Эдна Кимбро спасла исторический адобный дом в Санта-Круз и стала легендой сохранения архитектуры

In 1976, Edna and Joe Kimbro purchased the last adobe building from Villa de Branciforte, a 1797 Spanish settlement that is now East Santa Cruz. It was known as the Craig-Lorenzana adobe, which in 1803, appeared to have been noted as the only adobe structure in Branciforte. This superior building method was likely reserved for the use of the military commissioner running the villa, who reported directly to the governor. Kimbro’s studies determined the building was once a single room with a small fireplace at one end, perfect as a city hall for public gatherings. Later in 1818, Branciforte was criticized for still having only one adobe building, the rest being thatched-roof cabins. A state history plaque at Branciforte Grammar School notes the school is located at the center of Villa de Branciforte. Kimbro believed the 1796 map by Spanish governor Diego de Borica, indicates the junction of Goss Street and North Branciforte Avenue as the place for the villa, chosen for its bluff-top views as a settlement guarding the mission and watching for approaching ships in the bay. Edna Kimbro was born in Monterey in 1948, where she fell in love with adobe architecture, California missions, their Craftsman furnishings and artwork. She graduated from UC Santa Cruz, majoring in art history. She became interested in preserving the School Street adobe, rumored to have been soldier’s quarters at Mission Santa Cruz. Yet when evidence showed these were the only surviving mission quarters for Indigenous families, she became all the more determined to restore this landmark as the state’s only mission structure interpreting Indigenous row houses. She helped found the “Adobe Coalition” to collect the history of this adobe and advocate for its restoration. She led the coalition from 1980 to 1991, seeking better restoration methods for these landmarks, which as desert architecture, suffered from problematic structural conditions in our moist Monterey Bay climate. The “Craig-Lorenzana Adobe” became Edna’s practice adobe, stripping back alterations to see how it was made, exploring its constructed, learning archeological techniques, restoration methods and documentation requirements. When she gave a tour to historians in 1988, Edna even told of her mistakes as important lessons to avoid, such as when she sandblasted the paint off a door, then realized she should have taken samples of the layers of paint colors. She felt even hidden structural elements are part of the story, and to destroy it because it is not visible, may alter forever the archaeological interpretive value the structure is telling us. CHAIN OF TITLE Through Kimbro’s estimates, the Branciforte Adobe appeared to have been continuously occupied from 1803 to the present. If true, it is the oldest residential adobe in the Monterey Bay. There was no secondary foundations to suggest the building was torn down or collapsed, then reconstructed. The south adobe wall was missing, common in Monterey Bay adobes with incoming wind-driven rain eating into the south facades of many adobes. The condition was so prevalent that early inhabitants would pile up brush in a lean-to against the south wall of adobe buildings to filter the pelting rain. If it was a rebuilt structure, why build just three walls and a wooden fourth wall? Being the best built structure in Branciforte, it served as a meeting house for the Villa. There were two commissioners before the adobe was built: Corp. Gabriel Moraga in 1797 and Ignacio Vallejo in 1799. The adobe was built in 1803, noted as the only adobe among the 25 buildings in Branciforte. Jose Rodriguez was the first commissioner to live in the adobe and may have been the builder. Rodriguez was noted for his ability to read, write and do math, and he occupied the adobe from 1804 to 1810. He was followed by commissioners Juan Jose Peralta in 1811, then Marcos Briones in 1812, Luz Garcia in 1815, Jose Antonio Robles in 1817, Joaquin Buelna in 1818, and in 1819 came the last commissioner, Manuel Rodriguez (son of commissioner Jose Rodriguez). Then the Spanish Constitution of 1812 was restored in 1820, abolishing military appointees (the commissioners) in the California pueblos, to be replaced with democratically elected civilian leaders, voted in by men 25 years of age or over. The Spanish Constitution posed that power comes from the people, not a monarch. They separated powers into legislative, executive and judicial; gave rights of civil liberty, property ownership and public education, all people being equal before the law, with no privileges for Lordship. Catholicism remained the state religion. On September 27, 1821, Mexico gained its independence from Spain. From 1822 to 1846, this adobe may have served as a public meeting house for the alcaldes (judge-mayors) and councilmen. From about 1846 to 1869, Jose Lorenzana and his many children resided in the adobe as a private residence, dividing the living room into two rooms, adding doors, windows, Greek moldings, etc. Martin Rizzo described Jose Lorenzana’s father as Macedonio Lorenzana, a part Indigenous orphan from Mexico City, who came to California in 1800, where he married the daughter of a Spanish guard and Ohlone woman. Macedonio