7 posts tagged “adobe”

Folks, there’s just no agreement about the history of this adobe. I took a shine to it 1-because it’s an old adobe, and 2-because Dona Eulalia lived there, but all the information on it is contradictory.

 

So, it was built in 1792 OR it was built in 1806

 

La Casa Vieja de Lopez Plaque

It’s called the Lopez de Lowther Adobe EXCEPT that Maria de Lopez de Lowther (1881-1977) called it La Casa Vieja de Lopez. It was her house, and she restored it, so I figure she’s got the right to call it what she wants.

 

Here’s some more stuff: This adobe was built in about 1792 by Jose Maria Claudio Lopez, Majordomo of Mission San Gabriel [yep, THAT Claudio Lopez – the one who built the old mill and everything]. And the house stayed in the family. It next went to Maria Carrillos (Maria Ygnacia Lopéz), a niece. According to a family genealogy site, “Claudio may have established a close relationship with his niece after her father's death (Juan Francisco Lopez) when she was age seven. It is possible that the Joaquin and Maria Carrillo family lived in or near here during their stay at San Gabriel, c.1819-1823.”

 

Side view

Eulalia Perez De Guillen

Dona Eulalia and Juan Mariné entered their marriage of convenience in 1832, got the land grant to Rancho San Pasqual in 1834, and then Mariné died in 1838. Through all those years, Eulalia chose to live in this adobe next to the mission. One of Eulalia’s daughters married Oro Lopez, one of Claudio’s sons, so this little adobe really was a “granny shack.”

 

Dona Eulalia died on June 8, 1878 at the Miguel Blanco adobe up the street, which had been her primary residence for at least a few years before, although she did spread her love around to the various relatives over the years.

 

Nowadays, the folks at the mission refer to it as “Dona Eulalia’s house,” and I didn’t get a straight answer about whether it’s privately owned by the Lopez family or by the mission. In past years the adobe had been used to display a doll collection and the memorabilia of the Lopez family, but these days it’s closed to the public.

Michael White Adobe

Casa Miguel Blanco

 

Built about 1845 by Michael White or Miguel Blanco, as he was called by the Native Californians. One of the early foreigners to settle in California: sailor and soldier of fortune; a friendly, carefree man of roving disposition; a colorful and outspoken character.

 

Born in 1802 in Kent, England; arrived in California in 1828. Traveled widely in Lower California, New Mexico and the gold regions.

 

Married Maria del Rosario de Guillen, at the San Gabriel Mission in 1831, her mother Dona Eulalia Perez De Guillen was considered one of the most remarkable women of early California history. Serving as a sort of “Mother Superior” at the mission, she reportedly lived to be 108 years of age.

 

On March 27, 1845, the land upon which the old adobe now stands and adjacent water- bearing lands were granted by Governor Pio Pico to “Miguel Blanco” for services rendered to the mission by his wife and mother-in law. It was not until 1872, however, that the patent to the land was finally issued by Ulysses S. Grant, President of the United States.

 

Michael White’s dwelling was restored during 1952 by K.L. Carver and a group of public spirited citizens of the San Gabriel Valley.

 

Erected by San Gabriel Archangel Chapter, Parlor 291

Native Sons of the Golden West  

February 15, 1956

These just in from the digital photo archives of the L.A. Public Library. Most of them aren't dated, but it seems like the ones that are, are also the most recent - 1936. The one above seems to be very old, perhaps even in Michael White / Miguel Blanco's lifetime.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Folks, we've got a crisis.

First, hats off to Ann Gray for alerting me to the evil machinations of the San Marino School District, who want to knock down a 164-year-old adobe to expand their high school swimming pool. Yes, you read that correctly.

Here's the brief story: "The adobe was constructed in 1845 by Michael White, a European sailor who adopted the name Miguel Blanco and became a Mexican citizen so he could own land in California, which was under Mexican rule at the time. White's mother-in-law was Eulalia Pérez de Guillén Mariné, who worked at the San Gabriel Mission and owned land that eventually become part of Pasadena, South Pasadena and San Marino." And then 100 years later, they built a high school right next to it. In the past few years they've spent $35 million on infrastructure to the high school, exactly $0 on the adobe (which is actually pretty well preserved - it isn't just a ruin) and now that they're out of money, it's called an "economic downturn," and they want to pave it until funds become available to expand the pool.

What?

How about "you idiots built the pool in the wrong place."

Here's where it is: 2701 Huntington Drive, San Marino, CA 91108

Here are the villans on the Board of Education:

President	Jeanie Caldwell
Vice-President	Dr. Jeng Yen
Clerk	C. Joseph Chang
Member	Karen Preston
Member	Chris Norgaard

and here's when the adobe gets the hatchet:

Board of Education Meeting
10/27/2009, 7:30 PM - 9:00 PM
Location: District Office Board Room

1665 West Dr., San Marino, CA 91108

Please write them a letter and tell them what you think about their ideas of "economy" and "progress."

Here are a couple of links to news articles:

http://www.insidesocal.com/rose/2009/09/historic-michael-white-adobe-under-threat-of-destruction-in-san-marino.html

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-outthere22-2009sep22,0,7530908.story

My next two posts down will give you a sense of the history we'll be missing.

Folks, we've got a crisis.

First, hats off to Ann Gray for alerting me to the evil machinations of the San Marino School District, who want to knock down a 164-year-old adobe to expand their high school swimming pool. Yes, you read that correctly.

