Casa de Adobe

Casa de Adobe
Casa de Adobe, photo by Charles J. Fisher, 1990

Casa de Adobe, Los Angeles Historic Cultural Monument #493

Built: 1917  Declared: 07/13/1990

Designed by Theodore Eisen as a museum for the Hispanic Society, this 1917 adobe was completely hand-built by Jose Velazquez and features a central courtyard and fountain. It was deeded to the Southwest Museum in 1922 and represents a romanticized version of an Early California Mexican Hacienda. The furniture was donated by several of the early land-grant families including the Sepulvedas.  It was designed as a teaching tool, but was influenced by the 1889 novel, Ramona, by Helen Hunt Jackson, which made it more elaborate than the adobes that it was designed to represent, and provides a glimpse of history from the perspective of the early 20th Century nostalgia for historic Spanish-Mexican California.