When Bullocks Department Stores expanded to Pasadena in 1947 with their "Store of Tommorow", it changed South Lake Avenue, a previously residential neighborhood with homes lining both sides of the street just north of the wealthiest Pasadena neighborhood "Oak Knoll" and wealthy San Marino, into the locus of elegant shopping in Pasadena. The Pasadena Bullocks was designed in a cruise ship style by renowned architect Welton Becket. Becket's goal was to create unity both "inside" as well as "outside" of the building and to achieve an atmosphere of a "home" or an "exclusive country club".
