MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – The Stone House in Middletown is California State Registered Landmark No. 450.
It is located at the north east corner of Highway 29 and Hidden Valley Road, 5.3 miles north of Middletown.
The plaque reads, “The oldest building in Lake County. Erected in 1853-4 by Robert Sterling, whose wife was the first white woman in Coyote Valley. Rebuilt in 1894. Headquarters of Guenoc Land Grant and first store in the valley.”
To set the stage, picture this: American Indians had been relatively undisturbed in Lake County, even though the Spanish had been in Lower, or Baja California since 1536 and didn’t colonize Alta, or upper California until 1769 when the California Mission chain of 21 began from San Diego to Sonoma.
When the last mission was completed in 1823, Mexico won its independence from Spain and claimed Alta, California.
In 1834 the Mexican Republic sent Gen. Mariano Vallejo to Sonoma to build a new town and set up Army Headquarters.
During this period the Mexican government was parceling thousands of acres of land, but only three were granted in Lake County.
One was Rancho Lupyomi granted in 1844, to Salvadore and Juan Antonio Vallejo. This grant was in the southern vicinity of Clear Lake.
The petition was lost in the land government archives, and was not deemed genuine, the claim being rejected.
But that didn’t stop Salvadore Vallejo from running massive herds of Longhorn cattle on the land, altering the landscape forever.
The other two land grants were the Collayomi Grant, in the Loconoma Valley by Middletown, and the Guenoc land grant, or rancho, which is where the subject of the historic Stone House comes in to play.
Rancho Guenoc was settled by several families as early as 1845, when Mexican governor, Pio Pico granted this parcel of 21,000 acres to George Roch.
In 1850 Roch built and resided in a log cabin in the present-day Stone House vicinity for about a year.
The history reads that next, Captain A. A. Ritchie and Paul S. Forbes were granted the Guenoc Rancho.
Then, in 1853 Captain R. Steele and Robert Sterling took over management of the rancho.
The house was constructed with 12-inch by 12-inch hewn oak logs as its foundation. The walls were made with quarried stone and timber, the roof of shakes.
It consisted of three bedrooms, a kitchen and a long hallway opening into the rooms. Mrs. Sterling must have been quite the pioneer woman, settling in her stone home, which was completed in 1854.
The Stone House history plays out with many names that are familiar to us as we travel in the south end of the county.
In 1860 a store owned by Herrick and Getz became the first in the lower end of the county that was located by the Stone House. It was later moved to Lower Lake.
Then, in 1861 John Cobb, for whom our beautiful Cobb Mountain is named, ran the Guenoc and Callayomi grants, and resided in the Stone House.
According to the Lake County Historical Society’s “Pomo Bulletin,” Cobb was born in 1814 in Henry County, Kentucky.
He married in 1841, but his wife and two children passed away around 1848.
He soon married Esther E. Deming and they had six children. In 1853 he settled in Cobb Valley, becoming the first European-American settler there.
Before running the Guenoc and Callayomi land grants he held an elected position of assessor of Napa County. This was when part of Lake County was still a part of Napa County.
He passed away in 1893, and rests in the Lower Lake Cemetery.
In 1867 the Stone House became the Guenoc Post Office, and operated for 13 years, until the village of Guenoc moved to Middletown.
The Stone House went through several other hands: John C. Greer in 1872, then Charles Young in 1885.
Young decided to rebuild the house in 1894 to replace the foundation with stone.
A monumental amount of handiwork went into this job. The stones were transported to the house by horse-pulled block-and-tackle, and the stones had to be shaped and fitted by hand.
The house was ready for his family to move in by 1896.
The house underwent another transformation in 1944 when Frank Hartmann purchased the property.
The house caught fire 10 years later and was rebuilt to its charming one-story form of today.
To find out more about this old house, contact The Stone House Historical Society at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
Kathleen Scavone, M.A., is an educator, potter, writer and author of “Anderson Marsh State Historic Park: A Walking History, Prehistory, Flora, and Fauna Tour of a California State Park” and “Native Americans of Lake County.” She also writes for NASA and JPL as one of their “Solar System Ambassadors.” She was selected “Lake County Teacher of the Year, 1998-99” by the Lake County Office of Education, and chosen as one of 10 state finalists the same year by the California Department of Education.