Incorporated as a city in 1886, Pasadena has long attracted wealthy easterners escaping winter to the sunny orange groves of Southern California. The Craftsman era after the turn of the twentieth century saw resort cottages and bungalows spring up everywhere, from the grand to the humble, as the advent of the automobile made touring more possible.

One such humble resort cottage court can be found at 48 N. Catalina, across the street from the Victorian mansion housing the Planetary Society and at the end of the alleyway leading to the famous Ice House cabaret. Less than a half block from Colorado Boulevard, the Rose Parade route, it is a quaint Colonial Revival style court designed by Joseph Harnetiaux in 1922 and was listed in the National Historic Register in 1994. It consists of eight small, single story cottages, some of which were duplexes, lined four on each side along a central walk, leading back to a ninth, larger two story building at the back.

I lucked into the place in ’77 when my friend Jimmy got married and moved out of unit number seven. It was really tiny but perfect for me since it was close to PCC where I was working at the time and quite affordable. (I think it was only $70 a month) Squeezed into the west side of the last duplex on the right, it had two cramped main rooms and three “closets”: the kitchen, the bathroom, and,…well, the closet. The kitchen and the bathroom were small enough that you could stand in the middle and touch all four walls. The front room had the unique feature of a cool Murphy Bed which pulled down from a cavity in the wall, but it was broken down and uncomfortable. Plus it filled the entire room when pulled down, making it impossible to add any other furniture. The next room back was too small for a bed and and still be able to get to the closet, bathroom, or kitchen at the rear of the dollhouse and had been traditionally used as a dining space. There was a back door, with a window in the upper part, that led to the alley on the Colorado Blvd. side. The view was of the back of the building of a car dealership, which helped to shield the little cottages from the din of Colorado Boulevard, Pasadena’s main drag.

I solved the problem of a bed by getting a small sofa bed that I could fold away by day thus allowing other furniture, too. It was a wonderful little place, perfect for my needs, and well located, except for at bar closing time when they threw out the diehard drinkers from the Ice House and Handlebars Saloon into the alley that led past my back door.

Then, as I settled in and began to have quiet nights there, alone, I noticed him.

I had my armchair positioned in the front corner, facing toward the back of the house, looking through the middle room and the kitchen beyond, and out through the back door window when shade wasn’t drawn. It was the longest view in the house and lessened the cramped feeling. I’d be sitting in that chair reading or listening to music when, in my peripheral vision, I would see someone walk from the kitchen, through the central room to the doorway of the front room, and just stand there, staring at me. At first I was startled, I would think it was actually someone in the house, maybe coming in the back door from the alley, but when I’d look up, he’d be gone. Once I realized that it wasn’t a living person, it shifted to a different kind of fear.

My previous experiences in these matters had left me wary and I verbally addressed him, forbidding him to bother me or come into this room when I was here. I would not accept being frightened in my own home! Neither did I wish him ill intent. He could stay if he left me alone. I never for a moment felt as though he could hurt me, or even intended to, but the more attuned I became to his presence, the more disturbing it became. He was aware of my presence and was trying to get my attention. He certainly had it! It was really unnerving, sitting there trying to read or watch TV while he stood there in the doorway, looking at me. I tried moving the chair to the opposite wall, facing the front door, with his doorway to my left. It placed me closer to him, but out of my line of sight. I could still feel his presence there, though, like when the dog stares at you, hoping you’ll share your food, and then I started hearing the sigh. It was a combination of impatience and despair. I tried talking to him, understanding that maybe he was a trapped soul linked to the house and lonely, but I never felt any sense of reciprocity or communication. I knew he was aware of me because he seemed like he wanted to be recognized, but, either I wasn’t hearing him or he really didn’t have anything in particular to communicate, but was just there, sighing impatiently.

Then my visiting friends began to notice him, glimpsing him or just sensing him mostly, but, on more than one occasion, touching them or moving things. Marcy felt someone touch her back. One night as Marlyn reached for her purse, the bench suddenly lurched. That sort of thing.

Getting to sleep at night was increasingly difficult. That neutral, receptive state just before sleep is when such phenomena are most easily perceived. As I drifted off, he would come to the doorway, sometimes coming into my room. One night I felt him at the foot of my bed and when I opened my eyes slightly, there stood a man! Glimpsing a whitish form, wearing white pants and a, perhaps flowered, shirt, my eyes flew wide open and lurching up on my elbows, I tried to see the face, trying to recognize the intruder, when I suddenly realized that the face had moved closer, right up to mine! That meant he was standing through me!

I cried out and leaped up for the light, shaking and unable to sleep for the rest of the night. (He was easier to ignore in the daylight.) It was all so quick and startling that I didn’t really get a look at his face, though I never once got the sense of him being scary looking or having any malice toward me. No bad vibes of that sort, just his persistent presence. And that incessant sighing.

It was shortly after this that I began to get the image of another presence, an old woman, who hung around by the front door. There was nothing familiar about her to me, but I got the distinct impression that she was looking out for me. When I’d feel him come to that doorway, I’d get an impression of her at the front door, forbidding him to enter. I never felt him in that room when she was around. Mom came home from one of her psychic group meetings and called me to tell me that Kenny Kingston had told her that “Mary” sends her greetings to me. I couldn’t think of anyone fitting that description and all Mom could imagine was her Aunt Mary who had died before I was born, I think. Maybe she was another former resident. Who knows, but he pretty much stayed in the back part of the house after that.

Many nights I would come home after dark and see him in the window of the back door, looking out, waiting for me. On more than one occasion I walked down the alley to the Note And Tong, the pub attached to the Ice House, and drank myself sleepy enough to drop off immediately when I got home. I felt for the guy’s situation, but what about mine?

The last episode I recall was also the most vivid and perhaps sheds some light on the story. Late one night, I got up to use the bathroom. Still half asleep, I shuffled past the dark brown drapes drawn at the windows to my right, heading toward the light from the alley shining through the bathroom window.

Halfway across the room, my right shoulder was suddenly seized and, as someone spun me around, I scanned the room, now changed. It was the same room, but the furniture was different and light came in through the, now, curtainless windows. I never saw my attacker as I startled in fear and found myself standing there, facing his doorway, the room back to normal. My impression is that perhaps this is what happened to him.

This was my last experience with him as I chose to move out very shortly after that. The place was just too small for two people, …um, entities?

I wonder how he’s doing?