On May 29, 1975, the Leonis Adobe was entered on the National Register of Historical Places. It is Open to the Public (donation requested) 1:00 to 4:00 P.M. Wednesday through Sunday.

History

Calabasas was the site of one of the two hundred or more Indian rancherias (villages) that once dotted the San Fernando Valley. Ventura Boulevard was originally "El Camino Real" that linked the Spanish settlements and missions up and down California and now continues as Calabasas Road. In front of the Adobe hangs one of the now rare mission bells that were placed along "El Camino Real".

Before the Southern Pacific Railroad connected Los Angeles and San Francisco in 1876, Calabasas was a stop on the coastal stage line that was operated by Flint, Bixby and Butterfield. At that time, and until the turn of the century, Calabasas had a reputation as one of the toughest and wildest spots in California. A dance hall and saloon stood on the south side of Calabasas jail which was made of heavy timbers spiked together. Alongside the jail grew the famous Calabasas hangman's tree. The oak that grows beside the former Kramer store was also, according to old timers who used to gather at the store, used for quick frontier justice.

The Discovery of the San Fernando Valley

Over two hundred years ago, on August 5, 1769, a party of Spanish explorers headed by Don Gaspar de Portola stood where the San Diego Freeway now crosses the top of the Santa Monica Mountains and looked down on "a very spacious and pleasant valley". They were the first white men to see the San Fernando Valley. They were also the first to explore California by land. Although the Spanish had discovered and begun mapping the California-Oregon coast in 1542, it was not until two centuries later when other countries, and particularly Russia, whose fur hunters were already in Alaska, threatened to take possession of the area, that Spain moved to colonize California.

The Portola party, coming up from Mexico, had stopped first at San Diego Bay. There they had joined two other Spanish expeditions that had come from Mexico by different routes, and participated in the construction of the presido (fortified stockade) and mission that were the beginning of San Diego, the first Spanish settlement in California. Then, heading north, they had located the site where the San Juan Capistrano Mission would be built in 1776. They had come upon a river they named in honor of "Nuestra Senora La Reina de los Angeles" (Our Lady the Queen of Angels) and had camped where the Pueblo de los Angeles was to be established twelve years later, in 1781. They had discovered the La Brea tar pits, and following an Indian trail up a canyon in the mountains that blocked their northward journey--the same route followed today by the San Diego freeway from West Los Angeles to the San Fernando Valley--they had reached the top of the Santa Monica mountains. The valley that spread before them, they named "Valle de los Encinos", or "Valley of the Oaks". It was not until after the San Fernando Mission was founded in 1797 that the valley became known as the San Fernando Valley.

Descending into the Valley the Portola party camped beside a spring-fed pond that can still be seen as part of the Los Encinos Historical Monument at Ventura and Balboa Boulevards. They left the Valley through the Santa Susanna pass and continued north to discover San Francisco Bay whose narrow and often fog-bound Golden Gate had gone unnoticed by the galleons sailing past it for more than two centuries! Returning, the Portola expedition entered the Valley by following approximately the route now followed by the Ventura freeway, and passed near or through the site of Calabasas.

Miguel Leonis
"The King of Calabasas"

Miguel Leonis, as both a legendary and historical figure, was one of the most colorful of the early land settlers and pioneers of Los Angeles and San Fernando Valley. A Basque who stood six feet four inches tall, dauntless, physically powerful, and possessed of shrewdness and drive, Leonis for years in the late 1800s controlled and ruled much of the west end of the San Fernando Valley and part of what is now adjoining Ventura county. His home and headquarters was the Leonis Adobe, and he became widely known as 'The King of Calabasass".

Leonis was born in 1824 in Cambo in the French Pyrenees, where smuggling across the nearby Spanish border was almost a way of life. Apparently young Leonis took to this local avocation so avidly that before he was twenty or so years old it became advantageous for him to depart for other lands. Probably, too, the lure of riches and adventure, and of owning your own land and sheep in far off frontier California had reached his ears. Thus, sometime in the mid-1800s he arrived in still youthful Los Angeles.

Being referred to as "El Basquo Grande" and by one means or another, and in spite of the fact that he spoke little Spanish or English, Leonis acquired a small empire of land and livestock, until at his death in 1889 his estate was valued at over $300,000!

One event that furthered the fortunes of Leonis was his marriage to an Indian widow, Espiritu Chijulla. Through this marriage Leonis came into possession of the cattle, sheep and horses, and 1100 acres of land belonging to her family. The land was the El Escorpion rancho and was carved out of the San Fernando Mission lands. Today it is the Platt Ranch subdivision, just north of Calabasas.

