[Noozhawk’s note: One in a daily series leading up to Old Spanish Days Fiesta.]
Fiestas are a big part of life today, and these festive celebrations had their California start in our historic adobes.
Adobes were the first residences in latter and post-Mission times. They were the brick houses of the day.
While Mission life centered on Franciscans and the native community, Presidio life included soldiers and their families.
In Santa Barbara, adobe residences outside of the Presidio walls began to take shape during the second decade of the 19th century.
It was during Mexico’s 11-year fight for independence from Spain that the Spanish influence had begun to wane, and life outside of the missions and presidios really began to flourish.
The first adobes were constructed for the higher-ups in the Presidio system — the comandantes, the lieutenants and so on.
2018 Spirit of Fiesta Jessalyn McCullom dances during Una Fiesta de Los Adobes at the Santa Barbara Historical Museum. Credit: Isaac Hernández de Lipa / Santa Barbara Historical Museum photo 
2024 Spirit of Fiesta Georgey Taupin dances during Una Fiesta de Los Adobes at the Santa Barbara Historical Museum. Credit: Isaac Hernández de Lipa / Santa Barbara Historical Museum photo 
Una Fiesta de Los Adobes at the Santa Barbara Historical Museum. Credit: Isaac Hernández de Lipa / Santa Barbara Historical Museum photo
These officers were given land near the presidio to build residences for their families. Often this land was provided to make up for a lack of pay for their military work as funds to Mexico (which Santa Barbara was a part of) had begun to dry up during Mexico’s quest for independence.
With a private residence now outside of the presidio walls or the mission complex, fiestas took a new form.
Lavish, multiday fiestas were held to celebrate birthdays, weddings, or visitors merely passing through town.
And, as California life moved into the 1830s, the Rancho Period began with the official end of our Spanish mission system. More and more previously mission land was gifted in the form of “land grants” and soon more and more adobes were built on the land.
The Covarrubias Adobe was Santa Barbara’s first adobe residence outside of the Presidio. It was built in 1817 and is now part of the Santa Barbara Historical Museum complex, at 715 Santa Barbara St.
Originally, it was the home of Domingo Carrillo and his wife, Concepción Pico, the sister of Pío Pico, the last governor of Alta California.
The adobe later became known as the Covarrubias Adobe following the marriage of the Carrillos’ daughter, María, to José Covarrubias and their family taking over the residence.
More than 100 years after it was built, and after more than a century of family fiestas, the Covarrubias Adobe fittingly hosted one of the first Old Spanish Days Fiesta organizational meetings in 1924. It was a meeting for all committees of the first official Santa Barbara Fiesta.
This year, the Historical Museum hosted Una Fiesta de Los Adobes, an elegant evening under the stars where dance and entertainment once again joined with the historic setting of the Covarrubias and adjacent Historic Adobe.
“Una Fiesta de Los Adobes was an opportunity to celebrate our treasured adobes, which have played host to Fiesta gatherings since 1924,” said Dacia Harwood, SBHM executive director.
“Preservation of the 200-year-old buildings is tremendously expensive, but important work that allows us to continue to share them with our visitors and for the benefit of the community.”
Fiesta 2024 runs July 31-Aug. 4. Click here for a complete calendar of Fiesta events.
The Santa Barbara Historical Museum’s Project Fiesta! exhibit continues until Nov. 1.
¡Viva los Adobes, y Viva la Fiesta!
