The spectacle of Altadena’s Christmas Tree Lane

By Hadley Meares at Curbed LA Original post: Click here

A nighttime drive down Altadena’s Santa Rosa Avenue during the holiday season is a heartwarming experience. Families stream down the street, food trucks serve hot chocolate, and couples hold each other close. They’re all there to see the thousands of sparkling colored lights, festooned high in the majestic deodar trees that line the residential avenue. Since 1920, with breaks only due to WWII and the 1973 energy crises, this delightful tradition has earned its reputation as the “oldest large-scale outdoor Christmas display in the world.”

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The deodars that serve as the lane’s Christmas trees predate Altadena’s existence. Around 1883, John Woodbury, who along with his brother, Capt. Fred Woodbury, would subdivide Altadena in 1887, was on a tour of Europe. He and his brother had recently moved from Iowa to California, where they had bought 937 acres of the old Rancho San Pasqual at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains. 

“John Woodbury was in Italy, and he saw a stand of deodars and he thought they were the most wonderful, majestic trees he had ever seen,” says Christmas Tree Lane Association boardmember Mary Landau. 

As Landau tells it, John Woodbury wrote to Washington D.C. to see whether he could get the trees to grow in Altadena.

“He found out they would grow, and he had some seeds shipped in from Washington, D.C., probably via India, because the trees are from India. They’re Himalayan,” Landau says.

Once they arrived, the seeds were germinated at Fred Woodbury’s Victorian-Gothic mansion, its large glass windows providing needed sunshine and warmth. 

In 1885, around 134 seedlings were planted by Thomas Hoag, the rancho’s foreman, and a group of Chinese-American laborers. They were planted in rows on either side of Santa Rosa Avenue, and Landau says it might have been meant to be a drive connecting the Woodbury brothers’ estates.

The brothers had grand plans for their land. They wanted Altadena to be an ultra-wealthy, exclusive subdivision of grand country estates in the European tradition. The deodar trees helped create an Alpine ambiance in the middle of Southern California. 

According to KCET, foreman Hoag recalled Fred Woodbury remarking pretentiously that “the seeds were from a heathen land, but the California sun would civilize them if anything could.”

As the trees grew, the unpaved but scenic Santa Rosa Avenue, which sloped straight up toward the San Gabriel Mountains, became a test track for a decidedly inelegant new form of transportation: the automobile. From 1906 to 1909, the avenue hosted the an uphill race every February.

This popular event was nearly derailed when an automobile passenger was almost injured during a sharp turn. 

“It happened to be a woman, and because women were too ‘delicate,’ they were forbidden to ride in the cars after that point,” Landau says with a smile.

This sexism would no doubt have infuriated Kate Crane Gartz, one of the most prominent and colorful residents of Santa Rosa Avenue. 

Gartz, a plumbing heiress known as “the parlor Bolshevik,” fought for social justice from her beautiful mansion nicknamed “The Cloisters.” Her visitors and friends included Jane Addams, Albert Einstein, and Upton Sinclair.

She also—no doubt to the annoyance of some of her neighbors, including the Woodburys, Andrew McNally and George Gil Green—built a public clubhouse and opened her grounds to all locals. 

“She wanted to make sure that everybody had a voice, so she would have Sunday parlors at her house and that’s where all the very famous people would come,” Landau says. “Then she would have events for the community at the clubhouse.” 

Today, part of her property is the Girl Scout Camp Mariposa.

In 1885, around 134 seedlings were planted in rows on each side of Santa Rosa Avenue.

It was Gartz’s husband, Adolph, who was one of the first people to suggest lighting the growing deodars for the holiday season. Another proponent of the fanciful endeavor was department store owner Fred C. Nash. 

Nash convinced the Kiwanis Club to pay half the fee for renting and stringing the lights, while the Edison Electric Company agreed to pay for the electricity. Donations were needed to cover the rest of the bill. 

