SURROUNDED BY SERRANOS

I present this draft preview of the introduction to a potential upcoming work of mine - a history of the Jolly Boy Saloon in Old Town San Diego State Historic Park.

During the time that I was employed at Old Town San Diego State Historic Park in the capacity of a historian, a project that I was very pleased to work on was the history of the Jolly Boy Saloon. After completing what was required, I continued to delve into the convoluted story of the building, the place, the spot...

Begun some years ago, what is presented here is the first of several chapters that will be previewed on my blog. It is also offered in a pdf format and kindle format for download and consideration. I am hoping for comments, any comments – like it, hate it, preferred format, etc., constructive or otherwise. Also, the cover design is a draft, working copy and nowhere near final. Any thoughts on that would be appreciated as well.

Following this, the work will be published, in its entirety, either in the kindle format, as a pdf, or in one big blog post. I am still pondering that as well.

Thank you.

Good Evening...

 

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kindle format

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2LfMphQjcS_SUNkY0dJbGhjclk/view?usp=sharing

 

pdf format

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2LfMphQjcS_c1huUVdqN1hTbUE/view?usp=sharing

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PREFACE

When thinking of places to visit and things to do in Old Town San Diego, “La Casa de Bandini / Cosmopolitan Hotel” and “La Casa de Estudillo” spring immediately to mind as well as various other museums, shops and restaurants. Lesser known but nevertheless an important part of the history and a significant contributor to the atmosphere and “feel” of OTSD is “La Casa de Aguilar-Serrano / Jolly Boy Saloon & Restaurant”.

To fully understand the true significance of the “Jolly Boy Saloon & Restaurant” as it is now known, it is essential that its own background as well as the story of its predecessor, “La Casa de Aguilar-Serrano” and the original “Jolly Boy Saloon” be told in its entirety. This means grappling with the morass that is landholding in Old Town San Diego, especially during the late-Mexican and early American periods.

From the early days of the Mexican Ranchos right up to the present day, land ownership and property issues are matters of great concern to residents of San Diego. One has only to peruse any of the modern news media to quickly uncover the importance and value that present-day San Diego residents place upon real estate-related issues.

In striving to gain a more detailed and complete understanding of property ownership in Old Town San Diego, this paper will document, in the format of a detailed chronology, the history of a single parcel of land: Lot 3 Block 46 according to the plat of Old San Diego surveyed by Cave Couts in 1849 and Lot 3 Block 408 by the official map of the City of San Diego by Charles Poole in 1856. In essence, this paper will detail the story of the saloon in its various incarnations.[1]

Very rarely are such histories so simply described, so simply executed...

 

INTRODUCTION: SURROUNDED BY SERRANOS

Before beginning the exploration of the Jolly Boy Saloon & Restaurant, the issue of multiple Casa de Serranos requires some resolution. Additionally, two women, referred to as “Rafaela Serrano” in existing documents, are each associated with different Casa de Serranos. The potential for confusion was great and indeed has lead to much misunderstanding.

The research for this document is based upon a synthesis of other’s works, as well as data from myriad other sources, of which local newspapers were the most common. Though these sources were, at times, contradictory, the most serious difficulty encountered in compiling this document was the realization that there was more than one structure referred to as “Casa de Serrano” during the early and middle of the nineteenth century in San Diego. There were three:

· First, there was the Casa de Serrano / Ensworth Store (Lot 1 Block 44/426) - also known as the Casa de Doña Rafaela Serrano, located next to the original Casa de Pico;

· Second, the Casa de Aguilar-Serrano (Lot 3 Block 46/408), at some point before November 1854, was turned into the Jolly Boy Saloon. It fronted the Plaza and ran along Calhoun Street.

· Third, and finally, constructed sometime after 1849, there was the Casa de Serrano (Lot 4 Block 56/410), the actual residence of Jose Antonio de Jesus Serrano and family. This “Casa de Serrano” was located next to the Casa de Carrillo; near the corner of what would become Wallace and Juan Street;

This brief section is my attempt at understanding which Casa de Serrano is associated with which Rafaela Serrano. See Figure 1 for location of these three homes in San Diego.

