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Oral Histories
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California State University San Marcos University Library
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<p>Rights to oral histories vary depending on the history. The library owns the copyright to some histories, and has license to reproduce for nonprofit purposes for others. Please contact CSUSM University Library Special Collections at <a href="mailto:%20archives@csusm.edu">archives@csusm.edu</a> with any questions about use.</p>
Oral History
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Jacob Peirce
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Alexa Clausen
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5.4 2022-04-12 Oral history of Alexa Clausen, April 12, 2022 SC027-15 00:51:35 SC027 California State University San Marcos University Library Special Collections Oral History Collection CSUSM This oral history was made possible with the generous funding of the Ellie Johns Scholarship Fund at Rancho Santa Fe Foundation and the Library Guild of Rancho Santa Fe. Adobe houses Historic buildings -- Conservation and restoration. San Diego County (Calif.) Alexa Clausen Jacob Pierce mp3 ClausenAlexa_PeirceJake_2022-04-12.mp3 1:|15(8)|25(3)|36(2)|45(11)|62(1)|84(8)|93(8)|110(2)|126(10)|136(8)|154(6)|164(1)|173(10)|187(6)|201(9)|211(5)|219(1)|235(8)|244(2)|261(1)|273(1)|284(11)|296(6)|308(13)|317(11)|342(5)|351(7)|364(3)|378(6)|388(12)|397(3)|411(1)|423(14)|432(10)|441(7)|457(4)|465(3)|480(11)|488(9)|498(10)|506(8)|520(12)|536(3)|550(4)|559(3)|569(5)|582(5)|597(17) 0 https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/45c2cfd31ca6068f7c1bbef6263d29e6.mp3 Other audio English 17 Background / Starting Adobe Home Tours Alexa Clausen: Well, thank you. And I'm happy to be here since we only have an hour, I'll try to do the mini version. < ; affirmative> ; I grew up in Riverside, California. I got my advanced degrees in San Diego, so University of San Diego undergraduate, and then master's degree at San Diego State. At the same time that I was studying, my master's degree took me seven years because I was working full-time for California State Parks. So, I have a career with state parks and essentially doing local regional statewide and contextual related history for projects with state parks. So, when I retired in 2008, we had moved to Escondido in 1993, I think. And I had some friends in the history business, Lucy Burke, who was very active in historic preservation, always nagging me: When are you going to retire? You know, join us and, and all this stuff. So finally, when I did retire, I had our son – I had him late in in life – so he was still in elementary school, high school. So, I wasn't too involved, but I did have the sense that I want to give back to the community of history because when I was working professionally without internet and all this, I was visiting people who were saving history in boxes under their beds. You know, there was some places didn't have historical societies ; it was just mom and pop trying to save history. So, you know, I felt like I wanted to give back, and so I started volunteering and then, when my son was at St Mary's in elementary school, there's another student. His name was Sean McCoy. Well, his father, they had a little birthday party. I think they were in fifth grade, so this might go back to maybe 2004 or 2005, and he lived in Valley Center. The house was adobe, and I was really curious, but in their study there were all these houses on craftsman architecture. I looked at Tom, who's just a really gregarious, hardy guy that runs a landscaping business. He's Cal[ifornia] Poly[technic] [State] [University] educated and in landscaping. And I'm like, no, it's not. It must be his wife. < ; laugh> ; So eventually at the swim party, the kids were busy and I said, “Hey, you know, Tom who's collection of books here, you're doing craftsmen?” Well, that unleashed Tom, and he found a soulmate in the interest. And as a few years went on, he always said there, “We have to do something. I go to Pasadena to the home tours and they're all rooted in Green and Green Architecture, which was known for the craftsmen, but we have our own, you know, handcrafted Adobes here.” And I'm like, “[O]kay, Tom, let's do a tour.” And he claims that, you know, I kept pushing him to, oh, won't this be fun? And so the two of us kind of started Adobe Home Tour, but we were fortunate that the director Wendy Barker at the historical society wanted to go ahead and take our little idea under her wing. They had been doing garden tours, so they were familiar with parking and talking to homeowners, so we really had a jump there and we were lucky. And of course with the insurance that the Escondido History Center was all behind us. And our very first brochure was a front-to-back 8.5”x11” piece of paper off a copier, and that's kind of where it started. Peirce: Well, you have to start somewhere, right? Clausen: Yeah. It's funny, and of course I was thinking, “[O]h, he'll get over it.” You know, this is one year we had maybe 60 people come and it was word of mouth, mainly his friends and the historical society, people and friends of the homeowners, so it was really grassroots or mom and pop, whatever you want to call it. And our last tour we sold out at 500 tickets. Peirce: Wow. Clausen: Yeah. So that was the route. I came here through my training, I don't own an adobe home and it was really a feeling to give back to history essentially. Alexa Clausen talks about her education and career and how that has led to her interest in adobe homes. Furthermore, Alexa Clausen talks about how her background as a historian for the California State Parks led to her interest in leading adobe home tours. Clausen also talks about different home tours in Southern California which influenced her to start Adobe Home Tours. California State Parks ; career ; San Diego State ; University of San Diego ; volunteering Adobe Home Tours ; California State Parks historian ; Education ; Interest in adobe homes ; Working while getting an education 33.9806° N, 117.3755° W 17 Riverside County 336 Previous career with the California State Parks / Contributions to Adobe Home Tours Peirce: Absolutely. Absolutely. Going back to your previous stops in your career with the California State Parks, was this something that was kind of in the same realm of what you were doing? Looking at architecture and looking at stuff like that and giving tours, or did you do something different while you were there? Clausen: You know, it really wasn't. The historic preservation and the architecture was handled mainly by specialists, and a lot of that was rooted in the state office of historic preservation, which was like a cousin branch of State Parks and the very highly trained historians specializing in architecture. So, I was really weak and had to do a catch up self-trained. All of my projects were budget driven. For example, if they, maybe the volunteers of the Rangers wanted to do a new booklet for a visitor center and it had a historical element in it, they would budget for hours for that. Or if there's a general plan, they needed a historian to do the cultural. So a lot of my jobs were just skipping around and providing research and history for whatever was budgeted and needed. And generally, if there was like an architectural survey, they were contracted out by specialist, or the state office would contract. So, during my career, for example, they did a thematic statewide survey of the Civilian Conservation Corps buildings that were still in state parks. Now they took their cue from the feds who were doing a survey in national parks and in the forest service, but again, that was handled by specialists. So, you know, while we would exchange, read material, go to the same conferences, it is a specialty that I'm probably not the best at, but I do provide that research for Adobe Home Tour. So, it was a different kind of specialty, yeah. Peirce: Absolutely. It sounds more like you were – in your role with the state parks – you were more of a jack of all trades rather than a master of specifically architecture in that field. Clausen: Oh, absolutely, and in time they umbrellaed all that under cultural resources management and it was the archeologist and the historians and sometimes the landscape architects depending on the project. Peirce: Absolutely. Given that Tom seemed to be your partner in crime in the beginning of this adventure, –and he seemed to have more of the specific knowledge when it came to the adobe tours, based on what you're saying – what would you say that was your biggest contribution to the beginning of it? Was it the organization? Was it your specific knowledge of how to provide background information? What would you say was your biggest contribution in the beginning? Clausen: Well, actually, I think Tom felt like I was just the cheerleader. < ; laugh> ; But, you know, I think it helped Tom have the confidence. With his career running a landscape business, he wasn't as free to do some things, and I think he always saw me as a little bit of the conduit to the history community. He's second generation – grew up in Escondido through his business and his family – they know every nook and cranny in the city, but Tom I think felt like I was the person that can talk to the historical society and get that connection. And then when it came to maybe talking to some families about the history of their homes – although Wendy did a lot of it in the beginning – in time, I took over all of that as eventually she took another job, but, you know, they had the historical society to run. I think Tom just really needed someone who talked a little more of the language to keep connected with the historical society and the history side of it. That's my take, if you ever tape Tom, maybe he'll have a different, < ; laugh> ; a different take on it. Alexa Clausen gives an overview of her career with the California State Parks and working in historic preservation and architecture. She also talks about her contributions to starting the Adobe Home Tours with Tom. architecture ; Civilian Conservation Corps ; Escondido ; historic preservation ; historical society California State Parks ; Civilian Conservation Corps ; Historic preservation in the California State Parks 33.1192° N, 117.0864° W 17 Escondido, California 619 Getting involved / Why adobe homes? Peirce: < ; laugh> ; No, that's absolutely fair. That takes me into something else I kind of wanted to explore with you if don't mind. I'm very interested in how you and Wendy and Tom and everybody else who was involved – especially in the beginning – how you managed to convince people to take part in this project. Because like you said, a lot of these people, these aren't just like “Oh, I own this random home that is just sitting out here for display.” This is where people live and work and raise their families. How did you manage to convince people to take part in what you were trying to achieve? Especially in the beginning. Clausen: You know, I haven't thought about it. Some of it was Tom's personal contacts and he knows people who know people and he knocked on doors, and then Wendy at the historical society, they also knew people who had adobe homes and was literally making lists, like, “Should we call this one? Should we call that one?” but I have to wonder now that you brought it up if the timing was right. Garden tours were becoming very popular at the time. They were fundraisers for not just historical societies, but you know, maybe natural garden clubs. I think garden clubs maybe had a longer history of that, but history house tours were becoming popular at the time. I think a lot of that starts going backwards to the US bicentennial, where historic preservation was taking off, and I have to wonder if people who buy adobe homes sort of needed a validation. Recently he had a potluck, and I ran into a lady who said, “My friends tell me you're crazy to have bought this home. You know, why would you live in this mud home?” < ; laugh> ; so maybe there's just a little twinkle of wanting the validation. You know, I'm really taking a guess at this ; I hadn't really thought about it. But I do think people had the confidence –the historical society had been doing an annual home tour and then the old neighborhood in downtown Escondido, they started doing a Mother's Day home tour – so the idea of a home tour maybe wasn't as foreign had we been maybe one of the first to ever do this in Escondido. I think those two projects really made people aware and it wasn't just so scary that other people were opening their houses. In the old neighborhood after COVID, it'll be the first time in a few years, and they will do another Mother's Day home tour, and I think they're on their like 25th anniversary. And the historical society, they partnered with that, so they had the experience also and word of mouth that this isn't kind of some creepy people knocking on the door saying, “Whoa, you know, what you can do is clean up your house and let people in.” So, I really didn't think about it and it's not scientific by any manner, but I think there is an opening and I find that Adobe Home Tours love the validation. They love to know that other people, once they've seen their house, they get it. They really think it's something special. That's just my take on it. Peirce: Absolutely. I mean, that makes complete sense. One question I did have as well: was there any sort of impetus? Was this just organic? You just happened to bring this up and it just kind of grew up? Or was there any sort of given that some people want that validation, right? A lot of people may not want to live in this kind of home. Was there any sort of preservation or were these houses being torn down or was there any sort of event like that that was kind of like, “Man, maybe we should foster some sort of appreciation within the region to make sure that we keep this history alive a little bit.”