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Save Our Heritage Organisation
Reflections Quarterly Newsletter

Summer 2006 - Volume 37, Issue 2

Ramona's Real Marriage Place
Can Now Be Your Marriage Place Too

In 1906, businessman and sugar magnate John D. Spreckels acquired the c. 1825 hacienda of Spanish aristocrat and important early San Diego citizen Don José Antonio de Estudillo and funded a restoration of the building that was supervised by architect Hazel W. Waterman. Operating under the name "Ramona's Marriage Place," it opened as a tourist attraction along Spreckel's streetcar line in 1910, and was influential in increasing the popularity of both Mission Revival architecture and the legend of "Ramona," a character from Helen Hunt Jackson's 1884 novel of the same name. The only problem with that scenario is that in Jackson's novel, Ramona was married not in the Estudillo House, but at another building in Old Town, the Adobe Chapel.

Now a museum, the Adobe Chapel, located at 3950 Conde Street, is still the perfect setting to make any wedding a historic occasion. On February 25, Veronica Moreno and Christopher Alfonso were married by candlelight at a bilingual, twilight ceremony at the Adobe Chapel, and the event could not have been more beautiful or romantic. This was the first wedding to be held in the historic chapel since SOHO took over operations for the City of San Diego in 2004.

If you are looking for a truly special wedding venue or know somebody who is, contact Norma Edelman at the Wedding Casa at (619) 298-9344 or for more information, email weddingcasa@cs.com or visit their website at www.weddingcasa.com for more information.

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