Casa de Serrano / Ensworth Store[2]

The earliest Rafaela Serrano lived in the Casa de Serrano that was situated next to the old Casa de Pico adobe on Juan Street. This adobe, later known as the Ensworth Store, was constructed sometime around 1825.

Francisco Serrano, founder of the Serrano family in Alta California, married Maria Balbaneda Silva on February 7, 1783 at the Presidio of San Diego.[3] Francisco and Maria Serrano had eleven children:

• Maria Rafaela, born 1784. Died in infancy.
• Leandro, born 1785.
• Jose Eugenio, born 1786.
• Maria Theodora Ramona, born 1787.
• Maria Rafaela Antonia, born around 1788.
• Maria de los Angeles, born about 1791.
• Maria Dominga, born about 1792.
• Rafael Tomas, born about 1794.
• Maria Rosalia, born about 1796.
• Manuel Maria, born 1799.
• Jose Antonio Fernando, born 1804.

While the second child, Leandro, would eventually father Jose Antonio de Jesus Serrano – the man who opened the original Jolly Boy Saloon in 1854, it is with the fifth child, Maria Rafaela [in bold face above], however who is the “Rafaela Serrano” that we are currently focused upon. As now evident, this “Rafaela Serrano” was the aunt of the aforementioned Jose Antonio de Jesus Serrano. Following her death in late 1846, this Casa de Serrano passed through many hands. Though taken over again by the Serranos in the late 1840s, it was sold off again by them in 1853 and settled for a brief time from 1864 as the Ensworth Store.

Figure 1: Modern interpretation of Couts' 1849 map of San Diego, from Pourade's "The Silver Dons."

Casa de Serrano[4]

The second Rafaela Serrano under discussion was a Serrano by marriage. She was Rafaela Maria Nieves Aguilar, daughter of Rosario Aguilar. Rosario fathered nine children:

• Blas Carlos, born c. 1808-11
• Maria Carlota, died in infancy Nov 26, 1811
• Maria Antonia Agnes, born c 1812-17
• Rafaela Maria Nieves, born c1817-22
• Maria Benedicta, born 1819
• Juan Jose, born 1821
• Anastacia, born c 1826
• Pilar, born c 1828
• Ramon, born c 1830 (died 1846 in the Pauma Massacre)

In 1834 or 35, Rafaela Maria Nieves married Jose Antonio de Jesus Serrano, the son of Leandro Serrano. The Serranos had ten children:

• Jesus
• Maria
• Adalaida – married Hayes
• Luis A., born March 12, 1846 – inherited the Casa de Serrano
• Rosa – married Andrew Cassidy
• Ramona
• Catarina
• Lorenza
• Juan Maria
• Adolfo

The couple inherited the Casa de Aguilar from Nieves’ (as she was called) father, Rosario Aguilar after his death in 1847. Sometime later, they converted this structure into the Jolly Boy Saloon.

This Casa de Serrano did not appear on Couts 1849 map, though the adjacent Casa de Carrillo did appear.[5] Apparently, the residence of Jose Antonio Serrano did not exist at the time Couts drew his map in 1849. Jose Antonio Serrano’s June 1854 tax return listed his property. It described two houses and associated land. But which houses? It could have been any of the three possibilities. Serrano’s 1855 tax return provided the answer. It listed two houses owned by Jose Antonio:

· Lot 3 Block 46 – the Jolly Boy Saloon

· Lot 4 Block 56 – the Casa de Serrano residence.

In a deed dated March 1868 between Andrew Cassidy and Jose Antonio Serrano[6], the property, Lot 4 Block 56/410 and fronting Washington Street between Juan and Jackson Streets, also known as the Casa de Serrano, is described as “our residence”. And finally, William Smythe in his “History of San Diego,” referred to the Casa de Serrano as “a two-story house on Juan Street, nearly opposite the one last named [Reyes-Ybanez house – ed.], belonging to Rafaela Serrano. This is now owned by Louis Serrano and was occupied until a recent date.”[7] This “Rafaela” is none other than Maria Rafaela Nieves Aguilar de Serrano. Luis Serrano was her son.