? Clausen: You know, I think that became one of our causes or mantras or whatever is as we backed into this – like just a couple of mom and pop < ; laugh> ; people with no experience but some dumb luck and some decent connections – is that as these homes aged, and of course, in the history of a lot of the homes, the midcentury, the builders and the real estate developers, they picked out, we call it ‘cherry picked’ the lots. You could go into orange groves and carve out incredible views – and many of the adobe homes have incredible views – and I believe that before property values really started to skyrocket that they were at risk because once you have an incredible view, then you know, we came the era of McMansions. This is happening in cities everywhere: Los Angeles and San Francisco are some of the worst cases where the beautiful Spanish revival homes are gone. They're bulldozed for these – you know, it's probably not polite to call McMansions ; someone coined that phrase for overbloated size of houses with great views. I think we all, the core of us that worked on this had the feeling that they were at risk. The other timing of this is many homes are not eligible for Mills Act and historic preservation review unless they've reached 50 years old. Now, many of the adobes that were in the midcentury revival, the boom that started with the edges of Longview Acres and up and down here in the Via Rancho Parkway area around Felicita Park, Adobe homes were starting to be built in the late forties and into the fifties. If the home had not reached 50 years old, it was not eligible for review as a candidate for a higher level of putting out on a register for review and protection. There's no guarantee, but I think that the age started working for us as these homes were turning fifty and the appreciation with the old neighborhood and appreciation everywhere was starting to grow and the concern for being bulldozed. So it's almost like you had a little bit of a perfect storm coming in for the recognition of an adobe home, and they did stop construction by state law in the eighties. So, then another one of our “Gee, you, you're not going to see these again. You have a chance to really see something special.” Peirce: Was there a reason that they stopped the construction at that point? Was it just not feasible for like a, what is it, like an earthquake code or something like that? Clausen: Well, I talked to several builders. George Patterson when he was living and then Mike Burton, whose father and grandfather – Hiram Smith his grandfather and then Don Burton his father – they had no concerns about earthquakes. They were using a lot of rebar and the adobe block by that time had added a petroleum-based product developed in the late thirties and through the war time, so adobe block now was solid construction. I was told it was all about thermal and insulation. Both builders said it was an argument with the state of California with, I don't know, engineering approval people that went down to the county, that an adobe will take in thermal heating, you know, it takes three days to warm up and, you know, on and on, and they refused to approve adobe construction based on that. The other thing the builder said is that the labor became too costly ; you had labor, construction workers still willing up to a certain time to take and build these, you know, carry these blocks and do this kind of labor. It was easier to get a job somewhere else, and it didn't, you know, literally break your back. So between the rise of cost of labor – and then in Escondido, the adobe block yard went out of business ; the blocks now had to be shipped from Fresno or elsewhere – and it became just too costly to build. So, it was all those things. Peirce: Yeah. That makes sense. You know, it tends to go when things become cost prohibitive, it definitely will stop people in their tracks and in terms of doing that kind of stuff. Clausen: Right. So that ended adobe construction in California, because of course there still is adobe construction in New Mexico, Arizona, and globally, for that matter, you know, worldwide. The adobe is still a popular way to build a cheap way if you have the labor. Alexa Clausen talks about how she became interested in wanting to focus on adobe homes and looking for others who had adobe homes for tours. Clausen then gives a historical overview of adobe homes and their significance in society. Furthermore, she talks the logistics of adobe homes and safety and building measures. adobe homes ; developers ; historical society ; neighborhood ; tour Adobe Home Tours ; Appreciation for adobe homes ; History house tours ; Looking for adobe homes for tours ; Scouting adobe homes 33.1192° N, 117.0864° W 17 Escondido, California 1223 Expansion and evolving / Collaboration Peirce: Yeah, absolutely. Seeing that this isn't the only place where Adobe houses were built – and are built even to this day – as you guys kind of built this program and as it continued to grow, was there any sort of view of trying to expand to a larger area or working with other tours if they existed in places like New Mexico, to try and collaborate in any way? Or was this a very grassroots, “We’re sticking where we are and just kind of making this grow naturally where it is?” Clausen: Well, I think we would've loved to become a bigger, wider organization, but it all comes down to volunteers. And as you know, a lot of this, unless you're a paid staff putting on something like this-- Although we were thrilled: we had a tour in Pauma Valley a few years ago, we've been invited to work with Valley Center Historical Society ; there's a number of adobes there. We were also invited through Dominic Calarco who supervises the park system in Carlsbad ; they would like to feature Leo Carillo and find some adobe homeowners there. So, we do have an interest, very North County interested people, and we'd like to do that, and then it keeps it from being boring Escondido ; not boring, but, you know, you do sort of run out of homes or people that are willing. We do have bigger interest, and we know that people have traveled from Los Angeles and from other places to come and see the homes and be on the tour. In an ideal world? Yeah, wouldn’t it be neat to have this grand old, famous tour? You know, some cities do – the Palm Springs mid-century modern tour is just crazy famous, the Pasadena tours are – but we're restricted now by just a small group of volunteers. Peirce: Absolutely. Yeah, it can be difficult even with that outside interest when you don't have the facility to make it happen, whether it's personnel or whatever. There's always a friction, there's always that rub that kind of keeps you from doing more, even if there's the interest. Did you take anything from other tours? Did you learn from them? Or did you go, “We want to do something different. We want to kind of stick to our own program here?” Clausen: You know, the way I think this evolved, with a number of our Adobe homeowners haved jumped in after their home was on the tour to take a role and to help out. And so, for example, our current webmaster, Don, he took over the website. Intense interest in adobe, and really likes to post a lot of stuff, even adobe homes for sale. And then we had a lady – Mary Del May – she had taken over for Wendy in 2015 I want to say, I'll have to look it up, and professionalized it, and Tom ; all of them have been on other home tours. So, I think what they brought to the table was things they liked, like, “Gee, you know, it was nice when we had a booklet, a full booklet and, you know, we could cut costs by having sponsor pages. That'll help the printing if we do a bigger booklet.” So, our homeowners who jumped in, I think they did bring experience from things they liked going on other tours. Then as we planned this, I think some things from other tours come in like don't let people stand too long. “Oh, we were in Tucson. We had to wait 45 minutes, but they sold cocktails.” < ; laugh> ; We're like, oh, we can't sell cocktails, but you know, we do have these, yeah. I think that everyone who has participated brings what they like, and they don't like, suggestions, they work, they don't, we've tried some things. So yeah, I'd say that we have benefited from other tours. Peirce: And it also sounds like you've benefited from, as you've done this program, collaborating with some of the people that have owned these homes, right? Like you said earlier-- Clausen: Oh, absolutely. Peirce: It sounds like that's really been honestly, and correct me if I'm wrong, kind of the heart of the program as it's moved forward. Clausen: It really was helpful because in order to invite and ask people “Would you have your home on the tour?” They're shaking in their boots and to have other homeowners say, look, here's some information, which they've developed a little “Hello, homeowner, potential homeowner. This is what we did, little hit lists of this is what happens.” And then we also developed a security docent guide and docent stations. And that came out of the feedback from the homeowners to pace our volunteers throughout the home and allow people not to wander through on their own, but in groups as a group tour. And a lot of this came from the feedback of the homeowners wanting a little more security, a little more confidence, and most of the kind of tips for, “Hey, do you want to be on our tour,” came from the other homeowners. Absolutely. You know, lessons learned or could have, should have, would have. It's always a little growing thing. I think you're right. I think that this definitely comes from within. Alexa Clausen provides a look into working with other historical sites and societies for Adobe Home Tours. She highlights volunteers being essential to the business of providing tours for adobe homes. Alexa Clausen also gives input about her thoughts on collaborating with others. adobe homeowners ; docent guide ; homeowner ; North County ; Pauma Valley ; volunteers Appreciation for volunteers and docents ; Collaboration with other homeowners ; Expanding Adobe Home Tours ; Interest in adobe homes 33.1581° N, 117.3506° W 17 Carlsbad, California 1634 Keeping history interesting / Choosing adobe homes Peirce: Absolutely, and that's incredible, right? To really get that kind of support from people who see what the benefit is of highlighting this stuff, and just kind of doing that because it not only gets people to participate, but it brings their energy and their enthusiasm along with it. Speaking of enthusiasm, I know that there has been concern in some sectors of historians who are worried about people not being interested in history, people being ignorant of history. What efforts, if any, do you guys have to put in to get people interested in this part of history? Was there any sort of education that you had to put out? Did you have to teach people about this stuff? Did you find any struggles in getting people to come at any point? Or was this something that kind of once people heard about it, they were like “I'd like to learn more about that” or did you fight any struggles? Clausen: You know, we're always amazed at how easy this comes. I think being in the San Diego drivable region, that we're lucky because we are a county where we can still on a Sunday, get somewhere without a lot of trouble, and we do have the support of....like I mentioned, a lot of other historical societies have done garden tours, home tours, many cities have. And so people that love it, we find from our ticket holders, are a very strange combination with flat out “looky loos”: people that want to remodel their kitchen and they want to see others, as realtors are being a little more cautious about appointments and who comes in – for good reason, not to waste their time and security. So we have the people that just love to see other people's homes, and then we have just very hardcore interested – either mid-century modern architecture, maybe even students of architecture, and hobbyists – they are there for the architecture. We have a pretty neat little group of people interested in the garden now. Not every home is going to have a fancy garden – not by any means – but they're there primarily to see the garden and enjoy the garden. And then we do have history buffs ; like that's what I'm just labeling people that love the history. Then year by year, we've tried to pick a theme. LIke last year: “The Romance of the Rancho” where we just call it out that maybe some of this is California fantasy, you know, and the places were carved out of orange groves, they're close to the earth. In some cases, the adobe block was made right there, right on the acreage that was formed and bulldozed, lot of use of heavy beams, sort of that romance of the Rancho. So we've brought that up. In Pauma, we had a chance to talk about the Luiseños building the Pauma mission. We had that be one of our stops and made sure that we arranged to include that. A lot of people told us, “You know, we've always heard about Pauma Mission and we've never gone. It was a chance to go out there.” Um, so we always get a very different mix, but always a mix of people. The strong elements that we always bask in is the people interested in the architecture, and of course, in the history. But I think some of this is people come along, they will read our booklet or the docents will tell them something and we feel there's an appreciation for the historic preservation that leaves every tour. Peirce: Absolutely. It's fascinating, right? You really have to find your niche and it sounds like this program really has found it in just a wide spectrum of people who are trying to see what you guys are displaying out there. You brought up how not every home has a garden or anything like that. Is there any sort of prerequisite to being on a tour for any of these houses or is it literally just, “Hey, you're an adobe house, you can be on it.” Are you a little choosy? How does that specifically work where you decide what goes on each tour? Clausen: We do have some levels. We've had some very simple, honest homes and then we've had some just outrageously beautiful homes from adobe. In some cases we've had to turn people down because in the times they were built the driveways and the parking are impossible. There still are a lot of niches around the Escondido area where they were carved out of an old orange or avocado grove and the parking and the in and out is just out of the question. So that's always a consideration, although we've had some pretty narrow tight squeezes. Some homes, once we've talked to the homeowners, they say, you know, we're really not ready. We would like our home to be, uh, a little closer to ready. They often bought the adobe as a fixer upper, but as everyone knows, it takes time and money and planning, and we've had homeowners who've come back and say, you know, now we're ready. In some cases, we had to turn down people because they were just way too out of the way. I'll give you an example: last tour we had on the edge of Rancho Santa Fe the Osuna adobe, and then a home in Del Dios and then across Escondido, just behind the mall, two homes in that general area – that were drivable. I think we had a house offer way on Deer Springs Road. And so John – our webmaster – sometimes he would take and calculate the mileage, and then if you're 25 minutes one way and