Stained Glass Antique Restoration Shop Since 1897: Judson

Judson Studios has been making and mending stained glass in Los Angeles since 1897, and it still works from a 1911 building at 200 S. Avenue 66 in Garvanza, the hillside corner of Highland Park, LA 90042. For anyone searching for an antique restoration shop that can save a cracked leaded window from a church, a Craftsman house or a bungalow front door, this is the oldest name in the city. The studio is family owned, and its president, David Judson, is the fifth generation of the family to run it.

The studio was established by the painter and professor William Lees Judson and his three sons. The building the studio uses today went up in 1911 and still holds the cutting tables, kilns and light boxes where the studio's glass painters and glaziers work. It is listed as Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 62, so the place where old windows come to be repaired is itself a protected piece of early twentieth-century Los Angeles.

The family never left the trade. More than a century later, the studio's recent work runs from sacred commissions to contemporary art: its portfolio names the Wilshire Boulevard Temple, the Church of the Resurrection, a private residence in Pasadena and a glass pagoda made with the artist James Jean. That mix is part of what makes Judson useful for restoration, because the same glass painters who design new windows understand how historic windows were painted, fired and leaded in the first place.

Judson describes its restoration service as complete. The in-house crew removes the windows from the building, carries out every repair needed in the studio and then reinstalls them, without handing any stage to a subcontractor. That matters with antique leaded glass, where the lead came that holds the pieces together has a working life and eventually sags, letting panels bow outward and pieces crack. Re-leading a window means taking it apart piece by piece, cleaning each one and building it up again.

Broken or missing pieces are the delicate part. A cracked piece of hand-painted glass can sometimes be edge-glued and kept, while a missing one has to be matched in colour and texture and, if it carried painted detail such as a face or a lettered border, repainted and kiln-fired to match. Ask the studio how it treats original glass on your window and whether earlier repairs, such as mismatched replacement pieces or copper-foil patches, should be reversed, since keeping as much of the old material as possible is the core of a sympathetic restoration.

Prepare photographs of the whole window from inside and outside, close-ups of bowing, cracks and any missing pieces, and the opening's size. Mention the building type and its age, as a church, a landmark home and a commercial lobby can involve different approvals and scaffolding needs. The studio publishes no restoration price list, so cost is set project by project.

The South Pasadena location at 143 Pasadena Avenue South is a second Judson site, where the team works on fused and kiln-formed glass. Restoration of traditional leaded windows is centred on the Highland Park studio, but if your project mixes repair with a new piece of fused glass, such as a replacement transom, the two workshops can split the job. Ask at the outset which site will handle each part.

The easiest way to see the workshop is a public tour. Tours last two hours, from 10 am to noon, and the official booking page lists tickets at $35 standard, $30 for students and $30 for seniors, with a $80 combo that pairs a tour with the studio's book. Upcoming dates on the events page include November 11, November 18 and December 9, 2026. Private tours are available for groups with a minimum booking of $500, at $35 a person.

A tour is also the most useful homework before commissioning a restoration. You see glass being cut, painted and leaded, and you learn the vocabulary, from lead came and matting to silver stain, that will make your later conversation with the studio faster. Book ahead, as public tours are ticketed and run on set dates, and wear closed shoes for the workshop floors.

Garvanza is one of the quieter, greener parts of northeast Los Angeles, full of Craftsman houses that still have their original leaded windows. The Metro A Line's Highland Park station on Avenue 57 is the nearest rail stop. On North Figueroa Street, Highland Park Bowl at 5621 N. Figueroa St. is a bowling alley and bar that makes a good end to a tour morning.

For more of the same era, drive south to Heritage Square Museum at 3800 Homer Street, Los Angeles 90031, where Victorian houses rescued from demolition have been moved onto one site along the Arroyo. Seeing those buildings, with their own decorative glass and woodwork, puts the work you watched at Judson into context: the city's old windows survive because someone kept repairing them.

Address: 200 S. Avenue 66, Los Angeles, CA 90042, in Garvanza, Highland Park. Second site: 143 Pasadena Avenue South, South Pasadena, CA 91030, for fused and kiln-formed glass. Restoration: removal, studio repair and reinstallation by the in-house crew. Tours: two hours, 10 am to noon on scheduled dates, $35 standard, $30 students and seniors, $80 tour and book combo, private groups from $500.

Best for: owners of churches, landmark homes and older bungalows with leaded or painted glass that is cracked, bowing or missing pieces. Arrive with photographs and measurements, or book a tour first to see how the work is done. Ask the Karpo APP for a coffee stop on York Boulevard or a dinner table on North Figueroa, and a Judson tour turns into a full Highland Park day.