Enchanting Storybook Cottage Once Part of Pasadena’s Busch Gardens Now Up for Grabs

It’s not every day that the opportunity to live in a literal picture-postcard setting presents itself, but that is exactly what’s on offer in this unusual property in Pasadena. Known as “the Old Mill,” the Bavarian-style cottage is the last vestige of what was once one of Pasadena’s biggest tourist attractions, Busch Gardens.

While nowadays people associate the name Busch Gardens with the Florida and Virginia amusement parks, the original Busch Gardens was a 30-acre botanical wonderland developed on the estate of beer magnate Adolphus Busch and his wife, Lilly. The garden was open to the public between 1906 and 1937. Along with thousands of flowers and trees, the garden featured 14 miles of scenic walkways that meandered past ponds and streams and whimsical structures and statuary depicting characters and vignettes from Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales. Constructed in 1910, the quaint “Old Mill,” with its working water wheel, would become an iconic landmark for the park, featured from every angle on countless postcards.

Sadly, Prohibition and the Great Depression both put serious dents in the Busch family fortune, eventually rendering the garden’s substantial maintenance and operating costs unfeasible. On two occasions, the family attempted to broker a deal with the city of Pasadena for what had been such a major tourist attraction but were turned down. As a result, the gardens wound up being sold off piecemeal to developers. Per National Register of Historic Places documents, the Old Mill was converted to a single-family residence in 1946, with a two-story addition attached to the southeast corner of the original structure.

On the market for the first time in almost half a century, the half-timbered cottage contains two bedrooms and two bathrooms in its humble 912-square-foot main living space that sits atop a two-story, 400-square-foot cellar. Notable features include brick flooring, pitched wood-beamed ceilings, diamond-pane leaded-glass windows, and built-in bookshelves and nooks. There’s also a spacious brick patio and detached garage with carport. But the property’s strongest selling point would have to be its sylvan setting, criss-crossed by an extensive network of Arroyo-stone-bordered paths shaded by canopies of mature oaks, sycamores, and other trees.

To buy the Old Mill, you’ll need almost two mill — asking price is $1.9 million. Renee Rosen of Berkshire Hathaway holds the listing.