the only home out there, we would think that the homeowner would get gypped, you know, people would just say “Let's just go get lunch. We won't drive out there.” So we've tried to save some of the names and the addresses, so we could do a closer cluster of homes and hopefully we haven't missed out on anyone yet, and hanging onto names lets us be able to do that. We've had people who, as they've moved forward, say we just can't do this, you know, family circumstances or everyone just couldn't get on board. You know, a lot of things we expect could happen. We've gotten two thirds of the way and we've had people bail for very legitimate, understandable reasons. In a few cases, we've had previous homes on the tour again. We've had a few homes in that circumstance where an owner stepped up and a lot of times they've made changes. They've learned more about their home and it was enough years for our ticket holders. We have a lot of new ticket holders, so they're not saying, oh, we just saw that home. So yeah, I think there's been a combination of how we get there when the doors open. Peirce: Absolutely. So the individual houses, are the owners responsible for the histography of the tour for those places? Do you guys assist? How does that collaboration work? Clausen: In the last five years, I think I've done the majority of the history. In a lot of cases though, with new owners, sometimes we've gotten really lucky. They're walking their dog, they run into an old timer from the neighborhood, you know, someone who has lived there 40 years, and they'd come back as we're developing the history of their home, or they'd get a lead: a phone number of someone who knew who still own the home. So we've had a combination. I'd say maybe I do easily 70 to 75% of the research, and then 25% comes in from a lot of odd places and on occasion the homeowner themselves. So yeah, I think I've been doing most of it. For the internal side of it, the docent guide, then we lean on the homeowner for their remodel or what they were told about the remodel. If they have a newer kitchen maybe put in in the late eighties – they were told about it by the realtor – the docent on the kitchen stop will let people know what they're looking at. I'd say I've done a good portion of the research. Alexa Clausen talks about how she keeps the history of the tours interesting while catering to different audiences with different levels of knowledge on adobe homes. She also talks about the process of choosing adobe homes which they use for tours. Del Dios ; historic preservation ; Osuna Adobe ; Pauma Mission ; Rancho Alexa Clausen heading adobe tours ; Audience ; Choosing adobe homes for tours ; Interest in adobe tours ; Keeping the history interesting 33.3034° N, 116.9814° W 17 Pauma Valley 2252 Gathering Information / Adobe Home Conditions Peirce: Awesome. Has that been a struggle as well, given that some of these houses - I don't wanna say they're not important, right? They are important, they're historical in their own way. But it’s not like Greta Garbo lived there ; they're just regular homes in Escondido. Has that been difficult to gather that information? Clausen: You know, I've been stuck on homes for variety of reasons. Sometimes what happens is, let's say the homeowner had the adobe built for themselves and they worked the rest of their career at a conveyor belt as an engineer and retired, and perhaps their spouse was a schoolteacher and, you know, very wonderful everyday people. When we actually go look at the house, we generally will start finding jewels on some of the architecture. I think we've been pretty fortunate to have builders who have included architecture to keep the story going. This will be the treatment of the open beams or the fireplaces. Very often, we've had wonderful surviving fireplaces that were not remodeled ; they're still there. We've had homes where the windows were yet not removed ; they were still the old aluminum encasement crank windows, really neat, like ribbon style. It would even be the placement of arches, you know, opening the arch of one room into the next. The unbelievable plate glass windows from floor to ceiling, capturing a style that is brought in from the craftsman era – Cliff May, who has been considered the father of the ranch house style that became mid-century and popularized – how they took the sense of bringing the outdoor to the edge of the indoor. The adobe builders in the mid-century – we’ve found the Weir brothers and others – they will do that plate glass window with the view, right from the bottom, right to the edge of the eaves with phenomenal views, taking advantage and placing the home on that view. Without a doubt, the architecture will jump in and take over. Funky chimney treatments, little touches like a little hut, an opening to put in firewood, right by the fireplace treatment of the mantle or the hearth. Maybe there's some amber inserted glass that's still from the original ; once in a while, even the lighting fixtures. So, many homes where the owner isn't recognized as such as a fantastic story, usually the architecture jumps right in ; there's something that has survived the floor treatment. We have homes with original flagstone, original tile, you know, goes on and on. So from room to room, as we're giving the tours and highlighting these things, we can keep the audience, the visitor very interested. And that's usually very rewarding to know that these original features are still there. Peirce: Absolutely. Have you had, has there been a home that was just completely original or do they all need work at some point? Clausen: Well, we have had a few that had a remarkable amount of original features left, and that usually gets us going pretty good. Now of course, I think the thing that happens to most houses is the kitchens need updating very badly, and often the bathrooms. But we have homes where even there's been extensive remodeling, we still recognize – I'll just use Weir for example because they're so well-known – some of the weird features are cabinet treatments, maybe even the lintels on the window trim, possibly the addition of a certain shape of a breakfast nook. So, we almost always see these features survive. We haven't really had homes that were entirely gutted. We've had some pretty good luck. Peirce: That's amazing. I mean, just thinking about how homes are now and people just rip them up and then build them back up.... Clausen: They do, and some of us don't even like to watch those shows where they come into a midcentury modern home with a sledgehammer ; sometimes it's kind of creepy. Peirce: And a little upsetting, especially for someone who has been doing these kinds of tours, right? Looking at the big picture: do you feel that the tour has been successful in achieving the initial goals of what you were trying to do? Did it kind of mushroom beyond that? And if so, do you feel like there are things that you never thought were possible and things that you kind of wish you could have branched out into? Clausen: No, I think that those of us who started early on are honestly always amazed how this can sustain interest. And we're always thrilled for the feedback ; not everyone's happy on our tours, of course not. But we believe that the awareness of adobe construction and word of mouth and people wanting to see an adobe home, the inside of one, was well beyond our expectations. Absolutely. In terms of getting bigger, there's not enough of us. We think we will always have to limit our ticket sales. I mean, it'd be wonderful to run it two days. It'd be wonderful to raise more money, but there's just not enough of us. Really, I think raising people's understanding of what this construction is and what it was, and then historically its roots, you know, the adobe as construction material in California, I think we've done a pretty good job getting the message across and getting interest. Absolutely. We'd like to keep going. We hope we always have enough people and enough houses, but we think with the invitations to Carlsbad and maybe one day Rancho Santa Fe, and certainly Pauma again, Fallbrook has many adobe homes, Vista does....there are communities we still think we can keep going. Alexa Clausen discusses the process on gathering information about adobe home builds. She also mentions how they approach original homes and those that have been renovated. adobe ; architecture ; builders ; career ; original features Adobe builders ; Adobe home historical backgrounds ; Craftsman era ; Growing Adobe Home Tours 33.1192° N, 117.0864° W 17 Escondido, California 2735 Adobe Home Tours Legacy Peirce: Absolutely. My last question is, it feels like you've created something here in North County that has really kind of stood the test of time here in terms of creating something from scratch and creating something that people come back to. You have repeat customers, you have all these things. What do you hope your legacy is with Adobe Home Tours and where do you hope to see it moving forward? Clausen: Well, I think for most of us and, you know, I can't speak for everyone, but I think for most of us, the importance of having the homes preserved – this is something that's stopped in time. Of course any development is at risk, no matter what, and that the stronger we stay and the higher the appreciation is the less likely that someone will want to buy the home, and as the prices and their value increase, we feel there's a less likelihood that it would be demolished for yet a bigger investment. Although many have been. But we really, I think we'd all like to know that the core of many of these homes will remain and that they'll go another hundred years. Peirce: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Is there anything about this program or anything about your career that you feel that we haven't touched on that you'd like to talk about before we start wrapping this up? Clausen: I think we covered it pretty well. And since we have a lot of programs that are a PDF on the Adobe Home Tour website, and Don keeps posting information – he's very good about answering questions people will forward to him and he'll forward to the rest of us so we can help. I think there's a lot out there now that was not available 10 years ago, so I think anyone that's interested has a check to jump on the website and dig around a little more and if needed con to contact any of us and the steering committee small, but we're out there to just keep promoting the adobe heritage. Peirce: Absolutely. And once again, that was adobehometours.com, correct? Clausen: That's correct. Yes. Peirce: Awesome. Just so just making sure we get that plug out there. Clausen: Okay. Right. Well, Jake, thank you so much. It's been great to talk to you and thanks for taking the interest. Peirce: I appreciate that, absolutely. I want to thank you very much from the bottom of my heart for taking this much time to talk about this. It's been fascinating. Alexa Clausen talks about where she hopes to see Adobe Home Tours in ten years. She also speaks on the importance of preserving homes because they allow visitors a look into the past. adobe ; appreciation ; homes ; information ; North County Legacy of Adobe Home Tours 33.1222° N, 117.2911° W 17 North County, San Diego Oral History Alexa Clausen is one of the founders of the Adobe Home Tours in North County San Diego, providing much of the historiography of each stop on their yearly tours. She was employed as a historian with California State Parks prior to her involvement with Adobe Home Tours. In this interview, Alexa speaks about how Adobe Home Tours started, the successes and difficulties with running a program like Adobe Home Tours, and how her background with California State Parks helped prepare her for her current role. This oral history was made possible with generous funding from the Ellie Johns Foundation. Jake Peirce: I' ; m speaking today with Mrs. Alexa Clauson from the Adobe Home Tour -- among her many accomplishments -- and so I would like to start with just a little background information, if you don' ; t mind. Where are you from? What got you to where you could start with the Adobe Home Tour? Alexa Clausen: Well, thank you. And I' ; m happy to be here since we only have an hour, I' ; ll try to do the mini version. < ; affirmative> ; I grew up in Riverside, California. I got my advanced degrees in San Diego, so University of San Diego undergraduate, and then master' ; s degree at San Diego State. At the same time that I was studying, my master' ; s degree took me seven years because I was working full-time for California State Parks. So, I have a career with state parks and essentially doing local regional statewide and contextual related history for projects with state parks. So, when I retired in 2008, we had moved to Escondido in 1993, I think. And I had some friends in the history business, Lucy Burke, who was very active in historic preservation, always nagging me: When are you going to retire? You know, join us and, and all this stuff. So finally, when I did retire, I had our son -- I had him late in in life -- so he was still in elementary school, high school. So, I wasn' ; t too involved, but I did have the sense that I want to give back to the community of history because when I was working professionally without internet and all this, I was visiting people who were saving history in boxes under their beds. You know, there was some places didn' ; t have historical societies ; it was just mom and pop trying to save history. So, you know, I felt like I wanted to give back, and so I started volunteering and then, when my son was at St Mary' ; s in elementary school, there' ; s another student. His name was Sean McCoy. Well, his father, they had a little birthday party. I think they were in fifth grade, so this might go back to maybe 2004 or 2005, and he lived in Valley Center. The house was adobe, and I was really curious, but in their study there were all these houses on craftsman architecture. I looked at Tom, who' ; s just a really gregarious, hardy guy that runs a landscaping business. He' ; s Cal[ifornia] Poly[technic] [State] [University] educated and in landscaping. And I' ; m like, no, it' ; s not. It must be his wife. < ; laugh> ; So eventually at the swim party, the kids were busy and I said, " ; Hey, you know, Tom who' ; s collection of books here, you' ; re doing craftsmen?" ; Well, that unleashed Tom, and he found a soulmate in the interest. And as a few years went on, he always said there, " ; We have to do something. I go to Pasadena to the home tours and they' ; re all rooted in Green and Green Architecture, which was known for the craftsmen, but we have our own, you