Figure 2: Blue arrow: Casa de Serrano/Ensworth Store - next to Casa de Pico; Green arrow: Casa de Serrano – next to Casa de Carrilo; Red arrow: Casa de Aguilar-Serrano – no longer extant.

 

Casa de Aguilar-Serrano

The Casa de Aguilar-Serrano, and the land upon which it sat, will be subject of the remainder of the exploration of this paper.[8]

 

 

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[1] The parcel upon which the Casa de Aguilar-Serrano would (and the Jolly Boy Saloon & Restaurant would later) reside was Lot 3 of Block 46/408.

[2] On Figure 1 as blue bubble #1.

[3] Marriage and birth information taken from Old Town Character Sketches and Studies, Serrano Family.

[4] On Figure 1 as green bubble #3.

[5] See Figure 1 as well as Appendix for reproduction of Couts original map.

[6] Deed Book 3:115.

[7] Smythe, William E., History of San Diego. Chapter 4.

[8] On Figure 1 as red bubble #2.

Stephen King’s DOCTOR SLEEP – twitter project

I am a fan of twitter-fiction and the like. I have been inspired most recently by the blog, Bible Summary, (www.biblesummary.info) by Chris Juby. Mr. Juby took it upon himself to summarize each and every chapter in every book in the Holy Bible (Old and New Testaments) in the form of a tweet–140 characters, one tweet per chapter. A very intriguing and highly skilled endeavor. He released one tweet per chapter per day over the course of more than three years. Since then, the entire work has been compiled and made available on Amazon.com in the kindle format (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GIKLVN6).

Thusly inspired, I will attempt a similar task with a bit of a twist. For the work that I choose, I will summarize each chapter (or section therein) in the form of a tweet. But instead of Holy Scripture, I will be choosing from works of fiction! For example, Frank Herbert's Dune series, Stephen King's It (1987), or maybe The Terror by Dan Simmons; even Tolkien's The Silmarillion are possible choices for later tweet-summaries. However for this first adventure, I think I will start with...Stephen King's Doctor Sleep.

To this end, I will be tweeting out a 140-character-sized summary of each section within each chapter on a regular schedule.

To start this project off, the tweet-summaries comprising all the sections of Chapter 1 of Stephen King's Doctor Sleep are presented below. Subsequent tweet-summaries will be offered every other day on facebook and twitter until the project is completed. This will begin on April 1, 2015.

Stephen King's DOCTOR SLEEP

Chapter 1 Lockbox

01-01:The fire at the Overlook Hotel left one dead and two badly injured. Only the child, Danny, escaped harm...physically at least.

01-02:Danny's mom lived with spinal pain from the Overlook fire. In early 1981, Danny saw something that made him stop talking.

01-03:Visited by a ghost, expected by the part of Danny that shone. He told his mother there was a bad thing in the bathroom. She knew...

01-04:She looked anyway and wished she hadn't. She saw the leavings from the ghost...Danny was right.

01-05:The other survivor from the Overlook, Dick, arrived. He and Danny both shine. They talked about the ghost. Dick brought a present.

01-06:Danny tells Dick about the ghost. They talk about bad people, bad spirits and shining. Dick reassures Danny concerning the ghost.

01-07:Dick tells Danny about his sadistic grandfather and how when he died, he came back as a ghost. They discuss the nature of the dead.

01-08:Dick said that the shining made ghosts more real. He gave Danny a box and taught him to make a like place in his mind to trap ghosts.

01-09:When the ghost returned, Danny was ready. The ghost smiled and so did Danny. Then the ghost screamed!

01-10:After reassuring his mom that all was well, Danny smiled. He could hear screaming from the lockbox in his head. It would fade soon.

01-11:Two years later, another ghost appeared. Danny was ready and put the ghost in the mental box. He thought he was safe...He was wrong.

***

Stay tuned for Chapter 2 on facebook and twitter!

What mad scribbling for the remainder of 2015!

What fresh craziness do I have planned for Old Sins?

