General Vallejo Home

The General Vallejo Home is a fascinating historic landmark. Vallejo called this place his «Boston home”-he had an adobe in Petaluma, along with an adobe home on the Plaza (now only the servants’ quarters remain) It was built in New England. There is a natural spring.
The mansion itself has been beautifully restored&now decorated for the Christmas holidays. One can see the «El Delirio», a garden pavilion of sorts (Vallejo made his own wine, so the name is fitting) His son Napoleon’s hermitage has a beautiful view of the reservoir&comes complete with creepy taxidermy. The separate kitchen&living quarters of the Vallejos’ Chinese cook is an interesting snapshot of daily life. Out in the California frontier, one wonders if the Vallejo family cook did the equivalent of Koi Fusion or Kogi BBQ. After all, nearby San Francisco was home to fusion cuisine like fortune cookies, Irish coffee&chop suey. The carriage house doubles as a museum.
It has a spectacular natural setting. It’s tucked between the Mayacamas Mountains&Sonoma Mountain. The $ 3 admission for all Sonoma Historic Parks (including the Petaluma Adobe) is worth it.

Well maintained rooms in the main house where you can go on a self-​guided tour, along with some outbuildings. The reservoir is large and peaceful, the gardens are quite attractive as well

Not a lot of reading or history, but interesting. Entrance fee also covers Sonoma mission.

This is a state historic park which means there is a $ 3/​adult fee and less for children. This is a cool place to take an independent tour of. To see the entire property is about 30 – 45 minutes tops! If you like history and architecture this is good place to visit. You can walk through the residence but not the cooks quarters or guest house, although you can look through the windows to see inside which is pretty neat too.

After visiting the Mission and hearing that admission included this historical site as well, we made the mistake of thinking that the Vallejo Home was just a few streets away. It’s over a 2 mile hike and in the heat, at 8 months pregnant, it was strenuous to say the least. I wish they had told us how far it was! I highly recommend driving there instead of walking unless you need exercise and the weather is super mild.
It was a little miserable due to the heat, although the house itself was cool, there isn’t really anywhere to sit inside. If the weather was cooler, the picnic area behind the house might have been a nice place to sit. I enjoyed seeing the original artifacts that had belonged to the family, and there was a docent lead tour as well as a video and picture displays about the General and his family.

Out of all the buildings you can see in Sonoma State Historic Park, this is probably the most interesting. I would recommend to start here, so that you get to see the best stuff while still fresh. I made the mistake of leaving it to the end, and it didn’t work out so well.
Read more/​see more photos here:

I love the fact that for the $ 3.00 a person you can get in to see Vallejo’s home, Petaluma Adobe, Solano Mission and the Sonoma Barracks. The house is located a ways a way from the mission. The grounds are very pretty and I love the pond in the back. The house has a lot of different artifacts from the time period and the entrance building has some great artifacts as well.

If you’re visiting the General’s house, be sure to take advantage of the whole State Park inclusive ticket to the Barracks, Mission, etc. It’s an easy walk (roughly 5 blocks including down the long drive) from the Mission.

I found the house more interesting than the mission itself. I always like to see the rooms set up how they might have been in their glory days. An imported «Swiss Chalet» outbuilding is set up museum style. You can see the whole main house upstairs and down in 20 minutes. Hard to believe the guy had 16 kids in a house that size. If he were around today he’d probably have some 8,000 sq ft monstrosity. When we were there a docent provided a short overview tour and even walked around the grounds a bit with us.
In addition to the main house, there was a detached sitting room, kitchen and a boy’s bedroom (above the spring pond where fish and turtles currently reside) that you can peek into through the windows.

We visited this place, because I saw that it was related to the Sonoma Barracks which we saw. It’s a nice self-​tour. Felt something weird in the one of the rooms like a freezing cold spot. Then, I found out later that it’s the room where the caretaker has seem a «ghost». Neat place. I really like history so it was a great experience.

The first time I came to General Vallejo’s House was about 23 years ago. I came with my «sister» friend, Lorna, her mom Jackie, my husband and our two daughters. My son came along too, but he was peeking through my belly button!
Since then it has become our family mecca. We just love spending the afternoon enjoying the scenery, nature and peacefulness. For a mere $ 2.00 you can park, enjoy lunch at the picnic area located behind the carriage house, feed the turtles and koi in the reservoir and walk the grounds. This isn’t a do-​it-​yourself tour, although it could be if you wanted it to. The docents (who love their jobs) will take you for a tour and tell you the history of the home, the family and the man.
If you have a student that will be taking California History, then make sure you visit before the school season starts. Between the Generals Home, the hotel at the square, the barracks and the mission, they will have a leg up before school starts and this will really peak their interest.
Now, before you go…
1/​Pack some water in your ice chest
2/​Pack your snacks or lunch
(fried chicken, potato salad, fresh fruit)
(stop at Safeway and get their deli sandwiches, some olives and fruit)
(stop at the cheese factory in the square for sandwiches or cheese, salami and french baguettes)
3/​Wear comfortable shoes
4/​Bring your camera and flash (yes, flash photography is permitted)
Stop at the square to let the young’uns loose in the playground between each exhibit.

Part Three–
We didn’t plan on visiting th Vallejo home originally but since you get in with the same ticket that you buy for the Sonoma Mission and Barracks we made the trip here and I’m glad we did.
The tour was very informative and we learned a lot about General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo.
I loved the docent that gave us a personal tour of the house. It was really cool to learn about the Vallejo family and I was surprised at how many of the artifacts decorating the place are originals from them. The musical instruments in the house were really theirs and they were very gifted musically.
The study that General Vallejo died in is pretty much intact. He owned a large selection of books, as much as 17,000 at one time, half of which were lost in a fire at another home of his. I would have loved to get closer to the library to see what books we have read that are similar but that is something for another day.
We loved the tour, the history and the wonderful docent that showed us around the house.

I went to the Vallejo home today for the first time and was very impressed with the preservation of the grounds and home. All the furniture is intact inside the two story home and the gardens are still lush with many of the species Vallejo prided himself on cultivating. A murky pond in the back used to serve as a fresh water spring and is now home to turtles and fish. Your entrance fee gets you into the barracks and mission by the square in downtown Sonoma.