Casa de Estudillo

Location: 2754 Calhoun Street
Old Town State Historic Park, Old Town San Diego, CA (map)
Phone: (619) 220-5422
More info: Website

Museum Highlights

Home to one of the state’s most distinguished 19th-century families, La Casa de Estudillo was San Diego’s social and religious center during the Mexican and early American periods. Built during 1827-1829 by Lieutenant Jose Maria Estudillo, this adobe-block townhouse was enclosed around an inner courtyard. It had twelve rooms, including bedrooms, a servants’ quarter, kitchen, work and storage rooms, a living room and dining room, and Catholic chapel.

The thick adobe-brick walls were coated with a mud plaster and painted with a lime-based whitewash. On top of the roof was a turreted balcony, accessible by a stairwell, where the Estudillo family watched the bullfights, horse races, and fiestas on the plaza.

After Jose Antonio’s death in 1852, his wife, Maria Victoria Dominguez, continued to live in the house with her large extended family, several renters, and servants. By the 1860s, the house had glass windows with wooden frames and shingled roofing.

After the last family members left in 1887, the old adobe fell into ruin. Investor John D. Spreckels bought it in 1906, hiring architectural designer Hazel Waterman to restore it. La Casa de Estudillo is the only individual site in the park listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is one of five 19th century adobes in the park.