Pasadena: Gamble House, Huntington & Old Town

The 1908 Greene & Greene masterpiece for David Gamble of Procter & Gamble is the most completely realized American Arts and Crafts building in existence — every piece of furniture, hardware, and textile designed by Charles and Henry Greene as an integrated whole. The hand-rubbed teak woodwork, the Tiffany art glass windows, and the Japanese-influenced roof joinery are the result of a philosophy that treated every nail and hinge as a design problem. Tours run hourly; the interior is as important as the exterior.

The original historic commercial core of Pasadena stretches along Colorado Boulevard between Pasadena Avenue and Arroyo Parkway — a walkable mile of early 20th-century commercial buildings housing independent restaurants, bookstores, and galleries. The 1920s movie palace (now a concert hall), the original Vroman's Bookshop (operating since 1894), and the Paseo Colorado courtyards provide the afternoon's rhythm.

115 acres of themed botanical gardens and three art galleries surrounding a 1919 Beaux Arts library in San Marino, containing 11 million documents — the Ellesmere Chaucer manuscript (ca. 1400), a Gutenberg Bible, and the first folio of Shakespeare. The Desert Garden holds the world's largest outdoor collection of desert plants; the Rose Garden has 1,200 varieties; the Chinese Garden opened in 2008 as one of the largest outside China.

A serious omakase restaurant in Old Town Pasadena where chef Takahiro Okada produces fish-forward courses sourced daily from Japan's Tsukiji suppliers and local California waters. The 12-course omakase is the correct format; the sake selection is among the best in the San Gabriel Valley. Reserve weeks in advance.