What next for the asylum-bound Historian?

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-twitter summary of Stephen King's Doctor Sleep.

-review or comment on books & articles

-get back to doing audio recordings

-Father Ubach and Ramona newspaper article

-work on blog posts / articles / small books

-Castle Dare, D. D. Dare and the End of an Era: In Print 1889-1937.

-CdPMH - revise and expand

-masonic architectural survey of San Diego county - a big project.

-The Myth-Making of Yankee Jim – 1850s, 1930s, 1960s articles (audio?)

 

Any suggestions?

Yesterday was March 13th, Friday the 13th.

Yesterday was March 13th – Friday the 13th – 2015. This is, I believe, the 708th Anniversary of the day the attempt to destroy the Templar Order was begun by oeder of King Philip the Fair of France. The article below is from the San Diego Herald of June 5, 1851 and reproduces a short piece commemorating the end of Jacque De Molay at the pyre in 1314.

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Five hundred and thirty-eight years have passed since the last Grand Master of the Knights Templers, Jacques Molay, was burned alive at Paris, upon the little island above the city, near the place where now stands the statue of Henry the Fourth, upon the Point Neuf. Despite the persecution, the society of Templars has continued to exist, from age to age, even to our day. It has lately had its annual celebration at Paris, when several new members were admitted.

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I find it noteworthy that the above piece was published two weeks before the first formal announcement of anything of Masonic interest in San Diego. This first notice was from the San Diego Herald, June 19, 1851 and is reproduced below.

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Masonic.—All Master Masons, in good standing with their respective lodges, are requested to assemble at the Exchange Hotel, in the City of San Diego, on Friday evening, the 20th inst., to make arrangements for celebrating the anniversary of our patron saint, John the Baptist.

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A Snapshot of the Villa Montezuma in 1966.

Presented here are three, small articles written in the spring of 1966 that reacquainted the people of San Diego to the Villa Montezuma as well as informed them of what the current situation was concerning this great house during the mid-sixties.

The above image from the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), 1964.

The author Lew Scarr, a long-time reporter for the San Diego Union, purported to have no prior knowledge of the Villa Montezuma and encountered the mansion quite by accident. Whether this is a literary device or the actual truth did not take away from the purpose of these articles – to re-introduce the Villa Montezuma to San Diego.

The article's format has been slightly changed from the original for ease of readability.

***

From The San Diego Union, February 13, 1966

 

Lew Scarr

Houses are like people. They don't have to be pretty to be attractive. And like people, if hey live long enough they've got character no matter how they started out. Take the house at 20th and K.

This house, by almost any standard, is not a pretty house. I'm sure that even when it was a young house, it wasn't pretty. But now it is old and it is interesting. As they say about potato chips — provocative.

The day I stopped it was cloudy over the house on K Street. And it is that kind house —as if it is always cloudy there. But that is ridiculous right in the middle of San Diego. Still . . .

The house is two stories and a cupola. It is white, or it was. The white has turned to gray and I don't mean anything bad about that. The change in color is more of a patina, which more and more is being considered desirable. But not on old cars. Old cars—classic cars—must shine brighter than new ones. I don't know why, but that's the rule.

The House on K Street has five turrets. One is onion-shaped like something from old Russia. The others are sharp cones like something from Normandy.

On top of the onion-shaped turret is a black, iron pole, four feet tall, and clinging to the pole is a black, metal dragon with stubby, scalloped wings.

On top of the biggest cone turret is a pole five feet tall. It has various knobs and out-croppings on it and at the top, a spray of four metal flowers which could be lilies of the valley. Only two flowers remain. The others are just stems.

Also on this pole is a metal flag to tell anyone who wonders which way the wind is blowing — from the west and smartly.

Right in the middle of the spine of the roof is a red brick chimney with two tall, buff-colored pots on top to carry the smoke away. Back farther another one, and back still farther, another.

Among the chimneys is the tallest pole of all — 25 feet, I'd say — and that is the TV antenna.

The house has wooden sides, laid on in perfectly rounded sculptures like the scales of a fish.

