This prefabricated house was shipped around Cape Horn and erected here in 1849 by Philip Roach. It was the first milled lumber house built in Monterey.

Roach was the last Monterey alcalde and the first Monterey mayor. In 1850, he sold the house to William. S. Johnson who had come to California with Stevenson's Regiment and later served as first Recorder of Monterey County.

Johnson sold the house to John Burke Phillips, also of Stevenson's Regiment.

In 1871, Samuel B. Gordon bought the property and owned it for twenty-nine years.

Source: Historical American Buildings Survey, May 1962