Why I moved the office to Pasadena

Families ask me why Pasadena. The honest answer is a mix of math, traffic, and one Metro line.

I didn't start in Pasadena. For the first eighteen months we operated out of a smaller office near Downtown, closer to the crematory partners we use and closer to the hospitals we transport from. On paper, downtown made sense.

In practice it didn't.

The 405 problem

Here's what I didn't appreciate from my corporate job, where I rarely drove to a family's home: most of the people who call us at 3 a.m. don't want to drive across LA in the morning to sign paperwork.

They just lost somebody. They haven't slept. They're sitting in traffic trying to find our office, parking in a structure, walking into a building they've never been in.

When we were downtown, I watched families from Pasadena, from the valley, from the east side burn an hour of their day each way. For some, the drive itself was the hardest part of the week. They'd arrive with their hands still shaking from the 405.

I started doing more arrangement conferences at family homes, which helped. But that doesn't scale. You can't send three counselors to three houses on a Wednesday.

Why Pasadena, specifically

A few reasons.

Centrality. Pasadena is close to the 110, the 134, the 210, the 605. If you draw a circle around LA County's population centers — downtown, the valley, the east SGV, west LA — Pasadena is closer to the geographic middle than people realize. We're twenty minutes from Burbank. Thirty from Glendale. Forty from Culver City on a good day.

Hospital proximity. Huntington Memorial, Methodist of Arcadia, City of Hope in Duarte, Kaiser Pasadena, Methodist of Pasadena — they're all within fifteen minutes. These aren't the biggest hospitals we transport from, but they're a meaningful share.

The Metro Gold Line. It runs from downtown LA through Pasadena to Azusa. For families who don't want to drive — and plenty don't — they can take a train and we meet them at the station in a company vehicle. I've done this. It's not glamorous. It's useful.

Parking. Downtown parking at a funeral-adjacent address is $15 and up. Pasadena, where our office is, you can park on the street. This sounds small. It isn't. Parking costs are a stupid thing to add to a grieving family's day.

The specific building

Our address is 131 W Green Street, Suite A. It's a small office — administrative use only, by appointment. We don't have a chapel here, we don't have a casket showroom, we don't have the feel of a traditional funeral home. By design.

When you come to us, it's for an hour-long meeting at a table. Then we handle the rest. We're not trying to be a place where people gather for services — that's not our model. We're trying to be the practical, trusted office that handles everything behind the scenes.

Most of our actual work happens elsewhere. Pickups happen at hospitals and homes. Cremations happen at partner crematories. Ashes get delivered or picked up at a family's choice. The office in Pasadena is where paperwork and conversations happen.

What families tell me about the move

Universal from the east side and the valley: thank you, this is so much easier.

Mixed from the west side: I wish you were closer. I understand this. If I could clone the business, we'd have a mirror office in Culver City. Maybe we will someday. For now, our west-side families almost always ask us to come to them, and we do.

Occasional from downtown or South LA: is this a sign you're more expensive now? No. The price is $1,195 whether you come to the office or we come to you.

The one logistical thing Pasadena gets wrong for me

We're not close to the LA County Coroner's office at 1104 N. Mission Road. For non-coroner cases — the great majority — that doesn't matter. For coroner cases, it adds driving time to our paperwork pickup. I accept the trade.

The real reason, honestly

If I'm being completely honest, I also chose Pasadena because I like it here.

I grew up adjacent. The Rose Parade is a part of my childhood memory. The jacaranda trees bloom in May and the whole city looks like it's draped in purple. The restaurants are better than people give them credit for. Old Town on a weekday morning feels like a town, not a city.

I think a person's work is affected by where they do it. I do better work in a place that feels human. Pasadena feels human to me.

That's the honest answer. The logistics and the centrality and the Metro line all matter. But there's also the part where I show up to work in a city that I like, and I think families can feel the difference, somehow, even if they can't put their finger on what it is.

If you're in the area, come by for coffee. The office is small, we don't have snacks, and I usually have about fifteen minutes between calls. But I'd like to meet you.