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Preserving La Casa Pacifica

December 22, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Pat Nixon, Richard Nixon 

According to the OC Register, the San Clemente City Council voted 5-0 last week to enter into an agreement with La Casa Pacifica owner Gavin Herbert to refurbish the home that formerly served as the Western White House for RN and PN. The preservation effort might also include a study of a mature Magnolia tree on the property, which PN originally planted as a seedling from a tree that President Andrew Jackson brought to the White House:

One of the curiosities that could be explored in the survey, officials said, is a mature magnolia tree at Casa Pacifica that first lady Pat Nixon planted there, using a seedling she had brought from the White House in Washington.

Herbert knew of that tree. As owner of Roger’s Gardens, a home and garden center in Corona del Mar, he took charge of the landscaping at Casa Pacifica shortly after the Nixons arrived in 1969.

“The history of the tree was more than Pat Nixon bringing a seedling,” Herbert said. “Andrew Jackson brought that tree to the White House. And if you look on a $20 bill (which bears President Jackson’s likeness) there’s a picture of it.”

Herbert said it would be fun to do a historic survey. Having lived through the Nixon years and having purchased the home from the Nixons when they moved to the East Coast in 1980, he suggested he probably knows as much as whoever might be hired to do a historic survey.

“We had 17 heads of state there during the Nixon era,” Herbert said. “We’ve had five different presidents on the property over a period of 40 years.”



Comments

4 Responses to “Preserving La Casa Pacifica”

  1. Chris Jay on February 16th, 2010 2:38 pm

    How can we get a Pat Nixon rose to plant?

  2. Toni Radmann on June 21st, 2010 3:59 pm

    Please keep me updated on the LaCasa Pacifica.
    I was a former resident of San Clemente, and fell in love with the mansion. I think it is the most ideal home in the world to live.

  3. John Schram on July 23rd, 2010 12:36 pm

    How would one find out who the builders or contractors were on Casa Pacifica. Any idea when it was built. I have a feeling my Grandfather who lived in Monrovia was the builder for the estate.

  4. Tom Magness on March 16th, 2011 9:32 pm

    I used to drive by this home several times while I was going to college, on breaks from my studies. My mother was actually in it when she was younger, long before President Nixon acquired it. La Casa Pacifica should be declared a landmark or historic place, not only because it was owned by a President but also because of the history that has taken place here and the famous people who have visited, even going bacK as far as President Franklin Roosevelt.

    As I am writing this, there is considerable fear over what might happen regarding the damage to nuclear reactors in Japan by the recent earthquake. Apparently President Nixon had no qualms about being, at that time, the closest resident to the San Onofre nuclear facility, which is located just a few miles down the Pacific Coast. And California is earthquake country too!

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