It was about a year ago when a special visitor showed up at The Huntington.
Amid the sprawling San Marino library, its museum and botanical gardens was finance giant Charlie Munger, getting a tour around the San Marino property led by the longtime institution’s president Karen R. Lawrence.
Nothing like a nice tour of such a bountiful and historic site, and if you’ve got some pull a personalized one doesn’t hurt.
There’s the art museum and its 45,000 pieces spanning centuries of art. There’s the library itself, with more than 11 million items spanning from the 11th century. There’s botanical gardens — all 130 acres — even its smelly corpse flower.
It turns out, Munger — the storied onetime Berkshire Hathaway billionaire known for giving much of his fortune to causes he cares about — has a little pull.
Make that a lot a lot of pull. But more on that later.
While the 99-year-old, who lives not from from the library in Pasadena, was hanging out with Lawrence that day, something struck him. It wasn’t something he saw. It was a vision for the future of the library grounds.
Lawrence told him about a long-sought goal to provide more affordable housing for the more than two dozen scholars from around the country and the world who each year earn fellowships to study their field for several months based at The Huntington.
There was only one problem, Munger learned.
In an era when housing around San Marino and Pasadena is getting pricier and pricier, it’s harder and harder for these scholars — 30 each year all told — to take the fellowships.
They often can’t afford to because it’s too expensive to live nearby. (By the way, average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Pasadena is $3,306, according to rent.com, and if you’re scholar looking for a home the median price of one in San Marino is $2.5 million. Thankfully, that’s down almost 4% from last year, according to Redfin. But you’d need to be a scholar with some dollars.)
Many…
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