1898 Moorish Colonial Apartment Landmark in Old Pasadena
99 South Raymond Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91105
Age
All Ages
Cost
$
Private residential building. Twice-yearly Castle Green Tour days, when scheduled, are ticketed; check the building's website for current dates.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Paved sidewalks; tour days include stairs and historic interiors
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1898 · National Register of Historic Places · Frederick Roehrig · Hotel Green · Old Pasadena
The Castle Green stands seven stories above Central Park in Old Pasadena, a half block south of Colorado Boulevard at 99 South Raymond Avenue. The building was developed by Colonel G.G. Green, the patent-medicine entrepreneur whose Hotel Green resort dominated the block at the height of Pasadena's Gilded Age tourist trade. Architect Frederick Roehrig designed the structure as the Central Annex to the existing Hotel Green across the street. Construction completed in November 1898; the formal opening followed on January 16, 1899.
Roehrig's design layered Moorish Colonial, Spanish Revival, and Victorian elements: cylindrical corner towers, onion domes, deep-arched balconies, and a colonnaded ground-floor loggia. The interior carried the same vocabulary into a series of public rooms, including a Moorish lounge with horseshoe arches, an Italian smoking room, and a ballroom. A pedestrian bridge once connected the Annex to the original hotel across Raymond Avenue, allowing winter tourists to move between buildings without leaving the resort grounds.
The Hotel Green's resort era ended in the early 1920s as Southern California winter tourism shifted west toward Los Angeles. In 1924, the Central Annex was sold separately, divided into fifty individually-owned residential units, and renamed the Castle Green. The original Hotel Green building across the street was eventually demolished. The Castle Green and the smaller Wooster Block, the third building of the original complex, are the only surviving structures of Colonel Green's resort.
The Castle Green is on the National Register of Historic Places and is one of the earliest standing landmarks in Los Angeles County. It remains a privately owned cooperative apartment building, with public access generally limited to twice-yearly Castle Green Tour days and occasional film and television productions that have shot scenes in its preserved public rooms.
Sources
The lore at the Castle Green has been passed down through three generations of residents, tour-day visitors, and Pasadena ghost-tour operators. The most consistent figure is a woman in a white cotton Victorian nightgown reported on the upper floors and in the hallways adjacent to the historic public rooms. She has been described as walking a fixed path along the corridor and as appearing in mirrors in some apartments.
Reports collected from current and former residents describe water faucets in kitchens turning on at night without explanation, door knobs that turn when no one is in the hall, footsteps in unoccupied corridors, the unmistakable smell of heavy perfume in elevator lobbies, and the rattle of chains heard through closed doors. Unit 607 has been singled out in real-estate disclosures, an unusually formal acknowledgment that distinguishes the Castle Green from most haunted private residences.
A secondary figure, described as a gentleman in a top hat and frock coat, has been reported on the sixth floor. Tour-day docents have repeated stories about a servant boy who reportedly died in a laundry-room press, with subsequent reports of whispers in that space; about tuberculosis patients said to have stayed at the resort during its sanatorium-adjacent winter season; and about an impaled man whose story is attached to one of the building's balconies. Most of these accounts come from oral tradition rather than primary sources, and Haunt Bound treats them as folklore rather than documented incidents.
The Castle Green is privately owned. Casual paranormal investigation is not permitted. Tour days, when scheduled, remain the primary legitimate way for the public to step inside the building.
Notable Entities
View the seven-story Moorish Colonial and Spanish Revival exterior of the Castle Green from Raymond Avenue and Green Street next to Central Park. The 1898 building is now a private cooperative apartment building and is generally not open to the public.
When scheduled, the Castle Green opens for ticketed self-guided tour days a few times a year, with access to the historic public rooms, the Moorish lounge, the Italian smoking room, and several residents' apartments. Dates and ticket sales are announced on the building's website.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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