410 Monroe Street
ca1870 Colonial Revival
The James W. Finch House, known also as the Finch-Fleischer House. The house is significant as one of few surviving examples of early American architecture in Monterey, as opposed to the Spanish/Mexican adobe style of other Monterey buildings in the same era. The house embodies a Classical Revival mode with eclectic features common to the period of construction.
This home was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. It had previously been recorded in 1964 as a part of the Historic American Building Survey. The 1983 nomination was prepared by Courad Olsen. The State Historic Property Database indicates that the house was built in 1879 and listed on the National Register in 1982. It was further recorded by Kent Seavey in 1999 for the City of Monterey. The property is listed with the City of Monterey as a historic resource. The 1884 Assessor’s map does not show this house extant on the property..
The house was built by rancher and stovemaker James William Finch and by Charles Finch for their mother, who lived in the house until 1881. As early settlers, the Finch family was important both in ranching in the nearby Carmel Valley and in Monterey commercial ventures.
James William Finch was born in Connecticut in 1830. He arrived in California via the Overland Trail in 1854, opening a fruit store in Monterey. In 1859 his brother Charles and his mother Julia Finch joined him and together for about a year they operated the Washington Hotel. In 1860 the family moved to Jamesburg in the upper Carmel Valley to raise horses and there the brothers established a stock-ranch. The horses were sold to the Union army as remounts. James was attached and wounded by Indians on the way to deliver horses in Salt Lake City. There he spent several years recovering among the Saints establishing a. business before returning to Monterey. James Finch was a stovemaker and iron worker by trade in addition to being a stock-raiser. After his mother’s death in 1881, James Finch and his wife, Ellen, moved into the house, adding a northern wing and rear kitchen. Ellen’s father, Major John O’Neill, was an early Monterey mayor and spent his last year with his daughter and her husband in the house. James’ daughter Alma, one of two children of that union, lived in the house for many years with her son and her husband Charles Fleischer. The Finch-Fleischer families were active in local social activities including amateur participation in melodramas at Monterey’s First Theatre. At one time, the artist Charles Rollo Peters, well known for his nocturnal painting of Monterey adobes, resided in a cottage on the property before moving to his own parcel of land now known as “Peters Gate.” A painting of the home was on display at the Monterey Museum of art.
In the 1920’s Alma and her husband remodeled the interior of the home into three apartments and they occupied one. Alma maintained the house after her husband’s death in 1931, and until her own passing in 1970. Spring 1973 Mr. and Mrs. Conrad and Nancy Olsen purchased the home in its then poor condition. The new city zoning codes would have allowed 23 apartments upon the demolition of the home. The Olsen’s spent over a year searching for information and found much of the history in the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. With much diligence and the work of the Olsen’s they undertook the massive renovation of the Finch home.
Directions to the next house: Continue down W. Franklin Street, turn left onto Watson Street. About three-quarters down the block you’ll arrive at the Frisbee/DeVoe House (314 Watson Street), #27 on the map below.
