ARCHITECTURE : Gilmore Adobe Shelters a Rural Oasis in a Desert of Parking Lots

Peering through the gate that opens up in the middle of a weathered wall at the back of the Farmers Market, you will see a little picture of the past. Underneath flowering jacarandas and all the other lush plants of the artificial Eden of Southern California lies the low-slung Gilmore Adobe. It looks ancient and worn, an oasis of timeless peace in a desert of parking lots. In fact, it is a romantic re-creation of the days of Ramona, the mystical pre-Anglo time invented by Eastern colonizers.

The core of the adobe is real: The three rooms that make up its central section were the original home of one of the owners of Rancho La Brea, Antonio Jose Rocha. Built in 1828, it was a humble little structure with no pretense to any kind of style. It was as close to a real vernacular structure--a building made out of local materials and lacking any sense of standing for something outside of itself--as you could find in this area. It is made of adobe bricks formed by mixing mud and straw that were stacked without firing or bonding with mortar. Its floors were made of compacted earth, its flat roof covered with the tar (brea) found at the nearby pits. It was only as large as it had to be and each of its rooms served many different functions. Most of the life of the inhabitants, in fact, took place outdoors.

In 1880, Arthur F. Gilmore bought the land and the adobe from the Hancock family, which was subdividing the vast tracts of land they had bought from the original Mexican colonizers. Gilmore developed his own holdings over the years into developable tracts, oil fields and, of course, the Farmers Market, but he held onto the original adobe, adding rooms along the way.

He replaced the floor, by then covered with wood, with waxed tile and the tar roof with handmade terra-cotta tiles. Then he added a second story, extended the roof to create a veranda and planted an elaborate garden. Over the years, he and his son, Earl B. Gilmore, further enlarged the adobe with the help of architect John Byers, making the place more stylish and more modern, adding exposed wood beams, plumbing and electrical systems. In 1976, the A. F. Gilmore Co., whose main business these days is running the Farmers Market, turned the house into its offices, further removing the adobe from its humble origins.

The additions created a romanticized image of an adobe dwelling that had more do with the style of architecture known as Mission Revival than with the original, hardscrabble condition of the house. This idealization of the pastoral, easygoing days before the Anglos arrived is the result of attempts to give Los Angeles a past it never had, and to awaken the newly arrived Angelenos to the charms of the land and its climate.

Ironically, novels such as Helen Hunt Jackson’s “Ramona,� coupled with images of little bungalows surrounded by orange trees, did much to attract hordes of immigrants, further burying the world of the ranchos. By now, the rancho has filled up with Anglo structures and, if the heirs of A. F. Gilmore have their way, it will be even more filled with shopping malls, housing and office buildings. But at the heart of it all there remains this one glimpse into the mythical past of Los Angeles, a pretty picture of what was a hard life.