Fully restored Castro Adobe ready for visitors – The Pajaronian

Seventeen years ago, a group of volunteers began restoring the Rancho San Andreas Castro Adobe, a structure whose resilience over its 176-year lifespan helps paint a picture of California history.

Now fully restored and equipped with interpretive screens, tactile exhibits and multimedia offerings, the building is ready to welcome visitors, with a grand opening planned for Saturday, June 15.

Restoration efforts began in 2007, when volunteers handcrafted more than 2,000 adobe bricks, including recreating the kitchen, which is now one of four Mexican-era “cocinas” in the state, according to the Friends of Santa Cruz State Parks (Friends). Executive Director Bonny Hawley.

Friends is a nonprofit operating partner for local national parks.

“It was quite a project,” Hawley said, as she gave a tour before the official dedication of the restored home Saturday. “It’s painstakingly restored.”

This includes several historical exhibits that tell the story of the Castro family who once owned the land and the families who lived in the house in the years that followed.

Additionally, engineers retrofitted the building to protect it against earthquakes, constructing a “steel rib cage,” Hawley said.

Historical exhibits also tell the stories of the people who worked in the house and the vaqueros who roamed the vast land once owned by the Castros that once extended to the coast.

Just inside the door is the dining room, where realistic sound effects from the kitchen and displays of plates and other dishes give a real sense of what the locals may have seen.

Visitors can also see the dance hall and master bedroom once occupied by Juan Castro, who was elected county supervisor just after California gained statehood, and was the first and only Latino to hold that role until to Tony Campos in 1988.

But even amid the plastered and whitewashed adobe, historians have left patches of “walls of truth,” on which people carved their names and other graffiti around 1860.

“You see this and you can imagine the people who lived here,” Hawley said.

Historians excavating the site also found pieces of tableware, as well as the broken face of a Chinese doll and even buckshot, all on display.

Originally built in 1848, the Castro Adobe had a fandango hall, which attracted neighbors and workers to parties that lasted for days.

After the structure was damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, owner Edna Kimbro tried for years to restore it before selling it to the state in 2002. It is now a national historic site and a California State Landmark.

“The Castro Adobe has an incredible story waiting to be told and the day has finally arrived for visitors to experience it,” said Santa Cruz District State Parks Superintendent Chris Spohrer. “We are very pleased to celebrate this decades-long collaborative process to preserve and interpret the Castro. »

The public can tour the Castro Adobe and explore the new exhibits during monthly open houses from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on June 15, August 11, September 21, October 13, November 16 and December 8. For more information, visit SantaCruzStateParks.as.me/CastroAdobeOpenHouse. To see a documentary about the restoration, visit youtu.be/rI4pXzt5ymY.