Oceanside Day Part 2: Rancho Guajome Adobe

A first for us was an explore of this historic County Park, a legacy of California's Rancho Days.

The centerpiece of what was originally a 2219-acre Mexican land grant, the Rancho Guajome Adobe stands today as an authentic representation of two cultures – Hispanic and American. The Adobe offers an illustration of a colorful era in San Diego’s past (taken from the Park's brochure).
Cave Johnson Couts, a young Army lieutenant from Tennessee, arrived on California’s west coast in 1849 with a company of U.S. Army Dragoons sent out to reinforce U.S. troops in California. While waiting in Old Town to complete his assignment, he met Juan Bandini, one of San Diego’s most prominent citizens and began courting Bandini’s daughter, Ysidora. His marriage to Ysidora in 1851 merged the California traditions of early San Diego Mexican settlers with the entrepreneurial spirits of an American immigrant. It also provided them with an incredible wedding gift (this rancho).
We began our explore in the ticket room/museum. It is free to wander the grounds but we felt the $3 entrance fee was well worth it to see inside the home.
I appreciate the art in a branding iron. The collection here was extensive.
Just two years after acquiring the land, the couple began constructing their home on the property. Couts recruited 300 Indians to build the 7,680 square foot house. Two years later Couts, his wife, and their two children moved into their residence. Eventually, Ysidora gave birth to eight more children in the house. Interestingly, one of their daughters, Elena, married Parker Deer, one of the last owners of the Santa Rosa Rancho, which became the Plateau we explored the other day. These people were the movers and shakers, truly.
The current chapel was rebuilt in 1924 with the original structure was deemed necessary and blessed by the Vatican. After secularization, the need for a consecrated chapel closer than San Diego or Las Angeles dictated the building of this one.
The adobe hacienda has an inner and outer courtyard plan. The thick-walled, red-tile roofed main house is built around the four sides of a rectangle, forming a large inner patio with a fountain in the center. The west wing of the ranch house contains the pantry, bakery, kitchen, and dining room, while the center of the house has the family living room. The east and north wings are both occupied by numerous bedrooms with a veranda extending across the entire exterior façade of the south portion. A gate on the north side of the house leads to the outer courtyard. This double courtyard plan provided a ready means of defense in the event of an Indian attack. Although most of the original adobe remains intact, the house has seen some changes since its construction in 1852-1853.
The tack room is part of the carriage courtyard, which was added onto the original rooms in the 1860s. This extra courtyard make the Rancho Guajome Adobe one of the few haciendas to have two courtyards. Intersting stuff.
I appreciate Blacksmith shops.
Steve is standing by the cistern along with the bell from the first school in Vista.
This fountain is in the inner courtyard, some of the foliage is original from the 1880s.

This is the old bakery. Its floor tiles are from Mission San Luis Rey and features a traditional Mexican oven, a horno. The capacity of the horno is huge. A very hot fire was built in the oven and burned to coals. This heated the oven so that it could be used for baking. This room is in a state of arrested decay. It will remain this way as it has for decades.
Steve is standing at the backside of the horno.
How cool is this schoolroom? With eight children and no local school, Couts heird a succession of teachers. The teacher probably slept in the adjoining room on the pull-out Murphy bed.
The parlor was opulent and is furnished in the Eastlake style. Although Charles Eastlake did not make furniture, his movement influenced the interior design of American homes with English designs that were easy to clean, functional and simple. The ‘Eastlake’ style is of Victorian architecture and one of the core principles of this style was that Eastlake thought that the furniture in people's homes should be good looking and be made by manufacturers who enjoyed their work. This was contrary to the previous style of furniture which were large, heavy and thick that collected dust and germs. Who knew?
Cave Couts, Jr. bought this grand, large reed Mason & Hamlin organ for his young wife, Lily Bell Clemens (her dad was a first cousin to Mark Twain) in 1890. He enclosed the the west side of the home, just for this instrument.


Over the years of Cave Couts’ later life, Rancho Guajome was widely celebrated for its hospitality. Not only was it a stagecoach stop for travelers, some used it as a destination. Ysidora entertained noted author Helen Hunt Jackson while she was collecting materials for her best-selling book, Ramona (a must read). Part of the story is supposed to have taken place in real life at the Guajome Rancho – especially some of the ill treatment of the Native Americans living and working around the rancho.

"A generation which ignores history
has no past and no future."
-Robert Heinlein

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