Tickets are on sale for The Glendale Historical Society’s “California Craftsman: Glendale’s Vanishing Heritage” home tour on Sunday, Sept. 24 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The self-guided architectural tour will feature five homes built between 1902 and 1915 that illustrate the evolution and variety of the Craftsman style.

The Craftsman style was born out of the late 19th Century British Arts and Crafts movement, which emphasized local natural materials and handcrafted woodwork and decorative items, and became a prevalent architectural style up until the 1920s in communities throughout much of the American West – including Glendale. Many of the streets in and adjacent to Glendale’s downtown and other residential neighborhoods were once lined with Craftsman homes that were built for a burgeoning middle class. Over the years, Glendale lost much of its inventory of Craftsman homes due to lack of proper development oversight and lax zoning codes. Sadly, that trend continues today as Craftsman homes are being demolished to make way for new high-density residential development.

Fortunately, Glendale still has many outstanding Craftsman homes, and five of them are featured on this year’s Home Tour, including Harris House. This magnificent and rare 1902 transitional Victorian/Craftsman home is listed on the Glendale Register of Historic Resources and embodies a stylistic shift in residential architecture as late Victorian forms and details evolved into simpler qualities of the Craftsman style.

Also featured is Tatum House, a distinctive 1908 Arts and Crafts style residence with a delightful front porch that sits atop a battered fieldstone foundation, likely quarried from the local Verdugo or San Gabriel mountains.

The Dora Verdugo House is a 1911 Craftsman, most likely based on a plan designed and sold by Henry L. Wilson (“The Bungalow Man),” built by Dora Verdugo and her husband Walter Bullock. The home is being meticulously restored by the current owners. Dora was the great-granddaughter of Jose Maria Verdugo, the original grantee of Rancho San Rafael, which encompassed large portions of modern-day Glendale and adjacent communities.

Guests to the Worley House will fine a quintessential Craftsman bungalow built in 1914 with a generous porch that wraps around the front and side of the house beneath a cross-gable roof, which is supported on both sides by battered square wood columns set on dark granite stone piers.

Finally, the Beggs House, a lovely two-story Airplane Bungalow/Craftsman built in 1915, was moved to its current location in 1925. The house, which has been nominated to the Glendale Register, retains many original period details throughout. It has a shallow front gable roof with vertical wood slat gable vents that extend over a large porch supported on substantial square columns set on unusual ruffle brick pedestals connected by a wood banister.

Advance tickets for the tour are $30 for TGHS members and $40 for the general public. After Sept. 19, tickets are $35 for members and $45 for the public. Tickets may be purchased online at www.GlendaleHistorical.org or www.GlendaleArts.org. Tickets may be purchased on the day of the tour only at the Alex Theatre, 216 N. Brand Blvd. in Glendale.

Guests will drive themselves to the featured houses for docent-led tours of each home. Some houses have stairs. Not all portions of the homes will be open for the tour. The tour will be held regardless of weather. Tickets are non-refundable.

For further information, please contact events@glendalehistorical.org or (818) 242-7447 or the Glendale Arts box office at (818) 243-2611, ext 11.