Rancho Los Cerritos

Before we left for Texas, I wrote about Juan Temple. I mentioned that the headquarters for his cattle ranch was located at the Rancho Los Cerritos, a spot on the land he bought from his wife's family, the Corta, and it stretched from the adobe down to the beach.

I was surprised that this piece of California history was literally up the street from us:

I tried to include the beach in the picture so you can get a feeling for how much space the cattle had to roam.

We went and visited the museum today. After a summer spent in Europe looking at historical artifacts and learning about how the culture in the vicinity of those former fortresses and palaces developed, it was nice to drive up the street for a few minutes and do the same for my own neighborhood.

An approaching shot

I read a few sentences about how the land made it into the hands of the Spanish: Cortez signed a land grant of 300,000 acres (nearly 470 sq. mi) to one of his soldiers, Nieto. I'm sure this happened often, frankly, but this was from the land grant I live on, so...

Nieto, in turn, signed a land grant over to one of his men, Corta, and within a few hundred years, one of the Corta daughters married a white man from Massachusetts, and sold him a piece of their land grant, in the southern portion, down by the beach.

Anyway, off a quick left turn and nearly immediate right, you drive onto Virginia Ave. A few blocks later you're passing gthe country club, and then there's a parking lot for the Rancho Los Cerritos.

After checking in at the visitor's center, and making a donation (if you feel like it, since it's a free attraction when open), you're free to explore the grounds.

The green gate from the approaching shot in the beginning of this post opens onto the courtyard of a large, rectilinear U-shaped adobe building. The central courtyard has a cute pond and fountain in the very center of it:

The down-leg to the right of the central courtyard has many doors that open with rooms behind that are in varying levels of explorable.

The first room was the mayordomo's room. Since Juan Temple lived mostly in Los Angeles proper and spent only a few weeks a year down at the RLC, the boss of the ranch while he was not present was the mayordomo, and this was his quarters:

We all liked how the chandelier had candles and a rope and pulley system.

The next few rooms we visited I snapped pictures of, and included them here.

Blacksmith Room

Laundry Room

Library

The library was in the main house, the top/bottom of the big rectangular U-shape, as was the parlor and dining room areas. It had an upstairs, but it was closed today due to issues with the flooring.

Main House Portion; Parlor (Living Room)

Main House Portion; Dining Room

Out and around the back had a large grassy area as well as various fruit trees, and way out back was a brick wall and ornate green metal gate. 

On the other side of that wall and gate was tghe country club's parking lot. It was a little jarring.

The backyard also saw the large second level's veranda:

The large adobe structure, the U-shape, was originally built in 1846 after Temple bought the land and wanted a place to keep as a headquarters for the ranch. After he passed away, it was bought in the 1860s by a Mr. Bixby, a name that appears all over the city today. It was lived in as he ranched sheep until the early 1900s, when it fell into disrepair. 

As immigration to California from Mexico grew, the RLC was rented out room by room to families and singletons, many were workers on the nearby ranches.

Eventually it was brought into the modern era with the addition of electricity and running water. Later still it was designated a historical site and turned into a learning center and museum. Cass had already been on a field trip, and he was our docent for the trip.

Below, you can see Cass standing, for scale, in the roots of a massive magnolia tree:

I can't imagien how old it must have been. Hundreds of years at least, I'd wager.

In the way back area off to one of the sides in the backyard were some earthenware ovens and cookers:

An early cistern remained in the way back, a rainwater catch for the irrigation system in the back for the food they grew:

It was a neat little walk through a slice of history, one much closer to home than the old walls, castles, hotels and eateries we visited earlier in the summer.

Not quite predating photography:

Is that...is that a magnolia?

Anyway, again local history provides wonder and entertainment.