Save Our Heritage Organisation
Magazine
Winter 2007 - Volume 38, Issue 1
Most Endangered
Rancho Guejito threatened with subdivision for new urban development
By Bruce Coons
Rancho Guejito c. 1984, view of the valley
Rancho Guejito is the best, last, most important, most beautiful, and most intact Mexican land grant. It is the least spoiled portion of coastal California from the Mexican border to above Santa Barbara.
In Southern California this is an undisturbed historical landscape second to none. There is only one new house in its entire 22,000 plus acres. There is an early California adobe and the ruins of several more. There are numerous archeological remains left by Native Americans.
When you enter this mountain top ranch you don't just feel the presence of the past, you are enveloped in it. A California believed long gone, straight out of the history books. It is not gone yet; this is truly its last stand. One cannot use too many superlatives to describe this extraordinary survivor of California as it was before American conquest.
If we were to preserve nothing else in life this would be the one. It is that important.
Rancho Guejito c. 1984, view of the unspoiled landscape
This is one of California's best kept secrets, situated on an elevated plateau privately owned with only one narrow winding private road for access. It is situated North and above the San Pasqual Valley with the San Luis Rey River, Mount Palomar, and Lake Henshaw and Mesa Grande on its North and East sides and Lake Wolford to the West. An actual hidden valley, truly the land time forgot.
As a cultural landscape it has few peers, an outstanding natural habitat; it contains the largest stand of Engelmann Oaks in the world, there are at least two major creeks, native sycamores and oaks, beautiful grasslands and unspoiled ridge tops overlooking its two principle valleys.
(left) Rancho Guejito c. 1984; (right) c. 1969 view of Guejito valley shown through the
window of the old adobe ranch houseNo new development is visible when you stand in the center of the property. I first visited this land over 30 years ago and I can attest that it is an experience I will carry for my lifetime as it is for all who have been there. To say it is a special place would only serve to demean its true value.
You don't have to take my word for it; take the word of the late Benjamin Coates whose family still owns the Rancho. Mr. Coates was a man with magnificent land holdings all over the world, in France, Scotland, Spain, Switzerland, New York, and Montana. He surely summed it up best. While gazing out his window on the rancho talking on the phone he was overheard telling the caller, "I am looking out at the most beautiful place on the face of the earth."
More from this issue
- From the Editor
A new look with an old name
By Alana Coons- Most Endangered
By Bruce Coons- A Brief History of Rancho Guejito
By Bruce Coons- Another Part of the Story
By Bruce Coons- The Threat
By Bruce Coons- What you can do to help
- The Beauty of our State Parks in Peril
By Bruce Coons- The Cultural Landscape Connection to Historic Preservation
By Alana Coons- What is a Cultural Landscape?
By Alana Coons- The Historic Home Landscape and Gardens
By Alana Coons- A Short Landscape Glossary
- Importance of the Garden in Home Planning
By Richard Requa- When was Modern New?
By Todd Pitman- Every Bungalow Represents our History
By Allen Hazard- History Repeating
Restoring the Whaley House
By Dean Glass- The Sherman-Glbert House
By Alana Coons- 150th Anniversary of the Jackass Mail
By Bruce Coons- Lost San Diego
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