know, handcrafted Adobes here." ; And I' ; m like, " ; [O]kay, Tom, let' ; s do a tour." ; And he claims that, you know, I kept pushing him to, oh, won' ; t this be fun? And so the two of us kind of started Adobe Home Tour, but we were fortunate that the director Wendy Barker at the historical society wanted to go ahead and take our little idea under her wing. They had been doing garden tours, so they were familiar with parking and talking to homeowners, so we really had a jump there and we were lucky. And of course with the insurance that the Escondido History Center was all behind us. And our very first brochure was a front-to-back 8.5" ; x11" ; piece of paper off a copier, and that' ; s kind of where it started. Peirce: Well, you have to start somewhere, right? Clausen: Yeah. It' ; s funny, and of course I was thinking, " ; [O]h, he' ; ll get over it." ; You know, this is one year we had maybe 60 people come and it was word of mouth, mainly his friends and the historical society, people and friends of the homeowners, so it was really grassroots or mom and pop, whatever you want to call it. And our last tour we sold out at 500 tickets. Peirce: Wow. Clausen: Yeah. So that was the route. I came here through my training, I don' ; t own an adobe home and it was really a feeling to give back to history essentially. Peirce: Absolutely. Absolutely. Going back to your previous stops in your career with the California State Parks, was this something that was kind of in the same realm of what you were doing? Looking at architecture and looking at stuff like that and giving tours, or did you do something different while you were there? Clausen: You know, it really wasn' ; t. The historic preservation and the architecture was handled mainly by specialists, and a lot of that was rooted in the state office of historic preservation, which was like a cousin branch of State Parks and the very highly trained historians specializing in architecture. So, I was really weak and had to do a catch up self-trained. All of my projects were budget driven. For example, if they, maybe the volunteers of the Rangers wanted to do a new booklet for a visitor center and it had a historical element in it, they would budget for hours for that. Or if there' ; s a general plan, they needed a historian to do the cultural. So a lot of my jobs were just skipping around and providing research and history for whatever was budgeted and needed. And generally, if there was like an architectural survey, they were contracted out by specialist, or the state office would contract. So, during my career, for example, they did a thematic statewide survey of the Civilian Conservation Corps buildings that were still in state parks. Now they took their cue from the feds who were doing a survey in national parks and in the forest service, but again, that was handled by specialists. So, you know, while we would exchange, read material, go to the same conferences, it is a specialty that I' ; m probably not the best at, but I do provide that research for Adobe Home Tour. So, it was a different kind of specialty, yeah. Peirce: Absolutely. It sounds more like you were -- in your role with the state parks -- you were more of a jack of all trades rather than a master of specifically architecture in that field. Clausen: Oh, absolutely, and in time they umbrellaed all that under cultural resources management and it was the archeologist and the historians and sometimes the landscape architects depending on the project. Peirce: Absolutely. Given that Tom seemed to be your partner in crime in the beginning of this adventure, --and he seemed to have more of the specific knowledge when it came to the adobe tours, based on what you' ; re saying -- what would you say that was your biggest contribution to the beginning of it? Was it the organization? Was it your specific knowledge of how to provide background information? What would you say was your biggest contribution in the beginning? Clausen: Well, actually, I think Tom felt like I was just the cheerleader. < ; laugh> ; But, you know, I think it helped Tom have the confidence. With his career running a landscape business, he wasn' ; t as free to do some things, and I think he always saw me as a little bit of the conduit to the history community. He' ; s second generation -- grew up in Escondido through his business and his family -- they know every nook and cranny in the city, but Tom I think felt like I was the person that can talk to the historical society and get that connection. And then when it came to maybe talking to some families about the history of their homes -- although Wendy did a lot of it in the beginning -- in time, I took over all of that as eventually she took another job, but, you know, they had the historical society to run. I think Tom just really needed someone who talked a little more of the language to keep connected with the historical society and the history side of it. That' ; s my take, if you ever tape Tom, maybe he' ; ll have a different, < ; laugh> ; a different take on it. Peirce: < ; laugh> ; No, that' ; s absolutely fair. That takes me into something else I kind of wanted to explore with you if don' ; t mind. I' ; m very interested in how you and Wendy and Tom and everybody else who was involved -- especially in the beginning -- how you managed to convince people to take part in this project. Because like you said, a lot of these people, these aren' ; t just like " ; Oh, I own this random home that is just sitting out here for display." ; This is where people live and work and raise their families. How did you manage to convince people to take part in what you were trying to achieve? Especially in the beginning. Clausen: You know, I haven' ; t thought about it. Some of it was Tom' ; s personal contacts and he knows people who know people and he knocked on doors, and then Wendy at the historical society, they also knew people who had adobe homes and was literally making lists, like, " ; Should we call this one? Should we call that one?" ; but I have to wonder now that you brought it up if the timing was right. Garden tours were becoming very popular at the time. They were fundraisers for not just historical societies, but you know, maybe natural garden clubs. I think garden clubs maybe had a longer history of that, but history house tours were becoming popular at the time. I think a lot of that starts going backwards to the US bicentennial, where historic preservation was taking off, and I have to wonder if people who buy adobe homes sort of needed a validation. Recently he had a potluck, and I ran into a lady who said, " ; My friends tell me you' ; re crazy to have bought this home. You know, why would you live in this mud home?" ; < ; laugh> ; so maybe there' ; s just a little twinkle of wanting the validation. You know, I' ; m really taking a guess at this ; I hadn' ; t really thought about it. But I do think people had the confidence --the historical society had been doing an annual home tour and then the old neighborhood in downtown Escondido, they started doing a Mother' ; s Day home tour -- so the idea of a home tour maybe wasn' ; t as foreign had we been maybe one of the first to ever do this in Escondido. I think those two projects really made people aware and it wasn' ; t just so scary that other people were opening their houses. In the old neighborhood after COVID, it' ; ll be the first time in a few years, and they will do another Mother' ; s Day home tour, and I think they' ; re on their like 25th anniversary. And the historical society, they partnered with that, so they had the experience also and word of mouth that this isn' ; t kind of some creepy people knocking on the door saying, " ; Whoa, you know, what you can do is clean up your house and let people in." ; So, I really didn' ; t think about it and it' ; s not scientific by any manner, but I think there is an opening and I find that Adobe Home Tours love the validation. They love to know that other people, once they' ; ve seen their house, they get it. They really think it' ; s something special. That' ; s just my take on it. Peirce: Absolutely. I mean, that makes complete sense. One question I did have as well: was there any sort of impetus? Was this just organic? You just happened to bring this up and it just kind of grew up? Or was there any sort of given that some people want that validation, right? A lot of people may not want to live in this kind of home. Was there any sort of preservation or were these houses being torn down or was there any sort of event like that that was kind of like, " ; Man, maybe we should foster some sort of appreciation within the region to make sure that we keep this history alive a little bit." ; ? Clausen: You know, I think that became one of our causes or mantras or whatever is as we backed into this -- like just a couple of mom and pop < ; laugh> ; people with no experience but some dumb luck and some decent connections -- is that as these homes aged, and of course, in the history of a lot of the homes, the midcentury, the builders and the real estate developers, they picked out, we call it ' ; cherry picked' ; the lots. You could go into orange groves and carve out incredible views -- and many of the adobe homes have incredible views -- and I believe that before property values really started to skyrocket that they were at risk because once you have an incredible view, then you know, we came the era of McMansions. This is happening in cities everywhere: Los Angeles and San Francisco are some of the worst cases where the beautiful Spanish revival homes are gone. They' ; re bulldozed for these -- you know, it' ; s probably not polite to call McMansions ; someone coined that phrase for overbloated size of houses with great views. I think we all, the core of us that worked on this had the feeling that they were at risk. The other timing of this is many homes are not eligible for Mills Act and historic preservation review unless they' ; ve reached 50 years old. Now, many of the adobes that were in the midcentury revival, the boom that started with the edges of Longview Acres and up and down here in the Via Rancho Parkway area around Felicita Park, Adobe homes were starting to be built in the late forties and into the fifties. If the home had not reached 50 years old, it was not eligible for review as a candidate for a higher level of putting out on a register for review and protection. There' ; s no guarantee, but I think that the age started working for us as these homes were turning fifty and the appreciation with the old neighborhood and appreciation everywhere was starting to grow and the concern for being bulldozed. So it' ; s almost like you had a little bit of a perfect storm coming in for the recognition of an adobe home, and they did stop construction by state law in the eighties. So, then another one of our " ; Gee, you, you' ; re not going to see these again. You have a chance to really see something special." ; Peirce: Was there a reason that they stopped the construction at that point? Was it just not feasible for like a, what is it, like an earthquake code or something like that? Clausen: Well, I talked to several builders. George Patterson when he was living and then Mike Burton, whose father and grandfather -- Hiram Smith his grandfather and then Don Burton his father -- they had no concerns about earthquakes. They were using a lot of rebar and the adobe block by that time had added a petroleum-based product developed in the late thirties and through the war time, so adobe block now was solid construction. I was told it was all about thermal and insulation. Both builders said it was an argument with the state of California with, I don' ; t know, engineering approval people that went down to the county, that an adobe will take in thermal heating, you know, it takes three days to warm up and, you know, on and on, and they refused to approve adobe construction based on that. The other thing the builder said is that the labor became too costly ; you had labor, construction workers still willing up to a certain time to take and build these, you know, carry these blocks and do this kind of labor. It was easier to get a job somewhere else, and it didn' ; t, you know, literally break your back. So between the rise of cost of labor -- and then in Escondido, the adobe block yard went out of business ; the blocks now had to be shipped from Fresno or elsewhere -- and it became just too costly to build. So, it was all those things. Peirce: Yeah. That makes sense. You know, it tends to go when things become cost prohibitive, it definitely will stop people in their tracks and in terms of doing that kind of stuff. Clausen: Right. So that ended adobe construction in California, because of course there still is adobe construction in New Mexico, Arizona, and globally, for that matter, you know, worldwide. The adobe is still a popular way to build a cheap way if you have the labor. Peirce: Yeah, absolutely. Seeing that this isn' ; t the only place where Adobe houses were built -- and are built even to this day -- as you guys kind of built this program and as it continued to grow, was there any sort of view of trying to expand to a larger area or working with other tours if they existed in places like New Mexico, to try and collaborate in any way? Or was this a very grassroots, " ; We' ; re sticking where we are and just kind of making this grow naturally where it is?" ; Clausen: Well, I think we would' ; ve loved to become a bigger, wider organization, but it all comes down to volunteers. And as you know, a lot of this, unless you' ; re a paid staff putting on something like this-- Although we were thrilled: we had a tour in Pauma Valley a few years ago, we' ; ve been invited to work with Valley Center Historical Society ; there' ; s a number of adobes there. We were also invited through Dominic Calarco who supervises the park system in Carlsbad ; they would like to feature Leo Carillo and find some adobe homeowners there. So, we do have an interest, very North County interested people, and we' ; d like to do that, and then it keeps it from being boring Escondido ; not boring, but, you know, you do sort of run out of homes or people that are willing. We do have bigger interest, and we know that people have traveled from Los Angeles and from other places to come and see the homes and be on the tour. In an ideal world? Yeah, wouldn' ; t it be neat to have this grand old, famous tour? You know, some cities do -- the Palm Springs mid-century modern tour is just crazy famous, the Pasadena tours are -- but we' ; re restricted now by just a small group of volunteers. Peirce: Absolutely. Yeah, it can be difficult even with