settled in Branciforte in the early 1820s and raised his family. He served as a councilman in 1838, then as co-alcalde in 1841. After his wooden house burned down, Macedonio was granted a villa lot in 1841. (“Do You Know My Name?,” 23-26). We can assume his eldest son Jose received the Comisionado Adobe in the 1840s. While the Lorenzanas were hardworking and productive members of the community, the notoriety of their desperado cousin Tibursio Vasquez, was a blot on the family name. Judge Andrew Craig was living in the Pajaro Valley when he was elected county district attorney. He moved to Santa Cruz, bought the adobe In 1870 and remodeled it. The kitchen was under the back open porch, so Craig enclosed it, adding wallpaper, and a new brick fireplace in the living room. Judge Craig and his law partner George Pace used his adobe as the town’s first law school. Craig was district attorney for 12 years, then in 1882 moved to San Francisco, where he became their district attorney, then County judge. He went blind and died in 1903. The Winchesters bought the adobe in 1881, raised the once-low ceiling, created an attic and covered the entire exterior facades with redwood siding, painted red. In 1887, the Santa Cruz Mountain Winery was incorporated as a wine grower’s co-op to process and age quality wines to a high standard. A three-story processing plant was built on Market Street, with 380-feet of wine-cellar caves dug into Branciforte Bluff. Charles Staubs, manager of the Wine Company restaurant, acquired the adobe from the Winchesters in 1896. In 1905, he sold it to Herbert C. Still, Wine Company foreman, who later became an Eastside grocer from 1910 to 1920. In 1921, H.J. Clark and his wife M.M., bought the adobe and added a bathroom, bedroom and coal-burning fireplace. They sold the adobe around 1946 to E.W. & C.J. Vollmer, followed in 1952 by Wm. D. VanUnen, then Charles L. Confer in 1954. COLLECTING ADOBES By the 1970s, the 1976 American bicentennial sparked an interest in preserving California’s vanishing adobes, with barely five left in Santa Cruz. The Alejandro Rodriguez Adobe was demolished in 1957 on Paul Sweet Road to expand Oakwood Cemetery. Ignacio Vallejo’s Pajaro Valley “Glass Adobe” (named for its early glass windows) was demolished in 1962. The Gardener-Arana Adobe was demolished in 1964 for Chestnut Street widening. Yet Monterey adobes seem no earlier than “Casa Boronda” built in 1817, making Branciforte’s 1903 adobe the oldest residence in the Monterey Bay area. Then there were the inconsistent attempts at restoring Monterey adobes, which in some cases compromised its historic character and interpretive value. Edna Kimbro and her husband Joseph first saw the Branciforte Adobe up for sale, with Jim Hawley and Jim Hammond removing the siding to expose the adobe facades. It had been on the market some time, and their offer was accepted. But it was a small house, and they wondered if there was a bigger adobe for sale. They looked through a book called “Adobes In the Sun,” and Joe picked out the Joaquin Castro adobe near Watsonville and said he liked that one. They were put in touch with David and Elizabeth Potter, who owned the Castro Adobe, the last adobe between Santa Cruz and Monterey. It was two stories, and the Potters weren’t interested in selling but became friends with the Kimbros, and promised if they ever decided to sell, the Kimbros would get first pick. Elizabeth was concerned about the possible loss of the Branciforte Adobe, so the Kimbros bought it for restoration. (Suzanne Paizis) By 1987, the Potters were ready to sell, so the Kimbros completed the restoration on the Branciforte Adobe, sold it to James C. Corby and bought the Joaquin Castro adobe in 1988. From January to June, 1989, Kimbro was in Rome learning conservation from a United Nations program with Latin American restoration experts. Back in Santa Cruz, Edna began learning Spanish, when the Loma Prieta Earthquake struck on Oct. 17, 1989. It red-tagged their Castro Adobe, which was still standing, but uninhabitable. Yet thanks to earthquake retrofitting by the Adobe Coalition, the School Street Mission Adobe was saved and the Branciforte Adobe survived. Unable to acquire restoration funding for the Castro Adobe, the Kimbros sold it to California State Parks in 2002, with the assurance full restoration was the goal. State parks archeologist Larry Felton said “Preservation appealed to Edna’s sense of social justice,” in saving the humble structures of Californio ranchers and Indigenous workers. Edna became an internationally respected architectural conservator, specializing in newer techniques to seismically retrofit adobes. She was called the spark plug of the Getty Conservation Institute, and she co-wrote a book with them on preservation methods. In 1999 she became State Parks Historian for the Monterey District, and received a lifetime achievement award from the California Mission Studies Association. Then shockingly, in 2005, at age 57, she died of cancer. But her work continues in the Edna Kimbro Archive, run by Friends of Santa Cruz State Parks. FURTHER READING: “California Missions: Art, History and Preservation,” 2009, co-authored by Edna Kimbro and Julia Costello. “The Joaquin Castro Adobe in the 20th Century,” Suzanne Paizis, 2002.