Eight historic homes across Claremont will open their doors to the public next Sunday, Oct. 11, for Claremont Heritage’s 44th annual Home Tour, a daylong walk-through running from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. under the theme “Homes With History.” The lineup ranges from a converted 19th-century agricultural building to mid-century modern showcases designed by some of the city’s best-known architects.
According to the Claremont Courier, this year’s tour is built to represent the arc of the city’s growth, from its founding through the rapid post-World War II boom and into the 1960s. Two of the featured properties, one on Indian Hill Boulevard and the other on Kemper Avenue, trace back to Claremont’s citrus industry and showcase Spanish and Craftsman architectural styles, the Courier reports. The Indian Hill Boulevard home still includes a guesthouse built inside the former citrus ranch’s original barn and farm implement buildings.
A Barn Reborn as a Family Home
One of the tour’s more unusual stops is a home long dated to 1908 that, per the Courier, most likely started out before 1900 as an agricultural building before it was converted into a house. This year, owners added a modern addition to the structure that now houses both an art studio and a music studio, according to the same report. The juxtaposition of a century-old farm structure with brand-new creative studio space fits neatly into organizers’ framing of the tour as a walk through Claremont’s evolving architectural story.
The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, which first reported this year’s ticket details and logistics, notes that the tour also includes houses once owned by celebrated artists and homes directly tied to Route 66, alongside properties designed by renowned architects. Two of those architect-designed homes get individual mention in the Courier’s coverage: a modern residence by Claremont architects Criley and McDowell, credited with many of the city’s mid-century modern homes, and another designed by artist James Heuter working in partnership with architect Everett Tozier.
Tickets, Check-In and Where to Start
Tour-goers will check in at Garner House, a historic building inside Memorial Park at 840 N. Indian Hill Blvd., beginning at 9:30 a.m., according to the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin. Advance tickets run $40 for Claremont Heritage members and $50 for nonmembers, and are sold through the nonprofit’s website and at locations throughout the city. Prices rise on the day of the event, climbing to $50 for members and $60 for nonmembers, per the Daily Bulletin’s report.
Claremont Heritage is a nonprofit formed in 1976 by a group of Claremont residents, and the organization describes its mission as working to advance, preserve and celebrate the architectural, natural and cultural resources of the community through collaboration, education and advocacy, according to its official site. This year’s tour also marks the organization’s 50th anniversary, a milestone the group has built an entire 2026 theme around.
A 50th Anniversary Tied to Route 66’s Centennial
The Courier reports that this year’s Home Tour weekend and related programming are centered around two milestones at once: Claremont Heritage’s 50th anniversary and the 100th anniversary of Route 66, with the organization adopting “Preservation 50: Our Legacy, Our Future” as its theme for the year. The group says its five decades of work have resulted in saving, documenting and celebrating the city’s historic and cultural resources.
That anniversary framing also helps explain why most of Claremont’s housing stock looks the way it does. Per the Courier’s reporting on last year’s tour, the vast majority of homes in Claremont were built between 1950 and 1980, and most of those are ranch style, a wave of development that followed the earlier citrus-era homesteads now spotlighted on this year’s route.
How This Year Compares to Past Tours
Claremont Heritage’s home tours have leaned into different eras from year to year. Last year’s 43rd annual tour featured seven mid-century homes, including a Jo Paul Rognstad design, the home of Charles Phoenix, the former home of management consultant Peter Drucker, and residences by B.H. Anderson and by Criley and McDowell, according to the Courier’s earlier coverage. That 2025 weekend was built around the theme of preserving the recent past and included a Friday bus and walking tour led by Charles Phoenix and a Saturday visit to four mid-century churches, the same report noted.
This year’s tour widens that lens, pairing citrus-industry homesteads and a converted pre-1900 agricultural building with the mid-century architecture that has defined past years. Garner House in Memorial Park remains the starting point for the day, with check-in opening at 9:30 a.m. before ticket holders fan out across the city’s eight featured properties.