that outside interest when you don' ; t have the facility to make it happen, whether it' ; s personnel or whatever. There' ; s always a friction, there' ; s always that rub that kind of keeps you from doing more, even if there' ; s the interest. Did you take anything from other tours? Did you learn from them? Or did you go, " ; We want to do something different. We want to kind of stick to our own program here?" ; Clausen: You know, the way I think this evolved, with a number of our Adobe homeowners haved jumped in after their home was on the tour to take a role and to help out. And so, for example, our current webmaster, Don, he took over the website. Intense interest in adobe, and really likes to post a lot of stuff, even adobe homes for sale. And then we had a lady -- Mary Del May -- she had taken over for Wendy in 2015 I want to say, I' ; ll have to look it up, and professionalized it, and Tom ; all of them have been on other home tours. So, I think what they brought to the table was things they liked, like, " ; Gee, you know, it was nice when we had a booklet, a full booklet and, you know, we could cut costs by having sponsor pages. That' ; ll help the printing if we do a bigger booklet." ; So, our homeowners who jumped in, I think they did bring experience from things they liked going on other tours. Then as we planned this, I think some things from other tours come in like don' ; t let people stand too long. " ; Oh, we were in Tucson. We had to wait 45 minutes, but they sold cocktails." ; < ; laugh> ; We' ; re like, oh, we can' ; t sell cocktails, but you know, we do have these, yeah. I think that everyone who has participated brings what they like, and they don' ; t like, suggestions, they work, they don' ; t, we' ; ve tried some things. So yeah, I' ; d say that we have benefited from other tours. Peirce: And it also sounds like you' ; ve benefited from, as you' ; ve done this program, collaborating with some of the people that have owned these homes, right? Like you said earlier-- Clausen: Oh, absolutely. Peirce: It sounds like that' ; s really been honestly, and correct me if I' ; m wrong, kind of the heart of the program as it' ; s moved forward. Clausen: It really was helpful because in order to invite and ask people " ; Would you have your home on the tour?" ; They' ; re shaking in their boots and to have other homeowners say, look, here' ; s some information, which they' ; ve developed a little " ; Hello, homeowner, potential homeowner. This is what we did, little hit lists of this is what happens." ; And then we also developed a security docent guide and docent stations. And that came out of the feedback from the homeowners to pace our volunteers throughout the home and allow people not to wander through on their own, but in groups as a group tour. And a lot of this came from the feedback of the homeowners wanting a little more security, a little more confidence, and most of the kind of tips for, " ; Hey, do you want to be on our tour," ; came from the other homeowners. Absolutely. You know, lessons learned or could have, should have, would have. It' ; s always a little growing thing. I think you' ; re right. I think that this definitely comes from within. Peirce: Absolutely, and that' ; s incredible, right? To really get that kind of support from people who see what the benefit is of highlighting this stuff, and just kind of doing that because it not only gets people to participate, but it brings their energy and their enthusiasm along with it. Speaking of enthusiasm, I know that there has been concern in some sectors of historians who are worried about people not being interested in history, people being ignorant of history. What efforts, if any, do you guys have to put in to get people interested in this part of history? Was there any sort of education that you had to put out? Did you have to teach people about this stuff? Did you find any struggles in getting people to come at any point? Or was this something that kind of once people heard about it, they were like " ; I' ; d like to learn more about that" ; or did you fight any struggles? Clausen: You know, we' ; re always amazed at how easy this comes. I think being in the San Diego drivable region, that we' ; re lucky because we are a county where we can still on a Sunday, get somewhere without a lot of trouble, and we do have the support of....like I mentioned, a lot of other historical societies have done garden tours, home tours, many cities have. And so people that love it, we find from our ticket holders, are a very strange combination with flat out " ; looky loos" ; : people that want to remodel their kitchen and they want to see others, as realtors are being a little more cautious about appointments and who comes in -- for good reason, not to waste their time and security. So we have the people that just love to see other people' ; s homes, and then we have just very hardcore interested -- either mid-century modern architecture, maybe even students of architecture, and hobbyists -- they are there for the architecture. We have a pretty neat little group of people interested in the garden now. Not every home is going to have a fancy garden -- not by any means -- but they' ; re there primarily to see the garden and enjoy the garden. And then we do have history buffs ; like that' ; s what I' ; m just labeling people that love the history. Then year by year, we' ; ve tried to pick a theme. LIke last year: " ; The Romance of the Rancho" ; where we just call it out that maybe some of this is California fantasy, you know, and the places were carved out of orange groves, they' ; re close to the earth. In some cases, the adobe block was made right there, right on the acreage that was formed and bulldozed, lot of use of heavy beams, sort of that romance of the Rancho. So we' ; ve brought that up. In Pauma, we had a chance to talk about the Luiseños building the Pauma mission. We had that be one of our stops and made sure that we arranged to include that. A lot of people told us, " ; You know, we' ; ve always heard about Pauma Mission and we' ; ve never gone. It was a chance to go out there." ; Um, so we always get a very different mix, but always a mix of people. The strong elements that we always bask in is the people interested in the architecture, and of course, in the history. But I think some of this is people come along, they will read our booklet or the docents will tell them something and we feel there' ; s an appreciation for the historic preservation that leaves every tour. Peirce: Absolutely. It' ; s fascinating, right? You really have to find your niche and it sounds like this program really has found it in just a wide spectrum of people who are trying to see what you guys are displaying out there. You brought up how not every home has a garden or anything like that. Is there any sort of prerequisite to being on a tour for any of these houses or is it literally just, " ; Hey, you' ; re an adobe house, you can be on it." ; Are you a little choosy? How does that specifically work where you decide what goes on each tour? Clausen: We do have some levels. We' ; ve had some very simple, honest homes and then we' ; ve had some just outrageously beautiful homes from adobe. In some cases we' ; ve had to turn people down because in the times they were built the driveways and the parking are impossible. There still are a lot of niches around the Escondido area where they were carved out of an old orange or avocado grove and the parking and the in and out is just out of the question. So that' ; s always a consideration, although we' ; ve had some pretty narrow tight squeezes. Some homes, once we' ; ve talked to the homeowners, they say, you know, we' ; re really not ready. We would like our home to be, uh, a little closer to ready. They often bought the adobe as a fixer upper, but as everyone knows, it takes time and money and planning, and we' ; ve had homeowners who' ; ve come back and say, you know, now we' ; re ready. In some cases, we had to turn down people because they were just way too out of the way. I' ; ll give you an example: last tour we had on the edge of Rancho Santa Fe the Osuna adobe, and then a home in Del Dios and then across Escondido, just behind the mall, two homes in that general area -- that were drivable. I think we had a house offer way on Deer Springs Road. And so John -- our webmaster -- sometimes he would take and calculate the mileage, and then if you' ; re 25 minutes one way and the only home out there, we would think that the homeowner would get gypped, you know, people would just say " ; Let' ; s just go get lunch. We won' ; t drive out there." ; So we' ; ve tried to save some of the names and the addresses, so we could do a closer cluster of homes and hopefully we haven' ; t missed out on anyone yet, and hanging onto names lets us be able to do that. We' ; ve had people who, as they' ; ve moved forward, say we just can' ; t do this, you know, family circumstances or everyone just couldn' ; t get on board. You know, a lot of things we expect could happen. We' ; ve gotten two thirds of the way and we' ; ve had people bail for very legitimate, understandable reasons. In a few cases, we' ; ve had previous homes on the tour again. We' ; ve had a few homes in that circumstance where an owner stepped up and a lot of times they' ; ve made changes. They' ; ve learned more about their home and it was enough years for our ticket holders. We have a lot of new ticket holders, so they' ; re not saying, oh, we just saw that home. So yeah, I think there' ; s been a combination of how we get there when the doors open. Peirce: Absolutely. So the individual houses, are the owners responsible for the histography of the tour for those places? Do you guys assist? How does that collaboration work? Clausen: In the last five years, I think I' ; ve done the majority of the history. In a lot of cases though, with new owners, sometimes we' ; ve gotten really lucky. They' ; re walking their dog, they run into an old timer from the neighborhood, you know, someone who has lived there 40 years, and they' ; d come back as we' ; re developing the history of their home, or they' ; d get a lead: a phone number of someone who knew who still own the home. So we' ; ve had a combination. I' ; d say maybe I do easily 70 to 75% of the research, and then 25% comes in from a lot of odd places and on occasion the homeowner themselves. So yeah, I think I' ; ve been doing most of it. For the internal side of it, the docent guide, then we lean on the homeowner for their remodel or what they were told about the remodel. If they have a newer kitchen maybe put in in the late eighties -- they were told about it by the realtor -- the docent on the kitchen stop will let people know what they' ; re looking at. I' ; d say I' ; ve done a good portion of the research. Peirce: Awesome. Has that been a struggle as well, given that some of these houses - I don' ; t wanna say they' ; re not important, right? They are important, they' ; re historical in their own way. But it' ; s not like Greta Garbo lived there ; they' ; re just regular homes in Escondido. Has that been difficult to gather that information? Clausen: You know, I' ; ve been stuck on homes for variety of reasons. Sometimes what happens is, let' ; s say the homeowner had the adobe built for themselves and they worked the rest of their career at a conveyor belt as an engineer and retired, and perhaps their spouse was a schoolteacher and, you know, very wonderful everyday people. When we actually go look at the house, we generally will start finding jewels on some of the architecture. I think we' ; ve been pretty fortunate to have builders who have included architecture to keep the story going. This will be the treatment of the open beams or the fireplaces. Very often, we' ; ve had wonderful surviving fireplaces that were not remodeled ; they' ; re still there. We' ; ve had homes where the windows were yet not removed ; they were still the old aluminum encasement crank windows, really neat, like ribbon style. It would even be the placement of arches, you know, opening the arch of one room into the next. The unbelievable plate glass windows from floor to ceiling, capturing a style that is brought in from the craftsman era -- Cliff May, who has been considered the father of the ranch house style that became mid-century and popularized -- how they took the sense of bringing the outdoor to the edge of the indoor. The adobe builders in the mid-century -- we' ; ve found the Weir brothers and others -- they will do that plate glass window with the view, right from the bottom, right to the edge of the eaves with phenomenal views, taking advantage and placing the home on that view. Without a doubt, the architecture will jump in and take over. Funky chimney treatments, little touches like a little hut, an opening to put in firewood, right by the fireplace treatment of the mantle or the hearth. Maybe there' ; s some amber inserted glass that' ; s still from the original ; once in a while, even the lighting fixtures. So, many homes where the owner isn' ; t recognized as such as a fantastic story, usually the architecture jumps right in ; there' ; s something that has survived the floor treatment. We have homes with original flagstone, original tile, you know, goes on and on. So from room to room, as we' ; re giving the tours and highlighting these things, we can keep the audience, the visitor very interested. And that' ; s usually very rewarding to know that these original features are still there. Peirce: Absolutely. Have you had, has there been a home that was just completely original or do they all need work at some point? Clausen: Well, we have had a few that had a remarkable amount of original features left, and that usually gets us going pretty good. Now of course, I think the thing that happens to most houses is the kitchens need updating very badly, and often the bathrooms. But we have homes where even there' ; s been extensive remodeling, we still recognize -- I' ; ll just use Weir for example because they' ; re so well-known -- some of the weird features are cabinet treatments, maybe even the lintels on the window trim, possibly the addition of a certain shape of a breakfast nook. So, we almost always see these features survive. We haven' ; t really had homes that were entirely gutted. We' ; ve had some pretty good luck. Peirce: That' ; s amazing. I mean, just thinking about how homes are now and people just rip them up and then build them back up.... Clausen: They do, and some of us don' ; t even like to watch those shows where they come into a midcentury modern home with a sledgehammer ; sometimes it' ; s kind of creepy. Peirce: And a little upsetting, especially for someone who has been doing these kinds of tours, right? Looking at the big picture: do you feel that the tour has been successful in achieving the initial goals of what you were trying to do? Did it kind of mushroom beyond that? And if so, do you feel like there are things that you never thought were possible and things that you kind of wish you could have branched out into? Clausen: No, I think that those of us who started early on are honestly always amazed how this can sustain interest. And we' ; re always thrilled for the feedback ; not everyone' ; s happy on our tours, of course not. But we believe that the awareness of adobe construction and word of mouth and people wanting to see an adobe home, the inside of one, was well beyond our expectations. Absolutely. In terms of getting bigger, there' ; s not enough of us. We think we will always have to limit our ticket sales. I mean, it' ; d be wonderful to run it two days. It' ; d be wonderful to raise more money, but there' ; s just not enough of us. Really, I think raising people' ; s understanding of what this construction is and what it was, and then historically its roots, you know, the adobe as construction material in California, I think we' ; ve done a pretty good job getting the message across and getting interest. Absolutely. We' ; d like to keep going. We hope we always have enough people and enough houses, but we think with the invitations to Carlsbad and maybe one day Rancho Santa Fe, and certainly Pauma again, Fallbrook has many adobe homes, Vista does....there are communities we still think we can keep going. Peirce: Absolutely. My last question is, it feels like you' ; ve created something here in North County that has really kind of stood the test of time here in terms of creating something from scratch and creating something that people come back to. You have repeat customers, you have all these things. What do you hope your legacy is with Adobe Home Tours and where do you hope to see it moving forward? Clausen: Well, I think for most of us and, you know, I can' ; t speak for everyone, but I think for most of us, the importance of having the homes preserved -- this is something that' ; s stopped in time. Of course any development is at risk, no matter what, and that the stronger we stay and the higher the appreciation is the less likely that someone will want to buy the home, and as the prices and their value increase, we feel there' ; s a less likelihood that it would be demolished for yet a bigger investment. Although many have been. But we really, I think we' ; d all like to know that the core of many of these homes will remain and that they' ; ll go another hundred years. Peirce: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Is there anything about this program or anything about your career that you feel that we haven' ; t touched on that you' ; d like to talk about before we start wrapping this up? Clausen: I think we covered it pretty well. And since we have a lot of programs that are a PDF on the Adobe Home Tour website, and Don keeps posting information -- he' ; s very good about answering questions people will forward to him and he' ; ll forward to the rest of us so we can help. I think there' ; s a lot out there now that was not available 10 years ago, so I think anyone that' ; s interested has a check to jump on the website and dig around a little more and if needed con to contact any of us and the steering committee small, but we' ; re out there to just keep promoting the adobe heritage. Peirce: Absolutely. And once again, that was adobehometours.com, correct? Clausen: That' ; s correct. Yes. Peirce: Awesome. Just so just making sure we get that plug out there. Clausen: Okay. Right. Well, Jake, thank you so much. It' ; s been great to talk to you and thanks for taking the interest. Peirce: I appreciate that, absolutely. I want to thank you very much from the bottom of my heart for taking this much time to talk about this. It' ; s been fascinating. https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en audio Property rights reside with the university. Copyrights are retained by the creators of the records and their heirs. This resource is licensed for noncommercial educational use using CC NC-BY 4.0. Please contact Special Collections at archives
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Title
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Clausen, Alexa. Interview April 12, 2022
Description
An account of the resource
Alexa Clausen is one of the founders of the Adobe Home Tours in North County San Diego, providing much of the historiography of each stop on their yearly tours. She was employed as a historian with California State Parks prior to her involvement with Adobe Home Tours. In this interview, Alexa speaks about how Adobe Home Tours started, the successes and difficulties with running a program like Adobe Home Tours, and how her background with California State Parks helped prepare her for her current role. This oral history was made possible with generous funding from the Ellie Johns Foundation.
Identifier
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SC027-15
Subject
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Adobe houses
Historic buildings -- Conservation and restoration.
Date
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2022-04-12
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audio
Coverage
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San Diego County (Calif.)
Publisher
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California State University San Marcos University Library
Language
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English
Rights Holder
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Alexa Clausen
Creator
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Alexa Clausen
Contributor
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Jacob Peirce
Community history
History Department internship
Women's experience
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https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/c59f8053d23c1136aee09f68020277ec.pdf
6cb14bd4ab0132b818c6e2422620a6fc
PDF Text
Text
ALEXA CLAUSEN
TRANSCRIPT, INTERVIEW,
2022-04-12
Jake Peirce:
I'm speaking today with Mrs. Alexa Clauson from the Adobe Home Tour – among her many
accomplishments – and so I would like to start with just a little background information, if you don't
mind. Where are you from? What got you to where you could start with the Adobe Home Tour?
Alexa Clausen:
Well, thank you. And I'm happy to be here since we only have an hour, I'll try to do the mini version.
<affirmative> I grew up in Riverside, California. I got my advanced degrees in San Diego, so University of
San Diego undergraduate, and then master's degree at San Diego State. At the same time that I was
studying, my master's degree took me seven years because I was working full-time for California State
Parks. So, I have a career with state parks and essentially doing local regional statewide and contextual
related history for projects with state parks. So, when I retired in 2008, we had moved to Escondido in
1993, I think. And I had some friends in the history business, Lucy Burke, who was very active in historic
preservation, always nagging me: When are you going to retire? You know, join us and, and all this stuff.
So finally, when I did retire, I had our son – I had him late in in life – so he was still in elementary school,
high school. So, I wasn't too involved, but I did have the sense that I want to give back to the community
of history because when I was working professionally without internet and all this, I was visiting people
who were saving history in boxes under their beds. You know, there was some places didn't have
historical societies; it was just mom and pop trying to save history. So, you know, I felt like I wanted to
give back, and so I started volunteering and then, when my son was at St Mary's in elementary school,
there's another student. His name was Sean McCoy. Well, his father, they had a little birthday party. I
think they were in fifth grade, so this might go back to maybe 2004 or 2005, and he lived in Valley
Center. The house was adobe, and I was really curious, but in their study there were all these houses on
craftsman architecture. I looked at Tom, who's just a really gregarious, hardy guy that runs a landscaping
business. He's Cal[ifornia] Poly[technic] [State] [University] educated and in landscaping. And I'm like,
no, it's not. It must be his wife. <laugh> So eventually at the swim party, the kids were busy and I said,
“Hey, you know, Tom who's collection of books here, you're doing craftsmen?” Well, that unleashed
Tom, and he found a soulmate in the interest. And as a few years went on, he always said there, “We
have to do something. I go to Pasadena to the home tours and they're all rooted in Green and Green
Architecture, which was known for the craftsmen, but we have our own, you know, handcrafted Adobes
here.” And I'm like, “[O]kay, Tom, let's do a tour.” And he claims that, you know, I kept pushing him to,
oh, won't this be fun? And so the two of us kind of started Adobe Home Tour, but we were fortunate
that the director Wendy Barker at the historical society wanted to go ahead and take our little idea
under her wing. They had been doing garden tours, so they were familiar with parking and talking to
homeowners, so we really had a jump there and we were lucky. And of course with the insurance that
the Escondido History Center was all behind us. And our very first brochure was a front-to-back 8.5”x11”
piece of paper off a copier, and that's kind of where it started.
Peirce:
Well, you have to start somewhere, right?
Clausen:
Yeah. It's funny, and of course I was thinking, “[O]h, he'll get over it.” You know, this is one year we had
maybe 60 people come and it was word of mouth, mainly his friends and the historical society, people
and friends of the homeowners, so it was really grassroots or mom and pop, whatever you want to call
it. And our last tour we sold out at 500 tickets.
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Peirce:
Wow.
Clausen:
Yeah. So that was the route. I came here through my training, I don't own an adobe home and it was
really a feeling to give back to history essentially.
Peirce:
Absolutely. Absolutely. Going back to your previous stops in your career with the California State Parks,
was this something that was kind of in the same realm of what you were doing? Looking at architecture
and looking at stuff like that and giving tours, or did you do something different while you were there?
Clausen:
You know, it really wasn't. The historic preservation and the architecture was handled mainly by
specialists, and a lot of that was rooted in the state office of historic preservation, which was like a
cousin branch of State Parks and the very highly trained historians specializing in architecture. So, I was
really weak and had to do a catch up self-trained. All of my projects were budget driven. For example, if
they, maybe the volunteers of the Rangers wanted to do a new booklet for a visitor center and it had a
historical element in it, they would budget for hours for that. Or if there's a general plan, they needed a
historian to do the cultural. So a lot of my jobs were just skipping around and providing research and
history for whatever was budgeted and needed. And generally, if there was like an architectural survey,
they were contracted out by specialist, or the state office would contract. So, during my career, for
example, they did a thematic statewide survey of the Civilian Conservation Corps buildings that were
still in state parks. Now they took their cue from the feds who were doing a survey in national parks and
in the forest service, but again, that was handled by specialists. So, you know, while we would exchange,
read material, go to the same conferences, it is a specialty that I'm probably not the best at, but I do
provide that research for Adobe Home Tour. So, it was a different kind of specialty, yeah.
Peirce:
Absolutely. It sounds more like you were – in your role with the state parks – you were more of a jack of
all trades rather than a master of specifically architecture in that field.
Clausen:
Oh, absolutely, and in time they umbrellaed all that under cultural resources management and it was
the archeologist and the historians and sometimes the landscape architects depending on the project.
Peirce:
Absolutely. Given that Tom seemed to be your partner in crime in the beginning of this adventure, –and
he seemed to have more of the specific knowledge when it came to the adobe tours, based on what
you're saying – what would you say that was your biggest contribution to the beginning of it? Was it the
organization? Was it your specific knowledge of how to provide background information? What would
you say was your biggest contribution in the beginning?
Clausen:
Well, actually, I think Tom felt like I was just the cheerleader. <laugh> But, you know, I think it helped
Tom have the confidence. With his career running a landscape business, he wasn't as free to do some
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things, and I think he always saw me as a little bit of the conduit to the history community. He's second
generation – grew up in Escondido through his business and his family – they know every nook and
cranny in the city, but Tom I think felt like I was the person that can talk to the historical society and get
that connection. And then when it came to maybe talking to some families about the history of their
homes – although Wendy did a lot of it in the beginning – in time, I took over all of that as eventually she
took another job, but, you know, they had the historical society to run. I think Tom just really needed
someone who talked a little more of the language to keep connected with the historical society and the
history side of it. That's my take, if you ever tape Tom, maybe he'll have a different, <laugh> a different
take on it.
Peirce:
<laugh> No, that's absolutely fair. That takes me into something else I kind of wanted to explore with
you if don't mind. I'm very interested in how you and Wendy and Tom and everybody else who was
involved – especially in the beginning – how you managed to convince people to take part in this
project. Because like you said, a lot of these people, these aren't just like “Oh, I own this random home
that is just sitting out here for display.” This is where people live and work and raise their families. How
did you manage to convince people to take part in what you were trying to achieve? Especially in the
beginning.
