My town burned to the ground Jan. 7 and 8; they say 6,000 houses went. If only you could have known how charming Altadena was. Always, always a feisty spirit of its own, this little unincorporated town at the top end of Pasadena was the hardy little place my grandparents washed up in after the crash of 1929. All the up and down streets run right up to the mountains. The cross streets run from Eaton Canyon all the way across the face of the mountains to the Arroyo Seco, where JPL sits.

These streets, daily washed with the purply pink of sunrise and sunset, and dressed in a profusion of trees and flowers, offered such beauty that simply walking them was a thing. Everyone had his or her favorite routes. And always the mountains! What a dramatic backdrop for the rose gardens, oak- and palm-lined parkways, cooling lawns, bushy walkways up to front doors.

My eyes fill up with tears just saying the street names: Sinaloa, Santa Anita, Marengo, Mendocino, Poppy Fields — because I’ve known those streets and those people my whole life, it seems. Mark and Michele’s house was a small Spanish from the 1920s.

For the past 30 years they’ve ladled such care onto their house and garden; adding an interior tiled courtyard, an artist’s studio, a 500-gallon water tank to supply the intricate landscaping, a copious vegetable garden. An ancient tea tree, on crutches, leans across their driveway. And perhaps more important, having lifelong friends right behind them only an open gate away ... .

Chris and Hal, in their postwar little house where they’d raised their kids, built out the driveway to accommodate all the stuff for their love of camping and babied a magnificent tree that gave off hundreds of avocados every year..

Lorraine, up by the mountains, in what was called a “Janes House,” small but on a big lot and packed with oaks and pines and twisting garden walks to a bursting raised vegetable garden, unruly wisteria and the music of daily birdsong. Neighbors on her street always stood out gabbing with one another. All this gone. Gone the gardens, gone the people.

Just now, heard about Joe and Judy’s. Theirs was a sort of spreading kind of Craftsman from maybe the ‘30s. For 50 years that house — no, home — burst with family, friends, prayer groups, craft groups, celebrations of every kind.

A home that hugged you with a love you wished you’d known as a child but at least you were knowing now.

My list of friends includes at least 20 more now without homes, and everyone shopped the tiny, two-block business district.

Who didn’t know Steve of Steve’s Bikes? How every 4th of July, he’d get out his antique tractor and motor it down Lake Avenue. Who didn’t know the Orlandinis? Orlandini’s Hardware offered the best service, always had what you needed, and would many times hire those who were hard to hire. But, they’d train their staff into the best, most courteous attendants you could dream of because they were there to help, and not just on Mariposa Street, but on Earth.

Not the Altadena Town & Country Club, too! Its view from the terrace was like a movie set of mountains, palms, pool, golf course, often said to be the most lovely view in Los Angeles. My 60th birthday there. My kids’ graduations. Since 1910 it had relaxed and refreshed everybody who just sat and looked when the mountains displayed their pink moment, when the palms caught the sunlight and sparkled.

And Eliot Junior High, where my mother attended in 1935. It was labeled the most beautiful junior high in California. Can you imagine a junior high with such a label?

You’ve all seen the pictures, but you couldn’t have known the charm — the way people waved to one another, the way people felt glad to live out of the rat race.

Altadena was a place for people who didn’t want all the folderol and complexities we are beset with today. Altadena was where people moved to so they could take a breath and say to themselves, ahh, I am home.

Mary Lea Carroll’s new book about growing up in Altadena and then living near the town in northern Pasadena is “Across the Street Around the Corner — A Road Home.” More at maryleacarroll.com