The main mansion featured in the 2019 streaming series “Why Women Kill” was a scene of mayhem for more than the killings.
The fictional series follows the various owners of the home through the decades. The 1980s owner (played by actress Lucy Liu) appeared to care nothing about the period style of the house, bending it to the will of the decade. Think deep dusty rose and a lot of metallics. It was only the sets, but for architectural purists, the look is still cringeworthy.
Not so for neighbor Mary's house. The home, a Japanese-inspired chalet in Pasadena, has stayed true to its roots — even in real life. The Oaklawn Avenue home, and its myriad original details, is on the market for $4.33 million.
It’s possible that the architect behind Mary's house, G. Lawrence Stimson, had a hand in designing as many as six homes around Oaklawn Avenue.
Completed in 1910, the “Clarence Fleming House” at 224 Oaklawn Ave. sits in South Pasadena’s Oaklawn Historic District, a neighborhood filled with homes that range from Craftsman bungalows to Tudors to Colonial Revivals. The 3,829-square-foot cantilevered residence belongs to a class of Craftsman homes “referred to as the Japanese chalet,” explained listing agent Margaret Nader of DPP Real Estate | Compass.
Stimson, also the architect behind the region’s Wrigley Mansion, integrated Japanese architectural influences — such as streamlined forms and wooden details — into some of his projects, including this five-bedroom, five-bathroom space.
With its Peruvian mahogany doors and bird's-eye maple floor restored by Marco Romani, the founder of Romani Restoration in San Francisco, the home maintains many of its original features.
“It’s craftsmanship that we don’t see anymore,” Nader said.
A central fireplace surrounded by blue-green Grueby Faience tiles may draw the eye at first, but the home also boasts original light fixtures, exposed beams and wainscotting. Architectural history buffs can also find a bonus room of sorts: a vaulted garage designed by Frederick L. Roehrig, the architect of Pasadena’s Castle Green monument. In recent years, that garage served as storage space and a gym, but, given the area’s friendly zoning toward accessory dwelling units, a conversion "to a romantic, forest-cabin-style ADU” is not off the table, according to the listing materials.
The sellers bought the home for $1.8 million in 2013 and spent the ensuing years restoring more than just the wood in Fleming House. Nader would know: She sold 224 Oaklawn to its current owners.
They took care of practical, invisible details like modernizing mechanical systems and refreshing the bathrooms (“after 115 years, bathtubs get rather pitted,” Nader noted). They also added an electric vehicle charger, an infinity pool and a spa.
But Nader has trouble picking a favorite feature out of the bunch.
“I just think it's probably one of the prettiest homes I’ve ever walked in,” she said. “It’s a masterpiece.”