The windows on the east side are stained glass with most of the color gone now. If you look closely you can see they once were mostly roses and greens and purples. Now they are the color of slate.

Just to the left of the biggest stained glass window is something I've never seen on a house before. It is a bas relief of a bearded man wearing the wrap-around cloth hat of the desert. His face is tilted slightly upward and underneath is inscribed "Asia."

This art work, two feet in diameter, has not been hung there. It was build in and has been there from the start.

Atop each gable on the House on K Street are gargoyles, sitting on their curled tails. Their mouths are open and they have their arrow-shaped tongues stuck out at all the cars and the people who pass.

Around the house is a low cement wall and on top of the wall is a low black , iron fence, made by the same man who did the gargoyles and the dragon on the roof, no doubt.

Who lives in the House on K Street? A lady. She has lived there a long time.

I climbed the wooden steps and rang the doorbell, which is the kind you turn stiffly, but I got no answer. A neighbor said she never comes to the door.

The man in the Square Deli Market across the street said he hasn't seen the lady in more than a year. He said he thinks she is trading at another market now.

He said that is her privilege, and he wasn't angry or anything. He said that she likes to keep to herself and I can understand that.

Maybe I've told too much already.

***

From The San Diego Union, February 18, 1966

 

Lew Scarr

On the same day that I told you about the house at 20th and K streets, a neighbor knocked at my door and asked me if I really wanted to know about it.

Of course I did, so he invited me over to his living room, sat me in a leather chair and told me quite a little about it. He and his wife know about the House on K Street because they would like to buy it. They want to have the house moved to Old Town where they would refurbish it in the style to which it once was accustomed.

And, while the exterior of the house has been taken advantage of by the elements, the interior is much the same as when Jesse Shepard built it.

Jesse Shepard was a pianist of renown and talent who built his house on the gently sloping hillside of 20th and K in 1887. It is funny about the passage of time. It can reduce a sloping hillside to a flat intersection just by adding houses and concrete pavements.

Anyway, Jesse Shepard built (actually friends built it by subscription) his house on the hillside and furnished it in much the same style as the Hotel Del Coronado, which was built about the same time. He called his house Villa Montezuma.

"Everything," a writer then wrote, "has the appearance of riches, art and love for the beautiful, the dark shades here modify and subdue the light one there — everything is strictly in keeping with artistic intention, the furniture being selected with a special view to the arrangements and designs o floor and ceiling."

In the drawing room there was a splendid bay-window, 18 feet deep, and there still is. The upper sashes contained life-size heads, in art glass, of Shakespeare, Goethe and Corneille, and they are still there.

In the music room art windows again were "most wonderfully life-like. . . .In the first moments of day, the rays of the rising sun illumine a life-size portrait of Sappho, the Greek poet. Reclining on a couch an with a wrap thrown loosely about her form, she sits idly picking a lyre. Beside her are two cupids, who accompany Sappho's playing with flutes. . .

"Reluctantly the eye leaves the marvelous figures constituting the windows, and looks about to observe the next surprise. Art, pure and simple is found in everything. No two chairs in the room — or in the building, in fact — are alike in either shape or hue."

There are five fireplaces in the house, rising from floor to ceiling. Each is framed in hand-carved wood. And stained glass is everywhere:

One of the finest art glass windows in the villa is that of St. Cecilia," the writer wrote, "situated so as to catch the last rays of the setting sun. . . . Indeed, one could almost imagine that this beautiful window possesses the power of the 'Vocal Memnon' at Thebes, which is reputed to have awed the entranced spectator by its production of sweet music."

And so it goes. Not many callers are allowed in Villa Montezuma these days. My neighbors were admitted one day after the owner, Mrs. Amelia Jaeger, told them they seemed like nice people.

Vandals have meant to do harm to the old house. Some have tried to throw rocks through the stained glass windows. There is as pane of clear plate glass in front of every stained panel and it is difficult to throw a rock through this and the art window, but some people have managed.

Some have come right inside the house uninvited. Mrs. Jaeger has managed to shoo them away.

