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Overview

This grand adobe residence, built by Spanish soldier living near the Mission San Gabriel between 1792 and 1805, originally had an sizeable, L-shaped plan, but it was reduced in scale during its long history. The landowner Don Juan Vigare purchased it in 1859.

Building History

Erected near the San Gabriel Mission, the Ortega-Vigare House first accommodated a soldier stationed to guard the mission and his family. The residence stayed in the Ortega Family until about 1859, when Don Jean Vigare bought the property and remodeled it to become the first bakery in San Gabriel in the early 1860s. It became housing again after this, until about 1983 when its demolition was proposed. This was warded off, and has remained housing to the present. In 2010, the residence was considered the second-oldest adobe building in Southern CA.

The WPA Guide to the City of Angels, written by the Federal Writers Project of the Works Progress Administration, said of the Vigare Adobe: "...A long, generously proportioned one-story building, with walls higher than those of the mission period, is approached through an old-fashioned garden of orange trees, rose bushes and jasmine. A modern porch has replaced the ground-level corridor. The house was built by a soldier of the mission guard." (See Federal Writers Project of the Works Progress Administration, WPA Guide to the City of Angels,[Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011], p. 324.)

Building Notes

Adobe walls of the Ortega-Vigare Residence were built 24-inches thick. A hedgerow of cacti separated the house from the surrounding lime orchards.

In 2001, the house was for sale with an asking price of $998,000; at this time, it had three bedrooms, two kitchens, a guest house, three-car garage, carport, pool and spa and about 4,000 square feet of living space on one story. It occupied a three-quarter-acre plot.

The Ortega-Vigare Adobe was listed for sale for $1.78 million in 2011,

The Ortega-Vigare House originally had an L-shape, but was twice the size of the current L-shaped building.