'Transported to Another Time'

When people set foot inside the Old Adobe building in Napa, Justin Altamura wants them to be transported to another time.

Home to La Cheve Bakery and Brews in the present day, the restored structure on the corner of Soscol Avenue and Silverado Trail was built in 1845. According to the Napa County Historical Society, the humble adobe is the oldest building in Napa.

But if you asked Napa native Altamura about the importance of the former residence growing up, he couldn’t tell you. While the building has seen a second life housing various dance parlors, bars and restaurants through the decades, Altamura said the building’s significance was unknown. In various stages, the building was either left neglected or obscured by separate attachments or used as a storage facility for adjacent businesses.

So in 2016 when Altamura and his partners bought the property, which includes three other buildings, there was a sense of obligation. That obligation was to that history the building represented.

“When I did the restoration, I knew I wanted to tear all this other stuff down and bring it back to what it was,” Altamura said. “I saw very old photos of what it used to look like and wanted to bring it back as close as I could to that. I knew how special it could be if done right. … It had to be done that way.”

Mexican Capt. Don Cayetano Juárez built the adobe for his wife, María de Jesús, and his 11 children on a sizable swath of land named Rancho Tulucay, according to online archives at UC Berkeley. Granted the land east of the Napa River in 1840 for his military service by Mexican Gen. Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, primarily for his expeditions against native populations, Juárez was a key figure in shaping Napa Valley.

Kelly O’Connor, research archivist and librarian at the Napa County Historical Society, said Rancho Tulucay became a pivotal economic force in wheat and cattle grazing. Even as discrimination against former Mexican citizens dwindled landholdings after California gained U.S. statehood in 1850, Rancho Tulucay remained influential.

On a personal level, O’Connor said Juárez was kind, honorable, sociable and community-minded. Central to this was his residence, which held fiestas and gatherings during Juárez’ lifetime.

Fast-forwarding roughly 170 years, the Old Adobe was standing, but the historic landmark was well overdue for a second life.

And while Altamura had experience as a commercial painter, built his own music studio and conducted renovations in his own home, this undertaking was a “whole new frontier.” Additionally, the inability to hire expert contractors due to financial constraints made the task that much taller.

Yet with a group of highly dedicated friends and family as his crew, the project was underway.

The biggest undertaking the Old Adobe faced was its initial earthquake retrofitting in 2016, Altamura said. Given the desire to maintain the building’s unique features, Altamura noted the retrofit was painstakingly built within the structure to preserve historic features.

In keeping with “doing it the right way,” Altamura went so far as to hire a family from Mexico to help with the adobe bricks and plaster. For about six months, the Cruz family would teach the enthusiastic renovators how to create using dirt from behind the property, grass, horse manure, straw and sand.

Old-growth redwood, painstakingly sourced from across California, would accentuate the interior beams within the structure. Altamura and his team would also build gutters, shutters, front and back decks, and doors from salvaged Foppiano wine tank staves. Square nails, found on site, were also reused whenever possible.

The renovation also came at a time of personal turmoil in Altamura’s life. Losing his beloved 19-year-old dachshund, cat, mother and his Silverado Trail home to the October 2017 North Bay wildfires in a span of a few years was devastating. But the ability to dive into the project, which took countless hours of research on top of physical attention, created a labor of love.

The appreciation Altamura and his team put into the building and surrounding property was not lost on Cinthya Cisneros, owner and founder of La Cheve.

She fell in love with the restored Old Adobe immediately. Perhaps one of the biggest appeals was that the building was constructed when the land belonged to Mexico and was renovated using traditional methods. With the business’ ethos built around Cisnero’s Mexican heritage and the importance of family, the building represented so much of what she sought to share with others.

As she navigated different spaces for La Cheve in the beginning, she couldn’t think of any other space the same way. And as La Cheve entered the space in 2019, the respect and detail she also pays toward the Juárez family’s home became an essential part of the business.

“I think it’s important to pay homage and respect to those before us,” Cisneros said. “I was very stuck on the idea that if the Juárez family never built this building, I would never be here. I would never be able to run La Cheve or make it the place it is today. So, I’m very grateful for that. I know for some it may feel insignificant, but I think it is very powerful to showcase the faces who brought La Cheve here.”

For O’Connor, Cisneros’ dedication to telling the Juárez story is unique. While many who reach out to the Napa County Historical Society seek to preserve details for personal residences, La Cheve’s popularity and ability to communicate history with such adoration makes the Juárez story come alive.

“The thing that is special about Cinthya and her relationship to that building is that she came to us and rather than saying ‘I want it to look like this,’ it was, ‘I want to be able to tell this story,’” O’Connor said. “That is something that’s not as common and really is the human touch part that heightens the story of that building.”

Altamura, who praises Cisneros’ dedication to the building and the Juárez family legacy, said he is proud of how much the business has grown. From its grand opening to today, he said, there is a nervous enthusiasm he has when people visit the property and set foot inside the Old Adobe.

What he hopes people take away is simple.

“I hope they appreciate the history there,” Altamura said. “I hope they want to get to know about the history that is there and look up who these people are. I have always wanted it to be a family establishment where people can create memories. And that’s what it has become. To me, it’s the most unique spot in Napa. You can tell people appreciate that.”