History
The Josiah Merritt Adobe stands at 386 Pacific Street in Monterey, within the dense fabric of original Mexican-era and early American-period buildings that survive in the old capital of Alta California. Monterey served as the political and commercial center of Mexican California from 1822 until the American conquest of 1846, and the small grid of streets around the old custom house preserves the densest concentration of pre-statehood adobe houses in the state.
The Merritt Adobe is associated with Josiah Merritt, one of the small group of Anglo-American merchants and tradesmen who settled in Monterey in the years immediately around statehood and acquired or built modest urban adobes within the existing pueblo fabric. Like several of his contemporaries, Merritt occupied a building type that had been worked out during the Mexican period and then adapted to the changing commercial life of the early American town.
Architecturally the building is a vernacular single-story town adobe. The walls were laid up from sun-dried adobe brick on a stone foundation and finished with lime plaster to resist the salt-laden coastal weather of the Monterey peninsula. The roof was framed in hewn or sawn timber and finished with hand-split shakes or red clay tile, and the principal elevation faces directly onto the street in the standard Monterey town pattern, without the deep porch found on rural rancho houses. Window and door openings were small and shuttered.
The property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977 under reference 77000311, contributing to the broader Monterey historic district that records the surviving urban fabric of Mexican Alta California. The building is in private use today and is not regularly open to the public, though it remains visible from Pacific Street and stands as one of the documented urban adobes of the old capital.
Within the broader California adobe tradition, the Merritt Adobe belongs to the Monterey town lineage of street-facing, single-story adobe houses, a body of work that originated under Spanish and Mexican rule and that the Monterey Colonial Revival of the early twentieth century would later mythologize as a distinct regional style.
Common questions
What is the Josiah Merritt Adobe?
The Josiah Merritt Adobe is a historic adobe property in Monterey, California, listed on the National Register of Historic Places under reference number 77000311. The property is documented in the National Park Service's NRHP nomination records as a contributing historic resource of Monterey's adobe heritage.
When was the Josiah Merritt Adobe built?
The exact construction date is not specified in this entry's records. The property's listing on the National Register of Historic Places (reference 77000311) and its location in Monterey, a center of California's Mexican-era adobe architecture, place it within the city's broader 19th-century adobe building tradition.
Where is the Josiah Merritt Adobe located?
The Josiah Merritt Adobe is located at 386 Pacific Street in Monterey, California. The property sits within Monterey's historic core, an area dense with surviving Mexican-era and early American-period adobe buildings.
Is the Josiah Merritt Adobe open to the public?
No, the Josiah Merritt Adobe is a private residence and is not open for tours. While the property is listed on the National Register of Historic Places under reference 77000311, it does not operate as a public museum.
Why is the Josiah Merritt Adobe historically significant?
The Josiah Merritt Adobe is significant as a National Register of Historic Places property (reference 77000311) in Monterey, California. The listing recognizes its place within Monterey's concentration of surviving historic adobe buildings.
