The centennial celebration lasted one morning. On September 27, 2025, the city set up a mini train, opened the Thurnher House for guided tours, led a bird walk with the Pasadena Audubon Society, and let a state senator and an assemblymember read a joint resolution into the record. By 1 p.m. the folding tables were gone. What's easy to miss, because the centennial made for such a tidy news story, is that the park's calendar never actually paused for it. The same Community Center that issued centennial wristbands was already booking Halloween wristbands for the following month. That continuity is useful for a San Marino resident to know: alongside milestone events, the park runs on a schedule that has barely changed in a century, and that schedule is one reason people keep showing up.
One Saturday Morning, Then the Regular Calendar
The centennial event itself was well documented. Mayor Gretchen Shepherd Romey, who has lived in San Marino since 1996, told the San Marino Tribune that her first visit to the park was on a Fourth of July; the Tribune also quoted her saying, "Our hearts are in the park." San Marino Historical Society President Christa Lakon gets credit for flagging the milestone to the city, and Parks and Public Works Director Amber Shah and Urban Forester Lora Hall built the actual program around it, from guided tree walks to bicycle checkups run by The Cub House.
None of that changes the fact that Lacy Park's calendar for the rest of 2026 looks like it always does. The city's Fall 2026 Community Services Activities Guide, mailed to every San Marino household and covering September through December, lists the same mix of family nights, seasonal parties, and long-running traditions the park has hosted for decades. The October and November calendar continues beyond the centennial celebration.
What's Actually on the Calendar This Fall
Here's the lineup as the city has it scheduled, pulled directly from the Community Services major events listing:
| Event | Date | What It Is |
|---|---|---|
| Mini Golf Par-Tee Family Night | Friday, October 2, 6-8 p.m. | Indoor mini golf at the Community Center, plus dinner, crafts, yard games, and face painting. Registration closes September 25; $21 for residents, $25 for nonresidents. |
| Trunk-or-Treat & Dance Party | Friday, October 23, 6-9 p.m. | The annual Halloween gathering at Lacy Park itself, with costume contests and a dance party. Wristbands go on sale at the Community Center starting October 1, priced $5 for residents and $10 for nonresidents in advance, $15 at the gate. |
| Holiday House Bus Shelter tradition | Later this season | A 74-year-old San Marino custom, with Santa arriving by fire truck and a tree-lighting countdown, that closes out the calendar year at the park. |
What stands out isn't any single event. It's the continuity across all three: the Community Center wristband desk, registration deadlines, and resident pricing tiers also served the centennial. The fall events use familiar systems, connecting the celebration with the park's regular calendar.
The Same Two Loops Since 1925
If you've never actually walked Lacy Park end to end, the layout is simpler than the 30 acres suggest. There's an inner loop of about three-quarters of a mile and an outer loop of roughly a mile, both dating back to William Hertrich's original 1925 design. Hertrich, a San Marino city councilman from 1922 to 1945 who also served as superintendent of the Huntington Estate, didn't just lay out a family park. He built a botanical garden into it, with rare shrubs and trees donated directly from the Huntington's own collection.
That detail matters more than it sounds like it should. It means the mature plantings you walk past on either loop today aren't decorative additions from some later renovation. They're the same specimens Hertrich sourced when the park was still recovering from its earlier life as Wilson Lake, a four-acre water source that had been reduced to what one city account calls a "mud hole" by 1924 before San Marino purchased the land outright in 1925. The rose garden, the expansive lawns, the historic trees residents walk past on a Tuesday evening are not a modern amenity layered onto an old park. They are the original plan, still functioning as designed a century later.
Pack a Lunch, Not an Itinerary
For anyone planning to combine a walk with a meal, the park sits close enough to Huntington Drive and Mission Street that a picnic doesn't require driving out of San Marino at all. The city's own centennial materials pointed residents toward a specific stretch of local spots for exactly this purpose: Chapresso and Dumpling Bar and Mari Vees and Masamitsu Japanese Cuisine along Huntington Drive, Meat & Essentials a few doors down, Cielo Cafe and Julienne's over on Mission Street, and Noodle World Jr rounding out the block. None of these are single-event pop-ups. They're the same restaurants residents already treat as their regular rotation, which is worth knowing if you're timing a visit around one of the fall events above and want food that doesn't involve a food truck line.
The Actual Takeaway
Lacy Park's centennial celebration was one event in a calendar that continues through fall and winter. The schedule includes a family night in October, a Halloween party, and a holiday tradition old enough that most residents attending it this December weren't alive for its first one. Together, the celebration and the ongoing calendar reflect the park's place in community life.
If you're weighing what it actually means to live near a park like this, whether it's Lacy Park or another San Gabriel Valley green space shaping a neighborhood you're considering, Renee Bannoura can walk you through how these local details factor into a home search across San Marino and the surrounding communities. Let's Connect.
