Dana Adobe

The Dana Adobe stands at the south end of Oak Glen Avenue in Nipomo, on land that formed part of Rancho Nipomo, the 38,000-acre Mexican grant confirmed to William Goodwin Dana in 1837. Dana, a Massachusetts-born sea captain and a cousin of the author Richard Henry Dana Jr., settled in Santa Barbara, became a Mexican citizen, married into the Carrillo family, and was granted Nipomo for service to the Mexican government. The adobe house he built on the rancho beginning in the late 1830s served as the family residence and as a principal way station on the El Camino Real between San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara.

The building is a substantial one-and-a-half story vernacular adobe of rectangular plan, with thick lime-plastered walls, a low-pitched wood-shingled gable roof, hand-hewn ceiling timbers, and a sheltered verandah along the principal elevation. The interior is organized in a linear arrangement of rooms opening onto the porch in the manner typical of central-coast rancho houses, with a central sala flanked by chambers used for family and guest accommodation. The plan and detailing reflect both the domestic patterns of the Dana family and the building's heavy use as a hospitality stop for travelers crossing the central coast in the late Mexican and early American periods.

The Dana Adobe was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971 under reference 71000189 in recognition of its survival as a substantial rancho residence and its association with the Dana family. The Dana Adobe Nipomo Amigos, a nonprofit organization, has undertaken extensive restoration and now operates the property as the Dana Adobe Cultural Center.

Within California's broader adobe tradition, the Dana Adobe is one of the most important surviving rancho residences of the central coast, complementing the Larkin and Cooper-Molera houses in Monterey and the De la Guerra house in Santa Barbara in documenting the architectural and social world of the Californio elite at the close of the Mexican period.