Leonis acquired other considerable holdings of land and livestock through various means, and probably often as the result of shrewd trading. But he also was not above claiming land in the public domain--and he guarded his holdings zealously with an armed retinue of Mexicans and Indians. Any would-be settlers on land he owned were quickly discouraged. If not, they were likely to be hauled into Los Angeles to jail and charged with trespassing or stealing. Leonis then made it a point to freely dispense drink and food to the judge, and jury, if there was one, who tried the offenders! The archives of early Los Angeles courts are filled with trials and lawsuits in which Leonis figured-and the litigation over his estate when he died went on for years and still fills an entire file drawer!

At one time a pitched battle between a group of persistent settlers and the armed mercenaries of Leonis rage for weeks through what is now Hidden Hills. Only when the leader of the settlers was finally killed did they disperse, and Leonis was left in possession of the land.

In 1889, Leonis was killed when his wagon overturned in Cahuenga Pass as he was returning to Calabasas following a celebration in Los Angeles after winning one of his lawsuits. Espiritu lived on at the Adobe until she died in 1906. She is buried at the San. Fernando Mission where a monument of unusual distinction marks her grave. Leonis was buried in Calvary Cemetery in Los Angeles. Miguel and Espiritu had only one child, a daughter, Marcellina, who died at 20 from smallpox. But descendants of John Leonis, a younger nephew of Miguel, live in the city of Vernon, wliich John Leonis founded. Among them, the Leonis Malburgs have been generous contributors to the preservation of the Leonis Adobe.

The Leonis Adobe

The Leonis Adobe was built in stages-and exactly who built the original portion and when it was built is still the subject of research. At first, there appears to have been a simple adobe farm house with whitewashed walls. This original portion of the house is believed to date back to 1844, and if this is so, it is almost certain that Leonis did not build it. In any event, about 1880 he extensively enlarged and remodelled the house into the gracious Monterey style mansion you see today, and he and Espiritu moved into it and made it their home.

A great deal of research, study and skillful work has gone into faithfully restoring the Leonis Adobe to the way it is believed to have appeared after Leonis completed enlarging and remodeling it. But there are one or two exceptions. For instance, the present living room was originally two rooms, a parlor and living room, separated by a wall just to the right of the front door. The wall was removed about 1925 and has not been replaced in order to provide a large room for group meetings.

Leonis, in enlarging and remodeling the house, sheathed the outside front of the house, and panelled the interior living room walls with wood. He walled-in the rear and northeast side porches, both upstairs and downstairs, to add more rooms. He added the Victorian fretwork balcony along the front of the house, and other enhancing details and features. The bright colors that highlight the house were discovered under many layers of paint, and presumably were the ones that Leonis used.

In repainting the house, they were carefully matched.

In the present living room, the family portraits hang on the wall where they used to hang, but the mirror originally hung where the dining room door now is. This door was cut through in the 192Os. Before that, as in many of the early Calif6rnia houses, one walked along the porch to reach the dining room.

Both the kitchen and dining room are board and batten construction added during Leonis' remodelling. The adobe dirt floors were discovered under modern wood flooring that has been removed. The fireplace in the dining room and stove in the kitchen provided the only heat in the house. The stove, while not original to the house, carries a date of 1875.

The stairway to the second floor used to be on the outside of the house before Leonis walled-in the rear porches. Thus, as you go up the stairs, a window in the master bedroom, on your right, opens to what is now a hall. The protruding nails in the upstairs hall rafters were used for hanging grapes to dry them into raisins.

Originally there had been only the traditional outhouses. In the 192Os, the then owner of the house built a frame addition along the north (freeway) side, in which two bathrooms were included. This addition was removed when the house was restored, and a small bedroom converted into a bathroom. Old fashioned fixtures have been installed, such as the copper-lined, walnut panelled bathtub, which dates from 1880.

The furniture in the master bedroom was very similar to what you see there. There were no closets in any of the bedrooms. Clothes were hung on the walls or stored in drawers or gaily decorated chests.

Outside, at the northwest corner of the house, a large Mexican "beehive oven" with a shed over it for protection from the rain, was used to bake bread. The present oven and shed have been reproduced from descriptions furnished by persons who saw the original ones.

The barn was built in 1912 to replace an early barn and blacksrnith shop that stood across Calabasas Road, and that burned. A well, wind-mill and tank house (that was also used for wine-making) stood at the southeast corner of the house. The original well has been located and its decaying redwood lining replaced. A replica of the wind-mill has been built. The tank house you see was found on an old Van Nuys ranch and the wood tank belonged to the first Calabasas school house.

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