Orella Adobes
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On August 17, 1993 the Santa Barbara Board of Supervisors declared County Landmark status for the two Orella Adobes at Canada del Corral on the Gaviota coast just north of Santa Barbara. The property, now owned by Exxon Mobil Corporation and originally part of the vast Ortega Nuestra Señora del Refugio ranch, passed to the ownership of Don Bruno Orella and his wife Dona Mercedes Gonzalez y Guevara in 1866. It was part of Don Bruno's large landholdings in the region and remained in the hands of his descendants until the property was sold to Exxon in 1971. While owned by Ortega descendants it was a frequent center of social events and played host to numerous travelers, including John C. Frémont in 1847. There are two adobes, part of which may trace back to the late 18th century, as a tile was found during a remodel in the 1930s with the year "1798" on it.
When the Orellas purchased the adobes, they became their country residence and one of the buildings served as schoolhouse to their children. A tutor was hired to live on the ranch. (Interestingly enough, the town home site of the Orellas on the main street of Santa Barbara is also on the National Register of Historic Places. It is known officially as the "Janssens-Orella-Birk Building".) Don Bruno's daughter, Elena Orella Covarrubias, inherited the adobes and remodeled them in the 1930s in Spanish Revival style. Oil was found on her land in 1926 and the El Capitan oil field was one of the richest in the state at the time.
Don Bruno Orella came to California at the time of the Gold Rush. He was born in the Basque country in Spain in 1830, descended from an ancient noble family whose members had fought in the Wars of the Reconquista in the Middle Ages. He married Mercedes Gonzalez y Ladron de Guevara, who descended from some of the earliest Spanish settlers in California. The couple established a prosperous farming/mercantile family with extensive holdings throughout the Santa Barbara/Ventura region. They were devout Catholics and patrons of the local Catholic churches and religious orders. All sons of the family attended Santa Clara College and to this day there is an Orella Prize given at that university to the student with highest grades in the sciences.
[edit] References
- Resolution of the Board of Supervisors of the County of Santa Barbara, California. Resolution no. 93-436. August 17, 1993
- "Portraits of Basques in the New World", Edited by Richard W. Etulain and Jeronima Echevarria, University of Nevada Press 1999.
- Chapter 13: "Robert Erburu and Becoming a Postmodern Basque", by William A. Douglass.
- Extensive Orella family records at the Santa Barbara Historical Society, including numerous "Santa Barbara News-Press" articles on the family from the late 19th century to the present day.