Clausen:
You know, I haven't thought about it. Some of it was Tom's personal contacts and he knows people who
know people and he knocked on doors, and then Wendy at the historical society, they also knew people
who had adobe homes and was literally making lists, like, “Should we call this one? Should we call that
one?” but I have to wonder now that you brought it up if the timing was right. Garden tours were
becoming very popular at the time. They were fundraisers for not just historical societies, but you know,
maybe natural garden clubs. I think garden clubs maybe had a longer history of that, but history house
tours were becoming popular at the time. I think a lot of that starts going backwards to the US
bicentennial, where historic preservation was taking off, and I have to wonder if people who buy adobe
homes sort of needed a validation. Recently he had a potluck, and I ran into a lady who said, “My friends
tell me you're crazy to have bought this home. You know, why would you live in this mud home?”
<laugh> so maybe there's just a little twinkle of wanting the validation. You know, I'm really taking a
guess at this; I hadn't really thought about it. But I do think people had the confidence –the historical
society had been doing an annual home tour and then the old neighborhood in downtown Escondido,
they started doing a Mother's Day home tour – so the idea of a home tour maybe wasn't as foreign had
we been maybe one of the first to ever do this in Escondido. I think those two projects really made
people aware and it wasn't just so scary that other people were opening their houses. In the old
neighborhood after COVID, it'll be the first time in a few years, and they will do another Mother's Day
home tour, and I think they're on their like 25th anniversary. And the historical society, they partnered
with that, so they had the experience also and word of mouth that this isn't kind of some creepy people
knocking on the door saying, “Whoa, you know, what you can do is clean up your house and let people
in.” So, I really didn't think about it and it's not scientific by any manner, but I think there is an opening
and I find that Adobe Home Tours love the validation. They love to know that other people, once they've
seen their house, they get it. They really think it's something special. That's just my take on it.
Peirce:
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Absolutely. I mean, that makes complete sense. One question I did have as well: was there any sort of
impetus? Was this just organic? You just happened to bring this up and it just kind of grew up? Or was
there any sort of given that some people want that validation, right? A lot of people may not want to
live in this kind of home. Was there any sort of preservation or were these houses being torn down or
was there any sort of event like that that was kind of like, “Man, maybe we should foster some sort of
appreciation within the region to make sure that we keep this history alive a little bit.”?
Clausen:
You know, I think that became one of our causes or mantras or whatever is as we backed into this – like
just a couple of mom and pop <laugh> people with no experience but some dumb luck and some decent
connections – is that as these homes aged, and of course, in the history of a lot of the homes, the
midcentury, the builders and the real estate developers, they picked out, we call it ‘cherry picked’ the
lots. You could go into orange groves and carve out incredible views – and many of the adobe homes
have incredible views – and I believe that before property values really started to skyrocket that they
were at risk because once you have an incredible view, then you know, we came the era of
McMansions. This is happening in cities everywhere: Los Angeles and San Francisco are some of the
worst cases where the beautiful Spanish revival homes are gone. They're bulldozed for these – you
know, it's probably not polite to call McMansions; someone coined that phrase for overbloated size of
houses with great views. I think we all, the core of us that worked on this had the feeling that they were
at risk. The other timing of this is many homes are not eligible for Mills Act and historic preservation
review unless they've reached 50 years old. Now, many of the adobes that were in the midcentury
revival, the boom that started with the edges of Longview Acres and up and down here in the Via
Rancho Parkway area around Felicita Park, Adobe homes were starting to be built in the late forties and
into the fifties. If the home had not reached 50 years old, it was not eligible for review as a candidate for
a higher level of putting out on a register for review and protection. There's no guarantee, but I think
that the age started working for us as these homes were turning fifty and the appreciation with the old
neighborhood and appreciation everywhere was starting to grow and the concern for being bulldozed.
So it's almost like you had a little bit of a perfect storm coming in for the recognition of an adobe home,
and they did stop construction by state law in the eighties. So, then another one of our “Gee, you,
you're not going to see these again. You have a chance to really see something special.”
Peirce:
Was there a reason that they stopped the construction at that point? Was it just not feasible for like a,
what is it, like an earthquake code or something like that?
Clausen:
Well, I talked to several builders. George Patterson when he was living and then Mike Burton, whose
father and grandfather – Hiram Smith his grandfather and then Don Burton his father – they had no
concerns about earthquakes. They were using a lot of rebar and the adobe block by that time had added
a petroleum-based product developed in the late thirties and through the war time, so adobe block now
was solid construction. I was told it was all about thermal and insulation. Both builders said it was an
argument with the state of California with, I don't know, engineering approval people that went down to
the county, that an adobe will take in thermal heating, you know, it takes three days to warm up and,
you know, on and on, and they refused to approve adobe construction based on that. The other thing
the builder said is that the labor became too costly; you had labor, construction workers still willing up
to a certain time to take and build these, you know, carry these blocks and do this kind of labor. It was
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easier to get a job somewhere else, and it didn't, you know, literally break your back. So between the
rise of cost of labor – and then in Escondido, the adobe block yard went out of business; the blocks now
had to be shipped from Fresno or elsewhere – and it became just too costly to build. So, it was all those
things.
Peirce:
Yeah. That makes sense. You know, it tends to go when things become cost prohibitive, it definitely will
stop people in their tracks and in terms of doing that kind of stuff.
Clausen:
Right. So that ended adobe construction in California, because of course there still is adobe construction
in New Mexico, Arizona, and globally, for that matter, you know, worldwide. The adobe is still a popular
way to build a cheap way if you have the labor.
Peirce:
Yeah, absolutely. Seeing that this isn't the only place where Adobe houses were built – and are built
even to this day – as you guys kind of built this program and as it continued to grow, was there any sort
of view of trying to expand to a larger area or working with other tours if they existed in places like New
Mexico, to try and collaborate in any way? Or was this a very grassroots, “We’re sticking where we are
and just kind of making this grow naturally where it is?”
Clausen:
Well, I think we would've loved to become a bigger, wider organization, but it all comes down to
volunteers. And as you know, a lot of this, unless you're a paid staff putting on something like this-Although we were thrilled: we had a tour in Pauma Valley a few years ago, we've been invited to work
with Valley Center Historical Society; there's a number of adobes there. We were also invited through
Dominic Calarco who supervises the park system in Carlsbad; they would like to feature Leo Carillo and
find some adobe homeowners there. So, we do have an interest, very North County interested people,
and we'd like to do that, and then it keeps it from being boring Escondido; not boring, but, you know,
you do sort of run out of homes or people that are willing. We do have bigger interest, and we know
that people have traveled from Los Angeles and from other places to come and see the homes and be
on the tour. In an ideal world? Yeah, wouldn’t it be neat to have this grand old, famous tour? You know,
some cities do – the Palm Springs mid-century modern tour is just crazy famous, the Pasadena tours are
– but we're restricted now by just a small group of volunteers.
Peirce:
Absolutely. Yeah, it can be difficult even with that outside interest when you don't have the facility to
make it happen, whether it's personnel or whatever. There's always a friction, there's always that rub
that kind of keeps you from doing more, even if there's the interest. Did you take anything from other
tours? Did you learn from them? Or did you go, “We want to do something different. We want to kind of
stick to our own program here?”
Clausen:
You know, the way I think this evolved, with a number of our Adobe homeowners haved jumped in after
their home was on the tour to take a role and to help out. And so, for example, our current webmaster,
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Don, he took over the website. Intense interest in adobe, and really likes to post a lot of stuff, even
adobe homes for sale. And then we had a lady – Mary Del May – she had taken over for Wendy in 2015 I
want to say, I'll have to look it up, and professionalized it, and Tom; all of them have been on other
home tours. So, I think what they brought to the table was things they liked, like, “Gee, you know, it was
nice when we had a booklet, a full booklet and, you know, we could cut costs by having sponsor pages.
That'll help the printing if we do a bigger booklet.” So, our homeowners who jumped in, I think they did
bring experience from things they liked going on other tours. Then as we planned this, I think some
things from other tours come in like don't let people stand too long. “Oh, we were in Tucson. We had to
wait 45 minutes, but they sold cocktails.” <laugh> We're like, oh, we can't sell cocktails, but you know,
we do have these, yeah. I think that everyone who has participated brings what they like, and they don't
like, suggestions, they work, they don't, we've tried some things. So yeah, I'd say that we have benefited
from other tours.
Peirce:
And it also sounds like you've benefited from, as you've done this program, collaborating with some of
the people that have owned these homes, right? Like you said earlier-Clausen:
Oh, absolutely.
Peirce:
It sounds like that's really been honestly, and correct me if I'm wrong, kind of the heart of the program
as it's moved forward.
Clausen:
It really was helpful because in order to invite and ask people “Would you have your home on the tour?”
They're shaking in their boots and to have other homeowners say, look, here's some information, which
they've developed a little “Hello, homeowner, potential homeowner. This is what we did, little hit lists of
this is what happens.” And then we also developed a security docent guide and docent stations. And
that came out of the feedback from the homeowners to pace our volunteers throughout the home and
allow people not to wander through on their own, but in groups as a group tour. And a lot of this came
from the feedback of the homeowners wanting a little more security, a little more confidence, and most
of the kind of tips for, “Hey, do you want to be on our tour,” came from the other homeowners.
Absolutely. You know, lessons learned or could have, should have, would have. It's always a little
growing thing. I think you're right. I think that this definitely comes from within.
Peirce:
Absolutely, and that's incredible, right? To really get that kind of support from people who see what the
benefit is of highlighting this stuff, and just kind of doing that because it not only gets people to
participate, but it brings their energy and their enthusiasm along with it. Speaking of enthusiasm, I know
that there has been concern in some sectors of historians who are worried about people not being
interested in history, people being ignorant of history. What efforts, if any, do you guys have to put in to
get people interested in this part of history? Was there any sort of education that you had to put out?
Did you have to teach people about this stuff? Did you find any struggles in getting people to come at
any point? Or was this something that kind of once people heard about it, they were like “I'd like to
learn more about that” or did you fight any struggles?
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Clausen:
You know, we're always amazed at how easy this comes. I think being in the San Diego drivable region,
that we're lucky because we are a county where we can still on a Sunday, get somewhere without a lot
of trouble, and we do have the support of... like I mentioned, a lot of other historical societies have done
garden tours, home tours, many cities have. And so people that love it, we find from our ticket holders,
are a very strange combination with flat out “looky loos”: people that want to remodel their kitchen and
they want to see others, as realtors are being a little more cautious about appointments and who comes
in – for good reason, not to waste their time and security. So we have the people that just love to see
other people's homes, and then we have just very hardcore interested – either mid-century modern
architecture, maybe even students of architecture, and hobbyists – they are there for the architecture.
We have a pretty neat little group of people interested in the garden now. Not every home is going to
have a fancy garden – not by any means – but they're there primarily to see the garden and enjoy the
garden. And then we do have history buffs; like that's what I'm just labeling people that love the history.
