Larkin House

This adobe-brick home was built during Monterey's Mexican Period by Thomas Oliver Larkin, a Yankee merchant who became tremendously influential in early California politics. He was the first and only United States Consul to Alta California under Mexican rule, serving during President Polk's administration. The building, one of the first two-story houses in Monterey, was to serve as both home and store. One of the earliest examples of Monterey colonial architecture, it was started in 1834 shortly after Larkin (a half-brother of John Rogers Cooper, of the Cooper-Molera Adobe) came to California. He adapted East Coast building forms to local materials: adobe and redwood.