Here's the brief story: "The adobe was constructed in 1845 by Michael White, a European sailor who adopted the name Miguel Blanco and became a Mexican citizen so he could own land in California, which was under Mexican rule at the time. White's mother-in-law was Eulalia Pérez de Guillén Mariné, who worked at the San Gabriel Mission and owned land that eventually become part of Pasadena, South Pasadena and San Marino." And then 100 years later, they built a high school right next to it. In the past few years they've spent $35 million on infrastructure to the high school, exactly $0 on the adobe (which is actually pretty well preserved - it isn't just a ruin) and now that they're out of money, it's called an "economic downturn," and they want to pave it until funds become available to expand the pool.

What?

How about "you idiots built the pool in the wrong place."

Here's where it is: 2701 Huntington Drive, San Marino, CA 91108

Here are the villans on the Board of Education:

President	Jeanie Caldwell
Vice-President	Dr. Jeng Yen
Clerk	C. Joseph Chang
Member	Karen Preston
Member	Chris Norgaard

and here's when the adobe gets the hatchet:

Board of Education Meeting
10/27/2009, 7:30 PM - 9:00 PM
Location: District Office Board Room

1665 West Dr., San Marino, CA 91108

Please write them a letter and tell them what you think about their ideas of "economy" and "progress."

http://www.insidesocal.com/rose/2009/09/historic-michael-white-adobe-under-threat-of-destruction-in-san-marino.html

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-outthere22-2009sep22,0,7530908.story

Now Jane, my partner in crime and the chief researcher, has been goin’ a little crazy with all these adobes and ranchos and families where everybody is related to everybody else. When you get to charting some of these family trees, they look more like a palm tree than an oak, you know what I’m sayin’? And then to top it off, sometimes they change the names of these places for a plus ten degree of difficulty.

 

 And that’s when we got our first case of mistaken identity. We got the Catalina Adobe, which was also

called the Verdugo Adobe and the Catalina Verdugo Adobe and it was located on the Rancho San Rafael, which was owned by Catalina’s dad, Corporal Jose Maria Verdugo.

 

 Jose Maria had a lot of kids - he married María de la Encarnación López in 1779, and they had 11 children. He also had a lot of land. He start ranching in 1784, made it “official” on January 12, 1798 with one of the first land grants - 36,402 acres of prime SoCal real estate. He built a few adobes on his property, which he liked to call La Zanja (a cute word for “ditch.” ) And when the reaper called, apparently

after a long illness, on 13 April 1831, at Mission San Gabriel, where he is also buried, he left it all to his son Julio Antonio Verdugo and daughter María Catalina Verdugo.

 

There are only two of his original adobes left – Catalina’s place and another, La Casa de Adobe de San Rafael, which was built by his granddaughter and her husband. It is also known as the Casa Adobe, the Tomas

Avila Sanchez Adobe (which is NOT the Juan Matias

Sanchez adobe) The Sanchezes are probably related, but they don’t seem to be brothers or first cousins from the information we’ve scanned.

 

 Are you confused yet? Well, I sure am!

 

 

There was a real risk of the Raven Jake research center suffering a spontaneous combustion when “Casa Verdugo” came up on the radar. Once that bomb was diffused everything was A-ok, but it was scary for a moment.

 

 Casa Verdugo was a restaurant.

 

 Yep, Casa Verdugo used to be at 101 Mountain Ave. in Glendale and was originally housed in what was known as the “Sepulveda Adobe.” Rafaela and Fernando Sepulveda were the

original owners of the adobe home. That’s no coincidence either.  Rafaela Verdugo and Fernando Sepulveda were the parents of Maria Sepulveda de Sanchez, the wife of Tomas Sanchez who built La Casa de Adobe de San Rafael, and she was a granddaughter of Jose Maria Verdugo, the original grantee of Rancho San Rafael (Catalina’s dad – Catalina

was her aunt.) It was one of the original “Verdugo Adobes.” The building was later sold and re-purposed into a restaurant, but the new owners named it for the Verdugo family instead of the Sepulvedas.

 

 The restaurant was situated at the last stop at the end of Brand Boulevard's Red Car line. The ride up from Echo Park was beautiful, and travelers who had read Ramona could hardly wait to see a real adobe,

chow down on some real Mexican food and enjoy some authentic entertainment with Spanish dancers and mariachi bands. In the early 1900s, this was the bomb in date-night entertainment.

 

 This original, authentic adobe was eventually replaced with a newer one just a couple of hundred yards away when Brand Boulevard was extended further up the hillside north of Mountain Street.

 

 

On May 6, 1907 a convention of 5,000 Shriners poured into Glendale from all over the country and more than half of them ate enchiladas and tamales at Casa Verdugo. According to the Glendale Register of Historic Places, Casa Verdugo moved “to a newly built home at the terminus of the Red Car line and moved a third time to the property at the southwest corner of Randolph Street and Louise Street.”

 

The restaurant retained its popularity into the 1920s and later became a private residence. The new owners seem pretty amenable to hosting charity events – the Glendale Historical Society had a little ‘do there

 

 

a couple months back and I certainly hope that there will be more to come.

 

From 1492 until the late 1800s, Spanish culture dominated North America, particularly the area which is now the Western United States and all parts South. “God, Glory and Gold,” the foreign policy of the Spanish empire, is a group dedicated to exploring the traces of the Spanish settlement still left in today’s America. Our group – Desert Rats – is dedicated to all things desert, but not all of our Spanish heritage is in the desert, and not everybody who loves the “mission period” loves cactus. No, I don’t understand that either, but a separate group seemed like a good idea. Might even get some cross-over. A lot of our Spanish history is in costal towns, and some is in the mountains. There are 21 missions left in California, and a fair few in Arizona, Texas and New Mexico. A lot of the old Spanish trail remains, adobe buildings, and some old ranchos. Let’s find ‘em! Post your photos, maps travelogs - whatever you've got that says "Francisco Vázquez de Coronado had breakfast here!" And folks, this is a historical interest/travel group, not a political forum or religious encounter group.

 

http://mission.groups.vox.com/