The Mike Bell Team

Welcome to my Bungalow Heaven website.  Below is a link to my current listing and for information about more homes coming up for sale, please call me at 626.796.4100.

http://www.1054NorthChester.com
 
Bungalow Heaven was the first Landmark District in Pasadena, and in 2008, this area was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The first house in Bungalow Heaven dates to 1888, but most of the bungalows were built between 1905 and 1920. Once part of Mission San Gabriel - and later El Rincon de San Pasqual Rancho before annexation by the City of Pasadena - the neighborhood has been known as Bungalow Heaven since the 1970s. Coined by a city planner, the name reflects the abundance of one and two-story Craftsman homes in the compact, six-block-by-six-block neighborhood, with McDonald Park in the middle. Since its inception in 1989, Bungalow Heaven has been a destination, a place people want to live, and this is reflected in the higher than average price-per-square foot sales prices when compared to all adjoining neighborhoods. It comprises of about 1,100 homes.

Join the Bungalow Heaven Neighborhood Association. But only if you choose!  The optional and fun membership is run by volunteer neighbors who meet quarterly, and they organize a very popular annual spring walking home tour, as well as many free family events in the park that are very well attended. This is a place where you can get to know your neighbors, get involved with many of the events, and even get trained to be a docent for our annual home tour. But if you don’t want to get involved and prefer to hang out on your front porch, that’s ok too. Dues are only $5/yr per adult (yes, five dollars per year). Proceeds from the tour and the membership fees go towards events in the park, a quarterly newsletter that gets hand delivered to your home, grants to help others maintain the front of their homes, as well as other Bungalow Heaven focused endeavors.

Do you live here in Bungalow Heaven?  Work with an expert.  Not only have I done more transactions than any other agent in Bungalow Heaven, I also live in Bungalow Heaven (we live in our restored Cyril Bennett designed Craftsman on Chester).  I’m the only broker that heavily promotes our neighborhood, allowing my clients to get higher than normal sales prices.  Here are my Bungalow Heaven transactions to date:

                                  *931 North Michigan Avenue
                                  *840 North Michigan Avenue
                                  *1194 North Holliston Avenue
                                  *844-6 North Catalina Avenue
                                  *1046 North Chester Avenue
                                  *1053 North Chester Avenue
                                  *1054 North Chester Avenue
                                  *1141 North Chester Avenue
                                  *1159 North Chester Avenue
                                  *895 North Mar Vista Avenue
                                  *992 North Mar Vista Avenue
                                  *1045 North Mentor Avenue
                                  *1038 North Mentor Avenue
                                  *1124 East Mountain Street
                                  *1130 East Mountain Street

Call me for a consultation, you won’t be disappointed.

A little more about Bungalow Heaven…....the American Planning Association has named it among its 2009 list of America’s Top 10 Great Places - the only one in California. Bungalow Heaven has been hailed as one of the best neighborhoods in the nation by Sunset Magazine for its architecture, its own park, and most importantly its people that care for their homes and their neighbors. As they say in Bungalow Heaven…..“Come for the architecture, but stay for the people.”

Just up the street is Bungalow Heaven’s elementary school, Henry W. Longfellow Elementary. Designed by Greene and Greene, specifically Henry Greene, and is named after one of America’s best-loved poets. Built in 1912, it is the oldest school building still in use in Pasadena. Announced on May 16, 1911 in the Pasadena Star, it was to be “the first absolutely fireproof school in the city… and better ventilated and heated than any school building on the coast.” Henry designed the two-story, reinforced concrete structure in a classical idiom—complete with Ionic pilasters and faultless symmetry—that was nearly unrecognizable as a product of the Greene & Greene firm (Source: USC archives).  Let’s talk about test scores…. Longfellow’s API scores have increased from 600 (in 2000) to 847 (in 2011). Feel free to call Erica Ingber, the Principal, for a tour at 626.794.1134.  As of this year the Pasadena Unified School District has a Blue Ribbon School (no longer are these awards reserved for La Canada and South Pasadena anymore). Only 25 were awarded in the entire state of California this year. Interested in day care for your toddler? Check out Allegra School on the southwest corner of Michigan and Washington, in Bungalow Heaven. It comprises of 2 historic homes (one a California Mission Style, the other a Spanish style) converted into a day care. Ask to see the incredible fireplace inside. They can be reached at 626.797.5626.

More Bungalow Heaven homes are coming! Would you like more information about Bungalow Heaven? Send me an email to be on the VERY popular email list of all Bungalow Heaven activity. I not only sell a lot of homes in Bungalow Heaven, I also live in Bungalow Heaven. It’s important to keep informed about what’s going on.