San Juan Bautista’s Castro-Breen Adobe to reopen Saturday after
major renovation
By Martin Cheek, Special to South Valley Newspapers
Visitors to San Juan Bautista’s Castro-Breen Adobe will have the chance to learn more about a turning point in California’s history when the refurbished historic site opens a revamped exhibit about the home’s history Saturday.
Nearly three years of work and $1.6 million went into a major makeover for the adobe house located on a corner of San Juan Bautista’s historic mission plaza. Along with retrofitting for earthquakes and a modern fire suppression system, the California State Park System also upgraded the adobe’s historical exhibits to give tourists a greater appreciation of the two pioneer families who once called the place home.
The restoration’s intention was to make early California culture come alive for the 45,000 fourth-grade school children who annually visit San Juan Bautista’s mission and the town’s state park, said Curtis Price, superintendent of the Gavilan sector of the state park system.
“Hopefully, this will get the kids to stop and see and learn about history,” he said. “This really is a great story, a great history, of the two families coming together here.”
Many of the new exhibits on display showcase reproductions of day-to-day objects from the 1840s period of the home, he said. “Kids are kids, so some kids want to touch stuff,” Price said. “So we’re not going to put the original artifacts here where somebody could take or break them.”
On Monday morning, Price gave Hollister resident Bob Picha an early glimpse of the home. Picha is a descendent of the Castro line, which originally came to California with the Spanish explorer Juan Bautista De Anza. It was Picha’s birthday, and he called the early sneak peek at the refurbished house “a great gift.”
“I feel very pleased the state upgraded it,” he said. “I’m sure everyone who comes here are going to be pleased with what turned out.”
The state park will hold a special “grand re-opening ceremony” today for Castro and Breen descendants. Many of the invited guests will see the new exhibit displays for the first time during a guided walk-through of the home.
The adobe will officially open to regular visitors March 11. This weekend, rangers and docents will lead tours and tell tales of Mexican and Gold Rush California.
The house was built in 1838 by Jose Tiburcio Castro, a civil administrator of the San Juan Bautista mission, during Mexico’s occupation of Alta California. After the secularization of mission land, Castro grew rich when the Mexican government gave him thousands of acres of fertile farmland in San Juan Valley.
State park docent Joe McMahon, a Castro descendent, said Jose Tiburcio Castro presented the home as a wedding gift to his son Jose Antonio Castro. The son, who lived in Monterey and served as Mexico’s military prefect of Northern California, used the adobe home as a vacation residence for his large family.
“The Castro family used it as their summer hangout,” McMahon said. “They came from Monterey because the weather here was so much nicer.”
The children spent their days riding horses and exploring the family ranchero, he said. “The house was known for its hospitality. But over the years as the (Castro) kids grew older and moved away, the family really didn’t need it anymore.”
The Breen family made their home in the adobe in 1848. Irish immigrants Patrick and Margaret Breen and their seven children were part of the ill-fated Donner Party which became stranded in a Sierra blizzard without supplies in the winter of 1846-47. In a display case in the Breen history room of the adobe, visitors can see the actual candlesticks the family hid in the snow at their winter camp.
After their rescue, the destitute Breen pioneers wandered through California for a time until they found a home in the mission. The priests allowed the Catholic family to stay in the mission storage room, now used as the gift shop, McMahon said.
Jose Antonio Castro heard about their plight and offered them the use of his summer home rent free. Although he was concerned about the growing numbers of American settlers entering Mexico’s Alta California territory, the fact that Breens were Catholic and had suffered much softened his heart, McMahon said.
Soon after the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill in 1848, son John Breen, a 16-year-old boy at the time, went with two prospectors to the Gold Country to seek his fortune. He came back with $10,000 worth of gold dust – about $250,000 in today’s term. The Breen family used the teenager’s fortune to purchase the adobe from Castro in December 1848. They also bought 400 acres of prime San Juan Valley farmland from him.
During the Gold Rush period of the 1850s, the Breens turned the adobe into a hotel called The United States Inn. Many famous people spent time by the home’s hearth, including the future Civil War Union Army General William Tecumseh Sherman and J. Ross Brown, a reporter who wrote a best-selling book about Gold Rush California based on his journeys.
Up until 1933 when the adobe became part of the state historic park, the Castro-Breen Adobe was occupied by succeeding Breen generations. Many descendants of the Breens still make their home in the South Valley.
Various rooms of the adobe’s first-floor exhibit area convey what life was like in early California for the Castros and Breens. Themes include “Life in the Plaza” and “Gold Discovery.”Â
Plastic pears placed in bushels throughout the rooms give visitors a taste of the town’s yesteryears. The mission once had an immense pear orchard from which the padres made brandy. When the Breens came, the priests suggested the immigrant family take care of the orchard to make money selling the fruit.
Upstairs in the adobe, visitors can wander among bedrooms set up much like they might have looked like when the Castros and the Breens made the house their home. Modern visitors can gaze from the balcony at the verdant mission plaza and imagine how it might have looked when people traveled here on horseback or by carriage.
Picha said he felt impressed with how the state park system designed the adobe’s historic exhibit to recreate the two cultures represented by the Castro and Breens. The Castro history highlights the old ways of California’s Mexican era, when residents of the home watched bull and bear fights in the plaza and enjoyed Spanish-style fandangos. The Breen history represents the turbulence in 1840s California when the Americans came and Mexico worried the United States might take over its West Coast empire.
“I like how they present the two families,” Picha said as he looked at the displays. “I like the photographs and the stories of both families. The Breen and Castro families contributed to San Benito County in many different ways. That’s beautiful. That’s awesome.”
