An insider's guide to the City of Roses
Hometown Pasadena is a lighthearted and informative guide to Pasadena and 15 neighboring communities in the San Gabriel Valley, compiled by Sandy Gillis '78 and four co-authors, all native Californians or longtime residents. Written with wit and authority, the book offers an illustrated tour of all things Pasadena--gardens and museums, restaurants and pubs, bookstores and flea markets, architecture and parks, festivals and house tours, and yes, the Rose Parade--as well as interviews with area notables and plenty of local lore.
A former staffer for The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, Gillis is now a freelance writer as well as an accomplished gardener with her own small wholesale nursery. She contributed the book's sections on theater, history, horticulture, art museums and galleries, and she writes a column, "Sandy's Garden," for the companion website. Published in October 2006, the book has already sold out its first printing of 5,000 copies.
Gillis met her co-authors--Jill Alison Ganon, Mary Jane Horton, Melody Malmberg and editor Colleen Dunn Bates--through their various children. "Funny how that happens," Gillis says. "You go along, minding your own business, and one day your child wants a play date. Next thing you know, you're researching a guidebook."
News @ Wheaton recently caught up with Sandy Gillis via e-mail and she shared her thoughts on the book and life in sunny California.
Q: How did you develop your love of gardening?
Gillis: I started gardening when my husband and I bought our first house in Studio City. A dear friend, who started gardening at her mother's side when she was little, showed me some basics. Bone meal. Big holes. Slow watering. And The Sunset Western Gardening Guide, indispensable in California. When we moved to Altadena, I started paying attention to microclimates, which at first seemed absurd. But plants that do well 12 miles from here can't survive in our "cold" winter. We do get a few freezing nights here in upper Pasadena. But you're reading this in Norton, so I won't rub it in.
Q: You were born in Manhattan, but you've lived in southern California for most of your life. Where do you take out-of-town guests when they visit for the first time?
Gillis: To the Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens. It's a treat for people to see a giant garden with four seasons of living color. And the Norton Simon Museum is a gem. They have an incredible collection of Impressionists and Eastern art.
Sandy Gillis '78 (left) with her fellow guidebook authors.
Q: What did you do for the Johnny Carson show, and how did you get there from Wheaton?
I produced human-interest segments--spelling bee champs, the guy who whittled a mile-long chain out of firewood. I got to Johnny via the Letterman Show. After graduating from Wheaton, I moved to Hollywood, took theater arts classes at Cal State L.A. and started producing Equity-waiver theater.... Then my brother asked if I wanted to move back to New York with him. Yes! New York was a more appealing place than Los Angeles to be young and poor and figuring it out. I stayed with some friends from Wheaton for a while, worked as a temp, got a secretarial job at NBC in daytime programming, which eventually led to working at the Letterman Show as the producer's assistant. I worked there for two-and-a-half really fun years, then left to write and produce for magazines and television. My boyfriend and his writing partner moved to L.A., and I held out in New York for another year-and-a-half. We decided to get married, so I moved to L.A., too, since there is way more TV work here.
Q. What were your favorite assignments for Hometown Pasadena?
Gillis: You've got to read the Kenton Nelson interview. He's the painter who did the cover of the book, and his paintings are in the film, Father of the Bride, hanging over the fireplace at the Diane Keaton/Steve Martin house. That movie actually made his paintings unaffordable for us. His prices went from $1,500 for a canvas to $10,000, thanks to some art director who dressed the set! Anyway, he's a friend of ours (small town, see?), and he did a hilarious interview.
Also, I came away with renewed respect for the Tongva, our local First Peoples. They divided up oak groves and developed systematic arboreal caretaking. The Spanish came in and saw the Tongva as lazy, because they didn't work 24/7, building permanent structures to edify themselves. But the Spanish got it so wrong. The Tongva obeyed a seasonal work calendar, using only what they could consume instead of stockpiling. The Tongva also saved the Spaniard's hindquarters on several occasions, redirecting them when lost and sharing food supplies and local building materials.
Q: We hear you raise chickens at home. Why chickens?
Gillis: Our flock started out as a "green project" for me and a way to get our children to develop some responsibility for other living creatures. We don't keep roosters after they start showing secondary sex characteristics. They're too aggressive. I've been spurred, chased, pecked and pierced more times than I like to recall by those danged roosters. But the chickens--ah, those sweeties! They eat all of our food scraps (So long, landfill!) and insect pests (See ya, chemical sprays!). Plus, they give eggs and lovely manure. Chicken manure sells for $50 for a 10-pound sack in garden shops around here.
Q: What do you really think of the Rose Parade?
Gillis: While I approve of the fact that it's there, I think it's the perfect opportunity to sleep in.