Plaque on the former Ambassador College/Worldwide Church of God Headquarters
located by the Fowler Gardens (Lower Garden's) steps
Site of former Hall of Administration
Former Hall of Administration site. Now apartments and condos with an architectural feature in reference to the old Hall of Ad.
Looking across Auditorium Lake bridge towards old Hall of Ad site.
Harvest Rock painted over the rich patina of the egrets in order to cover over the last vestige of Armstrong that they could. They dumped salt in the lake to cast out the demons of Armstrongism and used anointing oil on all of the bridges, walkways, and landings around the outside of the auditorium to keep the demons away. They also anointed each of the rooms inside, laid hands on the fixtures and walls to cast out the demons that resided there.
Harvest Rock painted over the rich patina of the egrets in order to cover over the last vestige of Armstrong that they could. They dumped salt in the lake to cast out the demons of Armstrongism and used anointing oil on all of the bridges, walkways, and landings around the outside of the auditorium to keep the demons away. They also anointed each of the rooms inside, laid hands on the fixtures and walls to cast out the demons that resided there.
Ambassador Auditorium, home of pentecostal Harvest Rock Church
and Pasadena Symphony
Maranatha High School Student Center and offices.
Marantha is a top tier Christian College Prep school
Maranatha High School Student Center
Former Ambassador College Student Center
Fowler Gardens, former lower gardens of Ambassador College.
Home of graduation ceremonies, student dinners, receptions and weddings.
Baptismal pool in lower gardens
Steps leading up to former college library site which was the Fowler estate home.
Now apartments and condos
Fowler Gardens balustrade with Student Center, Auditorium and Mt Wilson in the background
Looking back from former library steps towards the football field of Maranatha High School. Ambassador College track was removed and surface extended to make a football field.
Bottom of the stream where Grove Street used to be.
Stream steps up the hill. Many of the exotic trees Ambassador had planted
are dead, dying or totally missing.
Former men's dorm Grove Terrace, now a state of the art classroom facility
for Maranatha High School
Former 360 Dorm, now apartments renting out for $4,000+ a month.
Each unit was extensively remodeled restoring them to their former glory after the college had stripped so much out of them. This is where Victor Kubik, Brian Orchard, and others dreamt up the United Church of God while still ministers and employees of the Worldwide Church of God
David Wynn Dove Fountain. Apartment building background is on site of lawn in front of the old college library and Herbert Armstrong's private backyard.
Former 380 and 390 dorms. Now high-end apartments.
Herbert Armstrong's mansion. Now offices for Dorn Platz and property manager of the site. The bottom corner was his TV room where watching Saturday afternoon Westerns and Laker's basketball was enjoyed. Top right of the house is HWA's former office.
Top left was his bedroom changing/closet area.
Looking towards HWA's mansion across what used to be a reflecting pool. Now filled in with sand.
HWA's mansion. His library was on the right, the first floor. Now a conference room for Dorn Platz.
"Pink" guest bedroom was on the second floor, right. The area to the right is now a parking lot for Dorn Platz. The grass area was removed and the garage relocated into this area.
The apartment building where old carriage house of the Fowler estate was.
The college used it as the library annex.
Mayfair, original student center and dorm for college in the first few years. Later was a women's dorm. Extensive restoration work had to be done to restore it after previous work had been done to remove so much detail to make it a dorm. Then, in the 1990's, a woman who thought she was an interior decorator stripped all of the unique wood in the large living room and hallway and whitewashed it. Now a private home for a wealthy Pasadena businessman. The garage for the house is to the left.
This condo complex sits on the site of the Mediterranean gardens that was located
behind Terrace Villa.
Terrace Villa, former women's dorm. This also had to be totally refurbished to restore it to its former glory. Now being sold as a private residence. Presently looks empty and abandoned.
Outside looks rather run down.
This condo complex sits on the site of the former Science Hall
This picture of the condo complex is on the site of the former Fine Arts Hall and garden area.
Picture was taken on Green Street.
The driveway where old men's dorm Olcott was located. Now provides vehicle access to the super high-end condo complex in from of Merritt Mansion and the former Loma D Armstrong Academic Center area.
Condos on site of former Fine Arts Hall area.
Merritt mansion, former Ambassador Hall. Now being marketed as a private residence, with ZERO privacy!
Yes! The Word of God is still there, blasting out a final warning to all of the heathen's now occupying the grounds! Once the house is sold as a private residence this will disappear. Hopefully!
Former location of Science Hall. Now high-end condos. Entrance to underground parking.
Former Sunken Gardens. It is now a swimming pool for the condo complex. Elephant Ears fountain is still there but painted black. The condos in this area sold out before each building was finished. They sold for between $2,000,000 - $2,500,000 each.
Looking down the steps from Ambassador Hall towards the bottom of the stream. The pristine gardening of the past is no longer being done. Cypress is very overgrown.
