Adobe home of Santa Barbara's 5th Presidio commandant, haunted by a woman in black seen near the rear courtyard
15 E De La Guerra St, Santa Barbara, CA 93101
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$
Adults $5; Seniors (62+) $4; children 16 and under free; SBTHP members and EBT/CalFresh cardholders free. Admission includes El Presidio de Santa Bárbara State Historic Park.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Historic adobe courtyard with paved and unpaved surfaces; some interior rooms accessible
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1818 · National Register of Historic Places · California Historical Landmark No. 307 · Mexican-era Californio social history · Adobe preservation
Construction of the thirteen-room adobe began around 1818 and was largely complete by 1828, when José de la Guerra y Noriega — born in Spain, appointed commandant of the Presidio in 1815 — moved in with his family. De la Guerra held the post until 1842 and died in the house in 1858. His children and grandchildren continued living there for another eighty-five years, an unusually long family tenure for a California adobe.
The 1857 Fort Tejon earthquake damaged the structure substantially. De la Guerra's son Pablo directed repairs that modernized the interior: wooden columns replaced adobe ones, and wooden siding was added in keeping with Victorian-era taste taking hold in Santa Barbara at the time. By the mid-twentieth century the building had passed out of family ownership and into institutional hands.
The Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation acquired and restored the property, aiming to recreate the appearance of the home during José's tenure, 1828–1858. The site holds three designations: National Register of Historic Places (added February 2, 1977), California Historical Landmark No. 307, and Santa Barbara City Landmark. Richard Henry Dana described the de la Guerra household in his 1840 memoir Two Years Before the Mast, calling José 'the biggest man in the place.' Admission to Casa de la Guerra includes access to the adjacent El Presidio de Santa Bárbara State Historic Park.
Sources
The most consistently reported apparition at Casa de la Guerra is a woman in black seen toward the rear of the property. Local ghost tour operators describe her as distressed and reputedly aggressive toward young children — an unusual characteristic in paranormal lore that makes the account somewhat distinctive from generic lady-in-white narratives.
Two competing identities circulate among tour guides. One says she is a woman who died during childbirth on the property and wanders seeking her husband. The other does not assign a cause of death but frames her as a spirit tied to the building's long domestic history. Neither version is documented in the property's historical records; both derive from oral tradition passed through Santa Barbara's ghost tour community.
Ghost tour operator Julie Ann Brown, who founded Santa Barbara Ghost Tours and teaches at Santa Barbara City College, identifies Casa de la Guerra as one of the historic El Presidio district's active paranormal sites. She notes the district occupies land that was sacred to the Chumash before the Presidio was established, adding a layer of pre-colonial history to a site that saw over a century of continuous habitation. What is documented: the building held families, births, and deaths for more than a hundred years before becoming a museum. The paranormal claims rest on guide tradition rather than archival record.
Notable Entities
Explore furnished rooms—office, sala, bedroom, and store—that reflect life in Mexican-era Santa Barbara during the 1828–1858 period. The rear courtyard, where paranormal activity is most often reported, is accessible during open hours.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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