Governor Stoneman Adobe

Los Angeles County, September 7, 1995

Here we roll up to a landmark on a quiet street in San Marino that sits on a narrow lot an in front of a 1560 square foot house built in 1959. Zillow says it’s worth $805,000, which seems like a lot in today’s market, but hey, this is San Marino.

George Stoneman was a Major General in the Union Army during the civil war and afterwards settled in California, a place he’d grown fond of in service here prior to the war, and partially due to his opposition to reconstruction politics. If one were to take a step back and make a general statement assessing George Stoneman, it would be that he often went against the grain and had a knack for making enemies. None the less, he was elected governor of California in 1882 as a democrat and served a single term, and was not asked by his party to run again.

Gen. George Stoneman is in the song, ‘The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down’:

Virgil Caine is the name, and I served on the Danville train,
Till Stoneman's cavalry came and tore up the tracks again ...

A fire, rumored to be the work of political enemies, destroyed the Los Robles home and left him broke and in poor health. He returned to New York and died following a stroke in Buffalo. 


NO. 669 GOVERNOR STONEMAN ADOBE, LOS ROBLES - This was the site of 'Los Robles,' the 400-acre estate of Governor George Stoneman. President Rutherford B. Hayes was entertained here in 1880. The first schoolhouse in the San Gabriel Valley, California's first tennis club, and the first municipal Christmas tree of San Marino were located here.
Location: 1912 Montrobles Place, San Marino
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