Rossi House, Box 88, March 1949

I don’t know where the Rossi House was located, it may no longer be there. What is clear though, it was large and was well appointed in an older style than 1949.

How can we be sure the date of March 28, 1949 is correct ? There’s an image with a calendar on the March 1949 page. Close enough.

Joel works methodologically, starting with the outside and making his way through the inside. Multiple angles were photographed twice, with and without flash.

EDIT: After posting this blog post to “Memories of Stockton” and ” Stockton History” facebook groups, the answers to location of this home came in swiftly.

1304 N San Joaquin, Stockton and already in the 1910 Stockton City Registry per Kevin Shawver.

Margot Repetti Dryden’s great grandparents were married in front of the parlor fireplace before Saint Mary’s was completed.

Floyd Perry Jr. shared an aerial image of the house, positively identifying it as on the corner of E Vine and N San Joaquin, now a parking lot.

The tower with roof is at the left far corner side of the house, the chimney location matches and the gable with window in the image below, is barely visible in the aerial image. The rear of the house, in the second set of images, equally matches the visible protruding turret in the aerial image.

The late transitional Queen Anne/Craftsman style house (1890-1910) is no longer there. Gifted to SUSD circa 1965, when the last Rossi sister passed away, and turned into a parking lot for the High School.

The power of social media at work, thanks to all who responded !

EDIT: The above two images are taken at the intersection of N San Joaquin Street and E Vine Street.

This set of two views do give us a reasonable overview of the size of this house. There’s ample evidence of a main house with living quarters for servants.

The entrance to the house was on the corner of E Vine and N San Joaquin Street.

Needless to say that the furnishings are late 19th to early 20th century grandeur, and we will see this repeated through the rooms Joel has access to.

Joel makes sure there are reference points in each image, linking to the next image to make the flow manageable.

This is also the case in the next image where the lamp on the round three legged table allows us to flow into the next room.

Last image is the same dining room of course, just showing the built-in china buffet and the pass-through door to the kitchen in the center.

For the last image, Joel used a flashbulb to light up the place, there was insufficient light to rely on natural light only.

Although the house has post-Victorian fireplaces, there’s also “modern comfort” through the radiators fired by a boiler.

Joel moves from there to another grand room leading to the parlor. It takes multiple angles to give us an idea of the extend of this place. This room has a circular tower section, equally shown in the first set of outdoor images.

Since Joel wanted to be sure he got the image, there was a second shot made with artificial light. Easy to tell based on how the shadows fall into the room.

Since there was little light on this side of the room, Joel used a photo light to make the image read better.

These type of limited residence walk-throughs do give us a decent insight in how the well to do lived post WWII.

Personally, i would have loved seeing the kitchen and the bedrooms. There’s always stories to tell about these.

Below is how this E Vine Street and N San Joaquin corner looks now, anno 2022, this is where the entrance with stairs up to the lobby entrance door was located.

Last images is a lost football image, part of the same match in last blog post. No references nor comments.

Yes, there are more boxes with 1949 material, but we’re coming to a close of this decade of imagery.

Cheers !