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In the merry month of May 2002 an "event" was held at the largest adobe building in Twentynine Palms, California.
The event was a combination of "a celebration of the arts and a housewarming party," as artist and caretaker Kit Brooks described it.
The arts were certainly varied, from fabric dyeing to music to artistic blacksmithing and metal works. It was a potluck affair, and I have never seen so much good food all in one place. Being the perfect guest, I had to taste everything while muttering that I would start my diet TOMORROW!
The adobe house had been vacant for several years before its owner generously donated it to the Twentynine Palms Historical Society, who in turn sold it to Huell Howser this past winter.
During the time that the house was unoccupied, the roof had developed several leaks, which allowed rainwater to make a mess as it ran down some of the mud brick walls.
Over the years the house has changed with the times. The very fact that it stands there at all is because of a change of fortune causing a change of lifestyle for its builders–Elisha and William Stubbs.
Brothers Lish and Bill, who hailed from Illinois, had both earned a very successful living as stock and bond brokers at large brokerage firms in Chicago. When the stock market crashed in 1929 they found themselves
out of work and broke, with only Bill's Model-T Ford and $250 in cash, the cash coming from the sale of Lish's new automobile.
Through a family friend they heard about homesteading in the desert and drove across country to check it out.
At the end of November 1930, they arrived at Bagley's Store at the Plaza, Twentynine Palms. Frank Bagley, who was, among other things, the Local Land Agent, drove them around the valley to show them the various
parcels available for homesteading. There were no roads per se, so the drive was a wild roller-coaster ride through sand and brush while the boys clung desperately to the seats, lest they be thrown out of the
car.
Lish and Bill eventually rented a little cabin in order to spend some time getting to know the area and deciding their future plans.
They chose to homestead 160 acres. Their first priority was to clear a navigable road to their property, some eight miles northwest of the Plaza.
When the first task was accomplished, the next thing on the list was water. After much digging, they hired a well driller and water was eventually found at 125 feet.
One of the requisites for homesteading in those days was that the applicants build a habitable dwelling on the land. From “neighbors” John Meyer and Kay Bremer, both of whom were building their houses of mud
brick, the Stubbs brothers learnt that when one lacked the necessary finances, adobe was the most economical way to go. The boys sent away for books on adobe construction, which were available from the U.S.
Government Information Bureau.
They experimented on how to make a good adobe brick.
They formed the bricks with the clay from Mesquite Dry Lake and hauled water in tin cans from Mesquite Springs (now dry). Against the advice of their more experienced neighbors, Bill and Lish mixed the adobe and formed the bricks right there on the dry lake, having worked out that this was the least labor-intensive method. They had a good supply of bricks curing at the lake's edge when one rainy day they noted - as they peered through binoculars from their hilltop - that "someone" was making off with their stockpile. That "someone" was Mother Nature, returning the mud bricks to the lakebed from which they originated. Lish and Bill changed methods and hauled the dry material to the building site and started brick making all over again.
Adobe bricks have to be dried in the sun for several months before they are hard enough to be used in construction.
So the Stubbs brothers labored on, day after day, forming bricks until they had enough cured material to begin building their homestead house. In 1932, on a previously poured concrete foundation, they began laying the bricks to form their 15-by-15-foot cabin. Recycled wood was used for the roof and floor. They then added a 15-by-20-foot dining room with a corner fireplace. Doors and windows came from a wrecking yard; the floor was finished in traditional fashion with adobe. This second phase of construction moved along more rapidly than the first because now they had experience.
One evening Bill and Lish were visited by the Devaney family from Minneapolis.
They asked the boys if they would build an adobe house for their daughter, Ruth. She suffered from arthritis and had been advised by her doctor to seek a dry, desert climate for her health's sake. So another change came to the life of the brothers, from stockbrokers to homesteaders to building contractors. The Devany project did not make them much money but it brought in requests from other people that the Stubbs build adobe houses for them. From doing all the work themselves the Stubbs now became employers, providing much-needed work for men who desperately needed jobs during those Depression years. At the height of the “building boom” in the mid and late 1930s, the Stubbs employed as many as 50 men.
Although Bill and Lish were not the only contractors in the area building with adobe, they were the most prolific, with over 30 structures to their credit.
The majority was private homes with different styles and floor plans. Some examples of their work can be seen at the 29 Palms Inn and the 29 Palms Art Gallery (although the latter was originally built as a private home). With a couple of exceptions, all these adobes are still standing and occupied.
Even as the Stubbs brothers worked on other people's homes, they continued to hone their own adobe building techniques at their homestead.
Eventually the house encompassed 3,000 square feet and there was even a separate guesthouse. Locals laughingly called the place "Scotty's Castle" and "Stubbs' Folly."
The brothers gave up construction work at the onset of World War II.
Their house was rented out and over the years has undergone changes with the times and with each new occupant. "El Rancho Adobe Grande," as it is now called, is undergoing yet another change. Huell Howser plans to turn this wonderful old home into an arts center -- a fitting tribute to its original owners whose own lives went through many changes and turned them into artists of adobe construction.
Writer Pat Rimmington is a longtime desert resident and author of “The Adobes of Twentynine Palms.”
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