by Caltech he turned to MIT. Though he never completed his studies at MIT that institution did grant him an honorary degree many years laters. In 1919 Neff joined the office of George Washington Smith, a Santa Barbara architect, as a draftsman. Smith's interpretation of Mediterraneaan styles had a major impact on Neff's tastes and in 1920 Neff formed his own firm and moved to Pasadena.

Known as architect to the stars, Wallace Neff's clients included a number of celebrities and tycoons including Mary Pickfordand Douglas Fairbanks (Pickfair), King Vidor, Red Skelton, Louis B. Mayer, Darryl Zanuck, Edward L. Doheny, Henry Haldeman, Ralph Chandler, among others.

Neff homes are known for their clean, unfettered facades with minimum openings, focusing on pieces of elaborate wrought-iron grille work, and unique treatments of chimneys and fireplaces. The style, combining Spanish, Tuscan and other Mediterranean Revival elements that Neff preferred to call “Californian,” is the style he is most remembered for.

Pasadena and San Marino can feel fortunate in counting this man who gave us so many beautiful buildings as one of their most distinguished architects. Neff lived most of his life in Pasadena, Altadena and San Marino. He was honored during his own life-time by the American Institute of Architects which he joined in 1924. In 1956 they conferred on him the status of Fellow for his many contributions of excellence in design.

San Marino houses included on the tour were the Lincoln Mortgage Company speculative houses (1926) on Berkeley Avenue; the Collins house (1927) on Lombardy Road; the Paul Richter House (1929) on Virginia Road. Pasadena homes were the Morse & Gates house (1925) on California Boulevard; the Up de Graff house (1927) on Holladay Road. Other structures included the Barlow house (1924) in Sierra Madre, now part of Alverno High School campus; and St. Elizabeth's Church (1924-27) in Altadena, the only church Neff designed.

Patty Judy, organizer of the home tour, said, ”I am the Education Director for Pasadena Heritage. The Education Director is in charge of providing opportunities for people to further understand the great architecture that we have here in Pasadena so they'll know why they should preserve it. My job is to get people into houses to see where this great history came from and then why there is such a desire to preserve it because if they don't see the houses then they don't have any idea - well It's just an old house. Well, it s more than just an old house and so it' s my job to get them to understand that.”

”Beginning in November of 2010, we went through a lot of the directories to find out about Wallace Neff and about all of his houses. I drove around and looked at all the houses and then started sending out letters. we had several who replied that they would help support Pasadena Heritage in this way for the tour.