{"nrhp_refnum":"72000239","name":"Stevenson House","other_names":["Monterey State Historic Park"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"Houston St. between Pearl and Webster Sts.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Monterey","county":"Monterey County","state":"CA","lat":36.59753675400003,"lon":-121.89403507299994,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1972-01-07","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Literature","Education"],"significance_levels":["national"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A two-story Spanish Colonial style house on Houston Street in Monterey, California, begun as an adobe around 1836 by Don Rafael Gonzalez and later enlarged with frame additions. It is part of Monterey State Historic Park and is state-owned.","why_significant":"The house is tied to Robert Louis Stevenson's roughly three-month stay in Monterey in autumn 1879, which the nomination calls one of the most decisive periods of his life. He courted Fannie Osbourne here and worked on several writings. The house holds what is described as the world's largest collection of Stevenson material and is State Landmark No. 352.","narrative":"This two-story house on Houston Street in Monterey began as an adobe residence built around 1836 by Don Rafael Gonzalez, customs administrator at the Port of Monterey. Merchant Juan Girardin ran a general store on the ground floor from 1856 through the 1870s, with family rooms and inexpensive boarding rooms upstairs, and frame additions were made in that period. Walls are partly chalk rock in mud mortar and partly wood frame, covered in limestone plaster under a bracketed, shingled roof. The cheap room and board drew Robert Louis Stevenson in autumn 1879, when he lived here while courting Fannie Osbourne, later his wife. During the stay he began, planned or wrote works including An Amateur Emigrant, The Pavilion on the Links and Prince Otto. The house is State Landmark No. 352 and is now a museum holding a large collection of Stevenson material, with part of the interior furnished as in the Girardin and Gonzales years.","period_of_significance":"19th Century","architect_builder":"Don Rafael Gonzalez (original adobe, circa 1836)","architectural_style":"Spanish Colonial","criteria":[],"status_note":"Owned by the state Department of Parks and Recreation and used as a museum and park; condition marked fair and altered. Part of the house is furnished as in the Girardin and Gonzales family periods.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:31.934471-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_CA/72000239.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/72000239/2789d5e9bb-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/72000239/2789d5e9bb-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"McGhiever","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stevenson_House_Monterey.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">McGhiever</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stevenson_House_Monterey.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/123859971","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Louis_Stevenson_House","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q110910537"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/california/monterey-county/stevenson-house-72000239/"}