"1039 Grevelia St and 1131 Columbia St have been placed on HOLD for the time being. We cannot share any further information at this time."
That notice went up on the listing team's own site sometime after South Pasadena put eight former Caltrans-owned homes back on the market in June 2026. One of the two paused properties was the Columbia House, the 1910 Craftsman at 1131 Columbia Street that had anchored the entire release. No explanation. No timeline. Just a hold.
If you've been eyeing this batch of homes because they sound like a rare shot at owning a piece of South Pasadena history, that notice is the detail worth sitting with before anything else. The story people tell about these properties is that the state finally handed back what it took. The story a buyer needs to understand is that the process of getting one still runs through a government seller, and government sellers behave differently than a homeowner with a listing agent and a closing date in mind.
What the "Stub" actually is
The properties sit along what locals call the 710 Stub, the short, never-connected stretch of land that Caltrans spent decades assembling for a freeway extension that was supposed to link the existing 710 terminus to the 210. The agency acquired hundreds of homes across South Pasadena, Pasadena, and El Sereno through eminent domain starting in the 1950s, continuing into the 1970s. The extension never got built. Legal challenges from South Pasadena and environmental groups dragged on for decades until 2019, when Governor Gavin Newsom signed the bills that killed the project for good.
That left Caltrans holding property it no longer needed for a road that no longer existed. Some homes kept tenants for years. Others sat empty, deteriorating, while the state figured out what to do with them. The Roberti Act, a 1979 law governing how Caltrans disposes of surplus property, set the framework: tenants get first crack at buying, then public agencies, then eventually the open market. South Pasadena used that framework, along with Senate Bill 381, to negotiate a purchase of its own share of the Stub. The city bought a batch of unoccupied properties from Caltrans, resells them at market value, and channels the proceeds into affordable housing under a state mandate requiring three new affordable units for every historic home sold.
The city listed eight of these homes in June 2026: the Columbia House at 1131 Columbia Street, two homes on the 500 block of Orange Grove Avenue, one on the 900 block of Bonita Drive, two on the 1000 block of Grevelia Street, and two on the 800 block of Valley View Road. It was the second round. Five homes sold in a first round in late 2024.
The number that changes the read
Here's the part that surprises most people who assume a government-surplus sale means a discount. It doesn't, and by design it can't.
South Pasadena bought the 12 properties it approved for acquisition in March 2026, the group that included this batch of eight, for about $1.5 million total, roughly the same aggregate price the state paid decades ago when it seized them through eminent domain. City officials estimated those 12 properties could net around $10 million once resold at current market value. That spread is not a windfall for the city's general fund. It's the entire financing mechanism for the affordable housing mandate attached to the sale. Every dollar above the original acquisition cost is legally earmarked for building the affordable units the law requires.
That mechanism explains something buyers often get backward: these are not bargain-priced homes. They're full-market-value homes with a government seller instead of a private one, and the pricing has to stay at market because the affordable housing math depends on it. When South Pasadena's first round of five homes sold in late 2024, several went for thousands over asking, even with boarded-up windows, damaged floors, and peeling paint after years of vacancy. Pasadena's comparable Caltrans sale, 13 homes that closed between December 2025 and February 2026, sold for between $750,000 and $3.4 million, averaging around $1.51 million, with five of the thirteen going significantly over asking. The "reclaimed history" framing is real. The discount is not.
What tenants say about the process
Not everyone who lived in these homes sees the resolution as a clean win. Roberto Flores, a teacher and activist with United Caltrans Tenants who lived at 2028 Brookshire in South Pasadena for more than 20 years, described Caltrans as a "slumlord," saying the agency let its properties fall into disrepair while the tenant-priority process the Roberti Act was supposed to guarantee dragged on for years.
Flores said the agency never factored the cost of needed repairs into the purchase offers it eventually made to longtime renters, and a series of rent increases ultimately forced him to move out before he had a real chance to buy. That history matters for a prospective buyer because it explains why so few of these homes reach the open market as move-in-ready product. The ones that do are often the ones no tenant was in a position to purchase, which is part of why deferred maintenance shows up so consistently in the condition reports.
The paperwork nobody mentions in the open house description
Buying a Caltrans-originated property in South Pasadena is procedurally different from a typical resale, and the differences show up before you ever get to an inspection.
The listing brokerage represents the city and only the city. Any buyer who isn't working with their own agent has to sign a Buyer Non-Agency Agreement just to receive the documents needed to write an offer. There is no one on the seller's side advocating for the buyer's interests, and no one on the buyer's side unless the buyer brings their own representation to the table.
The city has also built in a restriction that's unusual outside of public land sales: prospective buyers, their agents, and anyone acting on their behalf are barred from contacting members of the South Pasadena City Council about the property, the offer, or the status of the sale, either directly or in an attempt to influence the outcome. That's a meaningful guardrail to understand going in, since normal deal-making instincts around advocating for your offer don't apply here.
For a landmarked property like the Columbia House, there's a third layer. It sits on South Pasadena's Inventory of Historic Resources, which means any future work on the house has to be reviewed against the city's historic preservation requirements before it happens. The South Pasadena Preservation Foundation is positioned as the resource for buyers trying to understand what that review process actually restricts and permits.
None of this makes the properties bad opportunities. It makes them opportunities that reward buyers who show up prepared rather than buyers expecting a fast, conventional close.
The hold that proves the point
Before writing an offer on any property from this batch, or the next one South Pasadena eventually releases, a few things are worth confirming directly rather than assuming from the marketing:
- Whether the specific address is still active or has been paused, since the city has pulled properties mid-process without public explanation
- What the historic designation status is, if any, and what body reviews future renovation work
- Whether financing programs specific to these sales are still available and what qualifications they require
- What condition disclosures exist given the years of vacancy most of these homes experienced under Caltrans ownership
The Columbia House and 1039 Grevelia Street going on hold after marketing had already begun is the clearest evidence that this process moves on the city's timeline, not the buyer's. A property can be listed, generate interest, and still get pulled back before an offer is finalized.
What this means if you're actually considering one
For a buyer drawn to the architectural pedigree of a 1910 Stimson-designed Craftsman or the rare chance to own a piece of a historic corridor that almost became a freeway, the Stub properties are a legitimate opportunity. They're also a slower, more procedurally demanding purchase than a standard South Pasadena resale, with a seller that doesn't negotiate the way a private homeowner does and a condition profile shaped by years of deferred maintenance.
That combination, historic architecture plus renovation uncertainty plus an unusual sale structure, is exactly the kind of transaction where having someone who understands both the design side and the deal side matters. Carmine Sabatella has spent years evaluating what a character home actually needs versus what it merely looks like it needs, and Ryan Delair keeps the moving pieces of a complicated closing organized and communicated clearly. If one of these Stub addresses, or a comparable historic property elsewhere in South Pasadena, has caught your attention, that's a conversation worth having before you sign anything.
The Sabatella Delair Group works with buyers across South Pasadena and Pasadena who want a clear-eyed read on a historic property before they commit to it. If you're weighing one of these homes against the rest of the market, reach out and let's talk through what you'd actually be buying.
