07/15/2026
Long before Vacaville existed, this land was home to Patwin people. In 1842–1843, the Peña Adobe was constructed here as the home of Juan Felipe Peña’s family, with thick earthen walls and hand-hewn redwood timbers. Historical accounts also recognize that Mission-trained Indigenous laborers formed and dried the adobe bricks used to build the Peña and Vaca homes.
The building survived while much of the world around it changed. It became California Historical Landmark No. 534 in 1955. Land surrounding the adobe was transferred for restoration and preservation during the late 1950s, and the property was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. Much of the neighboring parkland was acquired by the City of Vacaville in the early 1970s.
But protecting a structure is not the same as protecting the living landscape that gives it meaning.
In February 2005, the City approved the Lower Lagoon Valley development immediately south of Lagoon Valley Park. The current plan encompasses approximately 868 acres and authorizes 1,025 homes, commercial and business development, roads, recreational facilities, and a golf course. Construction began approximately sixteen years later.
The City’s own documents acknowledged that the project would produce significant, unavoidable, and cumulative environmental impacts. Those effects were ultimately declared “acceptable” because officials determined that the project’s benefits outweighed them.
The adobe remains standing. The formal park boundary remains. Conservation and mitigation areas were incorporated into the project. But the open valley captured in this footage uninterrupted views, wildlife habitat, quiet, darkness, and sense of distance from the built environment—could not simply be recreated after the grading began.
The letter of preservation may have been honored while its spirit was violated.
These clips from the Nature of Sound archive preserve a view of Peña Adobe and Lagoon Valley before roads, construction equipment, and new neighborhoods transformed the surrounding landscape. They are not presented to suggest that communities never need housing.
