Vallejo Home

"General Vallejo's House is located in Sonoma, CA, in the Sonoma State Historic Park. The grounds (including trails) and visitor center was free to walk about. Parking was free as well, they had a nice size parking lot. To view the inside of the house, it's $3. The visitor center was the carriage house nicknamed the Swiss Chalet. It was built in 1852. The timber came from Europe. It's now the museum with history information boards about the General Vallejo and his family. So you may ask, who is General Vallejo? What's the hubbub? Mariano Guadalupe Vallejwas born in Monterey, California, in 1807 as a subject of Spain. He served in the California military which was under Spain. He served as commander of various presidios and establishing them and the controversial workforce. His last command was the Sonoma presidio. The house is furnished and staged as it was in the mid to late 1800s. It was built in 1852, Vallejo lived there until his passing in 1890. The architecture is Victorian Carpenter Gothic. It was prefabricated back East and shipped around Cape Horn (pre railroad). The rooms are viewable through the barred doors. The fireplaces are made of imported marble. The kitchen was another building behind the house. The family cook lived onsite in a room adjoining the kitchen. Behind the kitchen is a body of water, a water reservoir. Back in the day, it was a natural spring. The General sold water to the town and folks by transporting the water in redwood pipes. It proved a steady income. He even tried his hand at winemaking. But suffered severe losses in the 1870s blight and didn't get his winemaking business off the ground. He never fully recovered to his previous economic heyday, living out the rest of his years modestly than before."