There have been may offers for the house. Some have come fro out-of-town bidders who apparently want to dismantle the interior art and take it away. Some want to raze the house and build something else there.

My neighbors want to preserve everything. They want to move the house away gently and re-establish it in Old Town.

"We want to bring it back to what it was," they said. "We want to live in it and work slowly. It may take us the rest of our lives."

I can't help but hope they get what they want, even if it means losing good neighbors.

***

From The San Diego Union, April 21, 1966

 

Lew Scarr

I called on Mrs. Amelia Jaeger in her magnificent house at 20^th and K. She showed me around and it is all they say it is, the finest example of period-living in the city.

But she isn’t always so hospitable and she showed my why. In the music room, in an alcove, are three smooth rocks the size of potatoes. They lie where they fell on a dusty table. They came through the windows and the broken panes of glass lie where they fell, too.

“I leave them there on purpose,” the doughty 80-year-old widow of Karl Jaeger said. “The people who threw those rocks through my window want me out. They want to get the house for nothing and charge admission. I leave those rocks there to remind me that I’ll never get out on their say-so.

“But they’re not all hoodlums. I’ve met some wonderful people in San Diego. We used to entertain a lot. I don’t any more. I don’t even clean the house. There is dust everywhere. See?

“When the doorbell rings, I look out the side curtain.” Mrs. Jaeger walked to her side curtain and peered through it as if someone were ringing the bell. “If I like their looks I let then in.”

Mrs. Jaeger lives alone in her big, old house. She spends most of her time in a back bedroom where she has a chair and a lamp that stands on the floor. On a glass-topped table beside the lamp and chair is a stack of Reader’s Digests and a sack of lemon drops.

On another table is a stack of 78 r.p.m. records including “In the Valley of Sunshine and Roses” sung by Henry Burr (Tenor) with bird voices by Sybil Sanderson. On top of the records is a box imprinted “Mother.” The wooden box has no significance. She bought it because it was the right size to hold her bills.

“One night here in my bedroom,” Mrs. Jaeger said, “I woke up and there were two men standing by my bed. I screamed and they ran out. I called the police, but the officer couldn’t find anyone. I said, what’ll I do if they come back? He said get a gun. So I did, a 38-caliber Smith and Wesson.”

She opened a drawer in the bureau by her bed and there it was, a brute of a weapon which she said she used once.

“Two other men came I the yard one day and I told them to get out. I told them I would shoot if they didn’t, but they just laughed. I went and got my gun and fired a shot at their feet. I never saw them again. Do you have a cigarette?

Mrs. Jaeger never smoked before Mr. Jaeger, a civil engineer, died in 1956. “Karl always smoked English Ovals. I never smoke but I thought if I smoked English Ovals it would be like having Karl around a little. You can’t find English Ovals everywhere, but Mr. Gaubil at the store has ordered some for me.”

Mrs. Jaeger doesn’t leave her house much. Last year she visited her daughter in Burlingame and fell down and hurt her leg. “I was lying in the hospital up there and I saw a plane flying by and it occurred to me that I might be going to San Diego. I said why don’t I go home, too, so I did.

“Now I go downtown about once a week and over to the store, but there are so many things to do around the house. Feed the cats. Some kid comes along and sics his dog on my cats. A great big one. That dog caught my yellow cat – I call him Big Yellow – and bit his leg.

“Some people want to by the house and move it. I think the house belongs where it is. That’s where it was built. If the right person came along with the right price would I sell? I don’t know.

“I love my house. The question is, would I be happy in another house? I just don’t know. I’ve lived in a lot of houses in my lifetime, but I’m old now. I’m not so sure I could move again.”

***

Taken together these pieces presage the unfortunate events surrounding Mrs. Jaeger and the ultimate disposition of the Villa Montezuma. The fate of Amelia Jaeger, the couple that wanted to purchase the Villa to save it, and the Villa Montezuma itself were all played out a few short years after the publication of these articles

But that is a story (or blog post) for another day.

 

To find out more about the early days of the Villa Montezuma, please see my work on newspaper accounts of the Villa Montezuma at:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QXTMPJQ

Good Evening...