From in front of Ambassador Hall looking north towards where the old Television Studios used to be. More apartments.
Rolling lawns towards lower stream area.
The garden elements, gazebo and urn fountain, of the old Mediterranean Gardens behind Terrace Villa have been moved to the lawn area between Terrace Villa and Ambassador Hall.
Stream looking towards Mayfair dorm
Double click to enlarge.
These are all pictures that I took when Dennis Diehl came by for a visit. This is the future destiny of the campuses that splinter group leaders Dave Pack and Gerald Flurry have built in THIER honor and in vain attempts to copy the former glory of Ambassador College. From imitating building designs to imagining they have created world-class gardens that Jesus will return to and walk around on; they have instead created nothing more than dollar store imitations of what once was. Neither of these two men nor the leaders of ANY of the splinter groups will EVER come close to what was here on this campus nor will they EVER be able to preach and have a ministry like Herbert Armstrong did. From Living Church of God, COGWA and on to United Church of God, these groups are nothing more than vain little men trying to hold on to the past and to maintain their steady stream of income.
Money still continues to trump salvation.
19 comments:
Ah, the memories. It was a heady time.
I don't see a Giant Eagle anywhere...
I think that they did an excellent job in monetizing the property, and still hanging on to a retro elegance.
Kudos to the engineers and designers for doing a great job!
the truly sad part is that they should have demolished ever last building that the church owned for the number of lives it destroyed, the families broken apart, for the lives lost to suicide and the children molested and abused.
Thank you for the nice pictures. But isn't it interesting that your blog has visited the campus and snapped pictures far more than the spinoff groups that you claim "venerate" or still semi-worship it?
Waiting now for Dr. Thiel to declare the campus ceased to be "God's campus" when the high school football field was completed.
Enjoyed walking the campus and getting acquainted Gary. I found myself quite neutral on the whole thing where I might have not so in the past. Tis a good sign of moving on! Harvest Crock Church really screwed up the Egret Fountain with the white paint! Spent some time at Meteor Crater today on the way back East. Awesome beyond my expectations! Was great spending some time together in LA.
Dave's campus is the most doomed to become a Drug Rehab center or perhaps a Bahai' Center in time. Dave's classic mistake is thinking he will live to walk with Jesus in Wadsworth. He will pass from the scene just as his mentor HWA did.
"Waiting now for Dr. Thiel to declare the campus ceased to be "God's campus" when the high school football field was completed."
That's probably a worse "violation" then a cross, wouldn't it seem?
I agree Tonto. They did a great job in designing and engineering the changes.
Oh, there is a cross there too. We did not walk around to the amphitheater on the south side of the gymnasium. It has a 12-foot tall cross in it now. Remember, these Maranatha folk are not true Christians. True Christians despise the cross like Bwana Thiel does.
R L said, "Thank you for the nice pictures. But isn't it interesting that your blog has visited the campus and snapped pictures far more than the spinoff groups that you claim "venerate" or still semi-worship it?"
What? PCG and RCG both plaster their pictures all over the place as proof that they are God's college. Their buildings are designed to look like Ambassador College. As much as they can imitate to do.
I attended an HRC church service when they first moved in the Auditorium. Creepier than hell! Armstrongism has nothing on these people!
I had to laugh when I saw the lower gardens pools. All three of them are painted the same color of blue that I painted them in 2002. The paint is faded and peeling. Whoever maintains the pools have not been maintaining the Ambassador quality way! :-)
I was not able to appreciate the grainy black and white pictures of the college.
I didn't believe that it's really pretty not until today, thank you!
The college was like a white washed sepulchre. Nice to look at, but death peoples bones beneath.
Very interesting. My first experience there was in May 1961 when we had gone to have my brother circumcised. Mrs. Luttrell the RN walked us around the campus. My parents were baptized in an inside pool somewhere in there.
Thank you for posting these photos. I was a student at AC from 71-73 and worked with Dave Unfred, a longtime gardener in the Italian Sunken Gardens area. He was a member of the local Nazarene Church but worked for the WCG for many years. I proposed to my wife to be on one of the benches in the area that was parallel to the wall and W. Green Street. A very pretty setting. I was a member of the WCG for only four years, two before AC and then I left shortly after graduation. Thank you to Ernest Martin whose publications helped me to see the errors of Armstrongism.
"This is the future destiny of the campuses that splinter group leaders Dave Pack and Gerald Flurry have built in THIER honor"
Ah, come on, Gary, neither Flurry's nor Pack's little empires will ever produce a $2,500,000 condo.
Now with. Fuelperks +!
I remember a PCG minister giving a sermon advising members to not go inside the auditorium as it is full of demon possessed people now. In the sermon, the minister was relaying his experiences from his visit inside the auditorium - his encounters with demon possessed people worshiping inside and other strange experiences with the people there.
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