DISCOVER THE OLDEST HOUSE IN LOS ANGELES: AVILA ADOBE

Avila Adobe (ca. 1818)

The oldest building in the city, the adobe was the home of Don Francisco Avila, mayor (alcalde) of Los Angeles in 1810.  After his first wife died I, Avila married Encarnacion Sepulveda in 1822.  He died ten years later.  In 1847, during the Mexican-American War, Commodore Robert Stockton commandeered the adobe for two weeks as his military headquarters.  The family moved away in 1868 and after that the adobe served as a restaurant and a boarding house.  By 1928 it had fallen into disrepair and was saved from demolition by Ms. Christine Sterling.  Now restored, the building depicts the Californio lifestyle of the 1840s prior to the American occupation.