In ruins after 1874, the chapel was reconstructed and dedicated under the auspices of the Native Daughters of the Golden West, October 1955. During his administration the increasing influx of Americans and the Russian settlement at Fort Ross began to be regarded as serious problems. This adobe house was occupied by a sister of Tiburcio V squez, the colorful Monterey bandit of the 1870s. In this house in 1879 lived Robert Louis Stevenson, essayist, storyteller, and poet whose contribution to literature delighted the world. In the late 1830s, Thomas Oliver Larkin built the House of Four Winds, named for the weather vane in his garden.
Tradition says the building was used as an early hall of records.
In later years law offices, a newspaper, small stores, and a ballroom occupied the premises. In 1880 David Jacks bought the property, and in 1954 Miss Margaret Jacks made a gift of the building to the State of California. In the 1820s, Don Ignacio Vallejo built the Casa Materna on Bolsa de San Cayetano. Her husband, William Brunner Richardson, a native of Baltimore, Maryland, built the adobe house here in 1843, and planted the nearby locust trees in 1846. This was the site of Captain John C. Fr mont's encampment in 1846 and 1847, the adobe was later used as a stage station and post office.