Then year by year, we've tried to pick a theme. LIke last year: “The Romance of the Rancho” where we
just call it out that maybe some of this is California fantasy, you know, and the places were carved out of
orange groves, they're close to the earth. In some cases, the adobe block was made right there, right on
the acreage that was formed and bulldozed, lot of use of heavy beams, sort of that romance of the
Rancho. So we've brought that up. In Pauma, we had a chance to talk about the Luiseños building the
Pauma mission. We had that be one of our stops and made sure that we arranged to include that. A lot
of people told us, “You know, we've always heard about Pauma Mission and we've never gone. It was a
chance to go out there.” Um, so we always get a very different mix, but always a mix of people. The
strong elements that we always bask in is the people interested in the architecture, and of course, in the
history. But I think some of this is people come along, they will read our booklet or the docents will tell
them something and we feel there's an appreciation for the historic preservation that leaves every tour.
Peirce:
Absolutely. It's fascinating, right? You really have to find your niche and it sounds like this program really
has found it in just a wide spectrum of people who are trying to see what you guys are displaying out
there. You brought up how not every home has a garden or anything like that. Is there any sort of
prerequisite to being on a tour for any of these houses or is it literally just, “Hey, you're an adobe house,
you can be on it.” Are you a little choosy? How does that specifically work where you decide what goes
on each tour?
Clausen:
We do have some levels. We've had some very simple, honest homes and then we've had some just
outrageously beautiful homes from adobe. In some cases we've had to turn people down because in the
times they were built the driveways and the parking are impossible. There still are a lot of niches around
the Escondido area where they were carved out of an old orange or avocado grove and the parking and
the in and out is just out of the question. So that's always a consideration, although we've had some
pretty narrow tight squeezes. Some homes, once we've talked to the homeowners, they say, you know,
we're really not ready. We would like our home to be, uh, a little closer to ready. They often bought the
adobe as a fixer upper, but as everyone knows, it takes time and money and planning, and we've had
homeowners who've come back and say, you know, now we're ready. In some cases, we had to turn
down people because they were just way too out of the way. I'll give you an example: last tour we had
on the edge of Rancho Santa Fe the Osuna adobe, and then a home in Del Dios and then across
Escondido, just behind the mall, two homes in that general area – that were drivable. I think we had a
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house offer way on Deer Springs Road. And so John – our webmaster – sometimes he would take and
calculate the mileage, and then if you're 25 minutes one way and the only home out there, we would
think that the homeowner would get gypped, you know, people would just say “Let's just go get lunch.
We won't drive out there.” So we've tried to save some of the names and the addresses, so we could do
a closer cluster of homes and hopefully we haven't missed out on anyone yet, and hanging onto names
lets us be able to do that. We've had people who, as they've moved forward, say we just can't do this,
you know, family circumstances or everyone just couldn't get on board. You know, a lot of things we
expect could happen. We've gotten two thirds of the way and we've had people bail for very legitimate,
understandable reasons. In a few cases, we've had previous homes on the tour again. We've had a few
homes in that circumstance where an owner stepped up and a lot of times they've made changes.
They've learned more about their home and it was enough years for our ticket holders. We have a lot of
new ticket holders, so they're not saying, oh, we just saw that home. So yeah, I think there's been a
combination of how we get there when the doors open.
Peirce:
Absolutely. So the individual houses, are the owners responsible for the histography of the tour for
those places? Do you guys assist? How does that collaboration work?
Clausen:
In the last five years, I think I've done the majority of the history. In a lot of cases though, with new
owners, sometimes we've gotten really lucky. They're walking their dog, they run into an old timer from
the neighborhood, you know, someone who has lived there 40 years, and they'd come back as we're
developing the history of their home, or they'd get a lead: a phone number of someone who knew who
still own the home. So we've had a combination. I'd say maybe I do easily 70 to 75% of the research, and
then 25% comes in from a lot of odd places and on occasion the homeowner themselves. So yeah, I
think I've been doing most of it. For the internal side of it, the docent guide, then we lean on the
homeowner for their remodel or what they were told about the remodel. If they have a newer kitchen
maybe put in in the late eighties – they were told about it by the realtor – the docent on the kitchen
stop will let people know what they're looking at. I'd say I've done a good portion of the research.
Peirce:
Awesome. Has that been a struggle as well, given that some of these houses - I don't wanna say they're
not important, right? They are important, they're historical in their own way. But it’s not like Greta
Garbo lived there; they're just regular homes in Escondido. Has that been difficult to gather that
information?
Clausen:
You know, I've been stuck on homes for variety of reasons. Sometimes what happens is, let's say the
homeowner had the adobe built for themselves and they worked the rest of their career at a conveyor
belt as an engineer and retired, and perhaps their spouse was a schoolteacher and, you know, very
wonderful everyday people. When we actually go look at the house, we generally will start finding
jewels on some of the architecture. I think we've been pretty fortunate to have builders who have
included architecture to keep the story going. This will be the treatment of the open beams or the
fireplaces. Very often, we've had wonderful surviving fireplaces that were not remodeled; they're still
there. We've had homes where the windows were yet not removed; they were still the old aluminum
encasement crank windows, really neat, like ribbon style. It would even be the placement of arches, you
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know, opening the arch of one room into the next. The unbelievable plate glass windows from floor to
ceiling, capturing a style that is brought in from the craftsman era – Cliff May, who has been considered
the father of the ranch house style that became mid-century and popularized – how they took the sense
of bringing the outdoor to the edge of the indoor. The adobe builders in the mid-century – we’ve found
the Weir brothers and others – they will do that plate glass window with the view, right from the
bottom, right to the edge of the eaves with phenomenal views, taking advantage and placing the home
on that view. Without a doubt, the architecture will jump in and take over. Funky chimney treatments,
little touches like a little hut, an opening to put in firewood, right by the fireplace treatment of the
mantle or the hearth. Maybe there's some amber inserted glass that's still from the original; once in a
while, even the lighting fixtures. So, many homes where the owner isn't recognized as such as a fantastic
story, usually the architecture jumps right in; there's something that has survived the floor treatment.
We have homes with original flagstone, original tile, you know, goes on and on. So from room to room,
as we're giving the tours and highlighting these things, we can keep the audience, the visitor very
interested. And that's usually very rewarding to know that these original features are still there.
Peirce:
Absolutely. Have you had, has there been a home that was just completely original or do they all need
work at some point?
Clausen:
Well, we have had a few that had a remarkable amount of original features left, and that usually gets us
going pretty good. Now of course, I think the thing that happens to most houses is the kitchens need
updating very badly, and often the bathrooms. But we have homes where even there's been extensive
remodeling, we still recognize – I'll just use Weir for example because they're so well-known – some of
the weird features are cabinet treatments, maybe even the lintels on the window trim, possibly the
addition of a certain shape of a breakfast nook. So, we almost always see these features survive. We
haven't really had homes that were entirely gutted. We've had some pretty good luck.
Peirce:
That's amazing. I mean, just thinking about how homes are now and people just rip them up and then
build them back up....
Clausen:
They do, and some of us don't even like to watch those shows where they come into a midcentury
modern home with a sledgehammer; sometimes it's kind of creepy.
Peirce:
And a little upsetting, especially for someone who has been doing these kinds of tours, right? Looking at
the big picture: do you feel that the tour has been successful in achieving the initial goals of what you
were trying to do? Did it kind of mushroom beyond that? And if so, do you feel like there are things that
you never thought were possible and things that you kind of wish you could have branched out into?
Clausen:
No, I think that those of us who started early on are honestly always amazed how this can sustain
interest. And we're always thrilled for the feedback; not everyone's happy on our tours, of course not.
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But we believe that the awareness of adobe construction and word of mouth and people wanting to see
an adobe home, the inside of one, was well beyond our expectations. Absolutely. In terms of getting
bigger, there's not enough of us. We think we will always have to limit our ticket sales. I mean, it'd be
wonderful to run it two days. It'd be wonderful to raise more money, but there's just not enough of us.
Really, I think raising people's understanding of what this construction is and what it was, and then
historically its roots, you know, the adobe as construction material in California, I think we've done a
pretty good job getting the message across and getting interest. Absolutely. We'd like to keep going. We
hope we always have enough people and enough houses, but we think with the invitations to Carlsbad
and maybe one day Rancho Santa Fe, and certainly Pauma again, Fallbrook has many adobe homes,
Vista does... there are communities we still think we can keep going.
Peirce:
Absolutely. My last question is, it feels like you've created something here in North County that has
really kind of stood the test of time here in terms of creating something from scratch and creating
something that people come back to. You have repeat customers, you have all these things. What do
you hope your legacy is with Adobe Home Tours and where do you hope to see it moving forward?
Clausen:
Well, I think for most of us and, you know, I can't speak for everyone, but I think for most of us, the
importance of having the homes preserved – this is something that's stopped in time. Of course any
development is at risk, no matter what, and that the stronger we stay and the higher the appreciation is
the less likely that someone will want to buy the home, and as the prices and their value increase, we
feel there's a less likelihood that it would be demolished for yet a bigger investment. Although many
have been. But we really, I think we'd all like to know that the core of many of these homes will remain
and that they'll go another hundred years.
Peirce:
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Is there anything about this program or anything about your career that
you feel that we haven't touched on that you'd like to talk about before we start wrapping this up?
Clausen:
I think we covered it pretty well. And since we have a lot of programs that are a PDF on the Adobe Home
Tour website, and Don keeps posting information – he's very good about answering questions people
will forward to him and he'll forward to the rest of us so we can help. I think there's a lot out there now
that was not available 10 years ago, so I think anyone that's interested has a check to jump on the
website and dig around a little more and if needed con to contact any of us and the steering committee
small, but we're out there to just keep promoting the adobe heritage.
Peirce:
Absolutely. And once again, that was adobehometours.com, correct?
Clausen:
That's correct. Yes.
Peirce:
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Awesome. Just so just making sure we get that plug out there.
Clausen:
Okay. Right. Well, Jake, thank you so much. It's been great to talk to you and thanks for taking the
interest.
Peirce:
I appreciate that, absolutely. I want to thank you very much from the bottom of my heart for taking this
much time to talk about this. It's been fascinating.
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�
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Clausen, Alexa. Interview transcript. April 12, 2022.
Description
An account of the resource
Alexa Clausen is one of the founders of the Adobe Home Tours in North County San Diego, providing much of the historiography of each stop on their yearly tours. She was employed as a historian with California State Parks prior to her involvement with Adobe Home Tours. In this interview, Alexa speaks about how Adobe Home Tours started, the successes and difficulties with running a program like Adobe Home Tours, and how her background with California State Parks helped prepare her for her current role. This oral history was made possible with generous funding from the Ellie Johns Foundation.
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Alexa Clausen
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Jacob Peirce
Sierra Jenkins
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2022-04-12
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Adobe houses
Historic buildings -- Conservation and restoration
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San Diego County (Calif.)
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Alexa Clausen
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Community history
History Department internship
Women's experience
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https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/45c2cfd31ca6068f7c1bbef6263d29e6.mp3
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Oral history of Alexa Clausen, April 12, 2022
Description
An account of the resource
Alexa Clausen is one of the founders of the Adobe Home Tours in North County San Diego, providing much of the histiography of each stop on their yearly tours. She was employed as a historian with California State Parks prior to her involvement with Adobe Home Tours. In this interview, Alexa speaks about how Adobe Home Tours started, the successes and difficulties with running a program like Adobe Home Tours, and how her background with California State Parks helped prepare her for her current role. This oral history was made possible with generous funding from the Ellie Johns Foundation.
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Alexa Clausen
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Jake Peirce
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2022-04-12
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California State University San Marcos University Library
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Alexa Clausen
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