“Mr. Gartz was going up and down the street getting money that way,” Landau says. “So, it’s been a community effort from the very beginning.”

What is now known as Christmas Tree Lane debuted in December 1920. A stage was set up and a thousand chairs were filled with singers from local church choirs. Around 4,000 locals watched as the ceremonial switch was flipped on to illuminate the sparkling lights. 

“It was not the idea to have it a hip-hip hurray affair, but rather a spectacle of beauty, reverend in spirit,” Nash later wrote in a promotional pamphlet.

After the lights were lit and the carols were sung, a procession of thousands walked quietly down the lane.

Local historian Sarah Noble Ives, who was there that night, wanted the event to stay forever peaceful and serene. 

“She said, ‘I hope there’s never any loud bands, I want it to be that same spiritual experience,” Landau said, laughing. “Of course, now we have the drum corps leading the way. Things do change.”

As the “Mile of Christmas Trees” became an annual event, it was used as a promotional tool to sell Altadena plots for homes and businesses. Altadena branded itself “the community of the deodars” and included pictures of snow-capped trees and twinkling lights in marketing materials. 

“It has had its advertising value for Altadena and indirectly Southern California, as it is now known all over the world, although that was not the original thought,” Nash conceded years later.

In 1928, the Christmas magic was further enhanced by the eccentric F.B. Nightingale, amateur magician and the “father of outdoor lighting” at General Electric Supply Corporation in Los Angeles.

That year, Nightingale premiered the 35-foot “Star of Palawoo,” nestled in the mountains above his home, also called Palawoo. The wooden structure, covered in glitter lights, was in the direct line of sight from Christmas Tree Lane, and shone brightly until at least the late 1930s. 

As car culture began to take over Southern California, the tradition of cruising Christmas Tree Lane enticed more and more Californians. 

“It got bigger and bigger every year until 100,000 people would come and visit,” Landau says. “And it was only lit from Christmas Eve until New Years!”

Local boy scouts from Troop One (the first troop established west of Texas) volunteered to direct traffic going one way and encouraged motorists to turn out their headlights for maximum impact.

By 1935, around 20,000 tourists thronged the avenue in a single night. Radio shows came to visit, reporting live from the annual ceremonial lighting, describing in detail the experience of driving down the lane. 

The tradition and the grand deodar trees (which can live up to 1,000 years in certain climates) have been saved by government and charitable groups numerous times over the years. During the 1970s and ’80s, the tradition had shrunk to become a more local affair with only around 200 people attending opening night. 

Today, Christmas Tree Lane is organized and sponsored by the nonprofit Christmas Tree Lane Association. Preparations for the display, which runs December 8 through the 25th, is a year-round affair. 

“The first year, it cost about $2,300 to rent the strings of lights on the trees, because they had to rent them at that time,” Landau says. “Now we have our own lightbulbs and we make strings if they’re not available. It does take 10 weeks to put them up.... and then it takes 10 weeks to take them down! It’s quite the excitement.”

Every one of the over 10,000 lightbulbs must be checked before they are strung. 

“You put it in to see if it works and sometimes they go ‘pop!’” Landau says. “You have to make sure you’re wearing glasses and gloves when we do that.”

In recent years, due to increased marketing and the explosion of internet “top ten” lists, Christmas Tree Lane is hot again. Its popularity has caused safety concerns. This year, more streets surrounding Santa Rosa Avenue will be closed to ease congestion and help with traffic flow.

And how do residents of Santa Rosa Avenue feel about their quiet neighborhood being taken over every December by thousands of gawkers? According to Landau, it’s complicated. 

“I think we have mixed opinions,” she says, wryly. Not surprisingly, many residents long for the ’70s and ’80s, when the tradition was a tight-knit, community event.

Landau, a recently retired teacher, recalls how one of her young students expressed disappointment after seeing the lit avenue. “There’s only lights on the trees!” he complained. “Nothing else is decorated!”

“But the trees look really pretty, don’t they?” Landau responded. 

They sure do.