After decades of neglect, the Joaquin Moraga Adobe has finally been restored to the point that visitors are welcome – and what they see will remind them of a past that included Rancho Era clothing and traditional Californio music. Marylyn Merino (left) and Lance Beeston, a founding member of the the Friends of the Joaquin Moraga Adobe, bring that historic sound to life with their band, Los Arribeños de San Francisco.
It’s not every day that the new kid on the block confesses to being 185 years old – but, after undergoing a facelift that would make Joan Rivers trill with pleasure, the newly rejuvenated Joaquin Moraga Adobe is ready to face the world again.
It has been 250 years since Spanish military leader Juan Bautista de Anza led a diverse band of 240 colonists along the 1200-mile route from Sonora, Mexico, through the homelands of seventy tribal communities, with the goal of establishing a mission and presidio in what was to become San Francisco.
Ironically, they arrived at their destination on June 27, 1776, mere days before America’s Founding Fathers, on the other side of the country, were signing the Declaration of Independence.
Descendants of soldiers involved in the famed Anza Expedition became eligible for Mexican land grants and in 1835, Joaquin Moraga and his cousin Juan Bernal, grandsons of military veteran Lieutenant José Joaquin Moraga were granted “three leagues of land,” amounting to 13,326 acres, in what is now the Lamorinda-Canyon area.
And there, in 1841, high on a knoll, with a magnificently unobstructed 360-degree view, Joaquin Moraga built a house.
It was a wonderful time of fandangos and families, but within just nine years, everything changed when California entered the United States as the 31st state. Sadly, the Mexican rancheros, illiterate and unable to comprehend U.S. law, found themselves outwitted by opportunist attorneys intent on bilking them out of their rightful ownership.
The Moraga family struggled on for a few more decades but, by 1935, their splendid adobe house stood abandoned, dilapidated and condemned.
Enter Kathryn Brown White Irvine, wife of the fabulously wealthy property developer James Irvine, who took a shine to the decaying wreck with a view to transforming it into a family home again – despite her surveyor warning that the “labor costs might run to $1,800.”
Not to mention an “additional $1,200 for materials.”
But the view was to die for, and Kathryn. Irvine’s doggedness prevailed.
After her 1950 passing, the Adobe changed hands a few more times, and enjoyed several more nips and tucks, which resulted in 3,023 square feet of living space, four bedrooms, two baths, a library, a formal dining room and a separate caretaker’s residence.
After a little more work in the ‘60s, the house went back on the market with a price tag of $300,000. But, once again, it was doomed to decrepitude and, by 2008, just 20 acres out of the original 13,326 remained.
By this time, the empty building with its smashed windows and ravaged floors was entirely abandoned, and became known as a notorious hang-out for teenagers and vandals – as evidenced by the graffiti daubed on its walls proclaiming that this was “a house built to party.”
Even the official plaque declaring the residence an official “City of Orinda Landmark” had disappeared and was probably lying guilty and forgotten under someone’s bed.
In 2008, developers J&J Ranch (named for Juan and Joaquin) purchased those remaining 20 acres and set about constructing unique high-end homes. As part of the redevelopment, they planned to convert the 19th century Adobe into a dazzling 21st century clubhouse.
But a group of local historians, headed by Kent Long and Bobbie Landers, were determined not to let this happen and, in 2009, formed the Friends of the Joaquin Moraga Adobe (FJMA).
They immediately negotiated a deal whereby the developers would not only allow FJMA to purchase the Adobe and its 2.3 surrounding acres – providing they could raise $500,000 in a specific time period – but also promised to match that figure in order to renovate the ramshackle Adobe in accordance with documentary evidence dated around 1848.
Fundraising immediately swung into high gear and by July 2021, FJMA had not only reached their original goal of half a million dollars, but substantially surpassed it. And it didn’t end there – fundraising efforts still continue and provide a cushion against ongoing costs like museum exhibits, landscaping and operating expenses.
It has taken FJMA 17 years of solid commitment to turn this forgotten period in Orinda’s rancho history into an overnight success. And the work will never be entirely done (compare, once more, Ms. Rivers and her 739 surgical procedures) and the benefit to the community as a whole is undisputed.
FJMA offers two tours every Saturday, limited to just 15 guests, one at 11 a.m. and the other at 2 p.m. For an hour, visitors are guided through every room in the house as well as around the impressive exterior, leaving plenty of time for questions at the end.
Located at 24 Adobe Lane, reservations must be made through the FJMA website (moragaadobe.org) but, be warned, places are snapped up just as soon as they’re posted. To date, all tours are fully booked until June 20.
School tours take place during the week, aimed mainly at fourth graders, although younger students do also get to experience the magic of life in 19th century Orinda. In fact, just weeks before the end of the 2025/26 school year, more than 120 Moraga third graders arrived “by the
carload.”
Perhaps the most moving of all the groups to experience the Adobe, so far, were 2024 members of Los Californianos, a genealogical organization comprising descendants of families living in California prior to the 1848 Mexican-American war, who, in October 2024, were given the chance to step inside their ancestors’ Adobe and absorb the sights and sounds of the 1800s.
Members of the Orinda Woman’s Club, a constant supporter of all things historical in Orinda, also enjoyed a recent tour conducted by the superbly knowledgeable Kent and Teresa Long.
Enchanted by the Longs’ presentation, Adeline McClatchie, in particular, said she could “easily feel the walls reflecting the good times that the Moraga family once enjoyed: the dancing, the flirting, the hope for the future.”
“One sensed the elegance, the simplicity and the challenges of life,” she said, and thanked the entire FJMA team for “sharing a piece of Orinda’s past through your loving restoration. It is a wonderful thread to the past for us Orindans.”
