The Journal of San Diego History
Fall 1995, Volume 41, Number 4
Contents of This Issue

RANCHO GUAJOME
AN ARCHITECTURAL LEGACY PRESERVED

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Cover image: The Guajome carriage courtyard in 1903. The artist, Albert S. Marshall, was a landscape painter in northern California before moving to Los Angeles in 1926. He was a member of the Los Angeles Art Association, Painter and sculptors of Los Angeles, and the California Art Club in 1935-36. Marshall exhibited at the Pasadena Art Institute in 1928.

 
Page 252. Detail of photo on page 265

 
Page 252. HABS drawing of La Casa del Rancho Guajome. Sheet 4 of 11 sheets of measured drawings made by HABS in 1936. The Historic American Building Survey, a WPA project, targeted "only those structures dating prior to 1869". Courtesy Library of Congress.

 
Page 253. Cave Johnson Couts. Graduate of West Point Academy, Class of 1843. From a daguerreotype, ca. 1850.

 
Page 254. Ysidora Bandini Couts. A drawing of young Ysidora by Cave Johnson Couts made in 1849 while he was a guest at her father's home. He didn't think he captured her beauty and charm and so wrote on his sketch: "made a glorious failure". Courtesy Henry E. Huntington Library. San Marino, CA.

 
Page 256. Cave Couts and his family at Rancho Guajome, about 1867. Pictured left to right front row, Ysidora Forster, Maria Antonia, Helen, Nancy, Robert Lee. Back row, William, Cave Couts, and Cave Couts, Jr.

 
Page 257. Cave Johnson Couts, ca. 1874. Couts died February 24, 1874. Couts Collection, San Diego County Parks Department.

 
Page 257. Ysidora Bandini Couts, about 1874. Possibly the only positively identified extant photo of Ysidora Couts. Couts Collection, San Diego County Parks Department.

 
Page 258. The washing place at Guajome Rancho. Photo ca. 1897 by C.B. Waite, Landscape Photographer. Courtesy Southwest Museum, Los Angeles.

 
Page 259. Rancho Guajome, ca. 1891. North Santa Fe Avenue is shown in the foreground..

 
Page 261. Cave Couts branding iron. Photo courtesy of C. Sorensen, Jr. Vista Rancho Historical Society.

 
Page 262. Cave Couts day book. Couts entries for November 1853 show materials he ordered for improvements at Guajome. Couts also logged inventories for his general store and purchases of equipment and supplies. Births of his children and family deaths were also noted in the journals.

 
Page 263. Cave Couts sketch of Guajome ranch house. This drawing shows the adobe ranch house as it might have been configured in 1855. Couts valued Guajome that year at $10,000, the highest figure he paid in assessed value on his rancho. Courtesy Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

 
Page 265. Inner veranda at Guajome, ca. 1897. Parker and Elena Couts Dear seated. Photo by Adam Clark Vroman. Courtesy Los Angeles County Museum.

 
Page 266. Cave Johnson Couts (John), son of William Bandini Couts and Christina Estudillo was born on January 4, 1883.

 
Page 266. William Bandini Couts, Jr., son of William Bandini Couts and Christina Estudillo was born on November 6, 1879.

 
Page 266. William Bandini Couts III and Maria Christina Couts, children of William Bandini Couts and Christina Estudillo. William was born on November 6, 1879 and Christina was born on April 23, 1881. All courtesy William Reid Couts.

 
Page 267. Henry W. Couts, son of William Bandini Couts and Christina Estudillo.

 
Page 267. Maria Antonia Couts, the eldest daughter of Cave Johnson and Ysidora Couts, married Chalmers Scott, a prominent lawyer and early San Diego County Clerk. "Tonia," as she was called, inherited Rancho Buena Vista from her father. Both photos courtesy William Reid Couts.

 
Page 270. Rancho Guajome Health Co., a 1905 prospectus. "Improvements-A twenty-four roomed hotel. These buildings will be of one story and will carry out the general scheme of which the old ranch will be the key note."

 
Page 272. Guajome ranch house carriage courtyard and blacksmith shop, about 1900. Pepper tree is said to be a seedling from the first pepper tree at Mission San Luis Rey.

 
Page 273. Guajome ranch house façade about 1922. Photo shows new arched façade constructed by Cave Couts, Jr. Courtesy Chris Richardson, Vista, CA.

 
Page 274. Guajome Chapel. Cave Couts Jr. reconstructed this chapel on its original site as a memorial to his mother. The September 27, 1924 dedication ceremony was attended by San Luis Rey mission padres and Couts family members. HABS 1936 photo courtesy of Library of Congress.

 
Page 275. A scene from "The Pride of Palomar," a William Randolph Hearst production, filmed at Rancho Guajome in 1922. Standing from left to right are actors Toto de Crow, Alfred Allen, and George Nichols.