The Ramon Peralta Adobe is the only surviving adobe structure from the era of Spanish and Mexican land grants in the Santa Ana Canyon. It is located on land that was once part of the vast Rancho Santiago de Santa Ana, the largest rancho and only land grant made by the Spanish government in Orange County before Mexican independence. The adobe was built in 1871 in what was known as the town of Peralta, a small ranching and farming community on the south side of the Santa Ana River developed by members of the Peralta and Dominguez families. The adobe was built by Ramon Peralta, a descendant of Juan Pablo Peralta I, joint grantee (together with Jose Antonio Yorba) of the original Santiago de Santa Ana Ranch.
When Ramon Peralta built his adobe, the little community consisted of nine adobes, a combination saloon and pottery shop and a school. Ramon Peralta died in 1873 and the small 20' by 30' six-room adobe sat abandoned for several years. The interior of the building was scorched by fire around 1875 and vandals committed further damage. In 1881 Pablo Dominguez, son of Paula Peralta de Carlos Dominguez (owner of the land on which the Peralta Adobe was built) married Felipa Yorba. The young couple completed extensive repairs to the building and moved in to raise a family. Pablo and Felipa bore five children in the adobe. They continued changes and modifications to meet the growing needs of their family. An interior wall was removed to enlarge the main room, a gabled roof with second-story bedroom was added and doors and windows were hung. Thus the adobe assumed the exterior appearance to which the building has currently been restored.
The Dominguez family occupied the adobe only intermittently following Pablo's death in 1895 as Felipa grew too ill to care for the children alone. After moving to the other side of the river, the Dominguez family sold the adobe to E. Walter Pyne in 1908 who bought the property to extend his citrus farming holdings in the area. Mr. Pyne set about to preserve the old adobe by covering the exterior walls with a 2" layer of concrete to prevent further weathering. In 1920 Mr. Pyne converted the adobe into a roadside restaurant and gas station to serve the increasing motor traffic between Riverside and Orange County on the newly paved Santa Ana Canyon Road. For the next four decades various families lived in and operated the restaurant, further modifying and enlarging the original structure to better serve restaurant patrons. Many remember the Peralta Adobe fondly during this time as the Canyon Cafe. Especially remembered were its colorful murals picturing Spanish California painted in the 1940s.
Peralta School built on Peralta Adobe property in 1888.
Peralta
School teachers sometimes boarded with Dominguez family living in the Peralta
Adobe. This photo taken many years later after bell tower removed and school
building converted into private residence. School building destroyed in 1967
Paseo Grande fire.
After construction of the Riverside Freeway rough the canyon in the early 1960s, business for the cafe dropped precipitously and it was eventually abandoned. The building stood vacant for ten years during which tune it was damaged by the elements and vandals. Threatened by encroaching suburbanization in the 1970s, the fate of the only surviving adobe in the Santa Ana Canyon came to the attention of both private groups and public agencies. The adobe became property of the Orange County Harbors, Beaches and Parks District in 1976. After numerous restoration proposals were made, the County leased the adobe property to C. Robert Langslet for commercial development with the agreement that the adobe would be restored and and operated as a historical site at no cost to the County. A shopping center was designed incorporating the adobe's exterior architectural style and a commercial building was constructed surrounding three sides of the restored adobe. The commercial building was subsequently sub-leased giving South Coast Thrift and Loan Association responsibility for maintaining and operating the adobe as a historical site. Thus the Ramon Peralta Adobe serves as a unique project involving cooperation between public and private enterprise to preserve a fragment of early California history amidst the bustling suburbia of Orange County's Santa Ana Canyon.
The Ramon Peralta Adobe is a County of Orange, Harbors, Beaches and Parks
Department historical facility maintained and operated in conjunction with C.
Robert Langslet, developer of the commercial complex surrounding the historical
adobe.
The adobe is available for public visitation and guided tours by
reservation. Tour arrangements should be made three weeks in advance of date
requested to allow for scheduling.
For current operational information call (714) 528-4260
