Rancho Santa Fe began as Rancho San Dieguito, a land grant of nearly 9,000 acres made to Juan María Osuna in 1845. The Santa Fe Railway Company later used the land to plant thousands of eucalyptus trees for use as railroad ties. In the 1920s Rancho Santa Fe became one of the state's first planned communities unified by a single architectural theme, the Spanish Colonial Revival. Lilian Rice, one of California's first successful women architects, supervised the development and designed many of the buildings.

Citation from California Office of Historic Preservation