Howard Motor Co. Building

1285 East Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA
Phone:

East < GO > West

This building was built in 1927 for the Howard Motor Company, also known as the Howard Automotive Company, a Buick dealership. In 1938 Howard Automotive and the Bush-Morgan-Motor Company, a Packard dealership, later known as the Morgan Motor Company, basically swapped locations. Howard moved to the Kindel Building at 1095 East Colorado Boulevard and Bush moved into this building.

Noll Auto Company bought the Packard dealership operated in this building in 1955. They must have hung on to the Packard dealership as long as possible. Packard stopped building cars in 1958 after having merged with Studebaker in the mid-1950s). By March of 1958 there was no longer a Packard dealer listed in Pasadena, By Novemebr of 1957 Noll Auto had become Noll-Baldwin Inc, an imported car dealer. They sold Triumph, Volvo, Hillman, Alpha Romeo and Isetta cars in this building. Noll Auto / Noll-Baldwin had been in the car business since 1916 and incorporated in 1938. They also had a dealership on N. Figueroa.

By 1962 the building housed a carpet store. By 1964 the Robert H. Loud Ford dealership had moved in. But they also had a fancy new building at 1365 E. Colorado. In the early 1970s the building housed a Mazda dealership. That apparently didn't last too long. I've seen a photo of the building with signs in the windows declaring that the 1977 Oldsmobile were in, and they were visible behind the signs. I'm guessing the belonged to the Olds dealer a block away. There was alo a dealer of replica Cords in the builing for a couple of years. I think the last car dealer was Acura of pasadena from the late 1980s to the early 2000s.

The building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.

This building was also known as the Churriggueresque Packard Showroom because of the ornate sculpted Churrigueresque Spanish Baroque architectural style.

Another arched window can be seen behind the shrubbery on the east side of the building. I'm guessing that there was a matching window on the west side of the building before the current one story building there now was built. I think that was originally the site of the car sales and customer parking lot.

This mural titled "Communication Not Separation" is on the side of a building directly across the street from the from the former Howard Motor Co. building. It was painted in 1993 by Victor Steinbacher. The building is located on Colorado Blvd. between Holleston and Chester Aves.

Photo(s): 2015