Lachryma Montis, General Vallejo's Home

A short walk northwest of the plaza sits the Victorian home of the man who once controlled all of northern California. General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo laid out the town of Sonoma, commanded its garrison, and held vast lands under Mexican rule. But this house belongs to the second act of his life, after the Bear Flag Revolt and the American takeover had stripped away most of his power and much of his fortune.

Beginning in eighteen forty-nine, Vallejo bought acreage at the foot of the Sonoma hills, drawn by a cold spring bubbling from the slope. He named the place Lachryma Montis, Latin for tears of the mountain, a translation of the local Native American name for the spring. He completed the two story wood frame house in eighteen fifty two, built in the delicate Carpenter Gothic style, with a tall pointed window in the master bedroom and shaded porches.

Vallejo lived here for the rest of his days, more than thirty five years, until his death in eighteen ninety, watching the California he had helped govern transform into an American state. In nineteen thirty three, the state of California acquired the home and about twenty surrounding acres to preserve it. It stands today as part of Sonoma State Historic Park, a quiet monument to a man caught between two nations.