HENRY ALLEN RISPIN & 1920S CAPITOLA
"No man except F. A. Hihn, founder of Capitola, has left his mark on the City of Capitola more permanently than H. Allen Rispin—oil promoter, resort owner, mansion builder, visionary." —Phil Walker, Central County News, May 21, 1969
1872 Henry Allen Rispin born in Ontario, Canada. (There are varying accounts as to year of birth.)
1881 Annette Agnes Blake born in California. (Future wife of Henry Rispin.)
1887 Henry Rispin first takes up residence in the United States.
1890s Henry Rispin works as a railroad clerk and as a manager in various theaters.
1894 Henry Rispin becomes a naturalized U.S. citizen.
1901 Henry Rispin is business manager for orator and itinerant "psychologist" William R. Price
1902 Henry Rispin and Annette A. Blake marry in San Francisco.
1903 (October 5) A son, Alan Winfield Rispin, is born (There are varying accounts as to the year and place).
1902-1918 Henry Rispin works primarily as an executive in the oil business.
1906 Isaac Elder Blake, father of Annette Rispin and founder of Conoco, dies in San Francisco.
1907 Rispin and business partners invest in Capitola Heights.
1918 (March 13) Rispin strikes oil near Lusk, Wyoming, launching the Lance Creek Oil Boom.
1919 (August 1) Henry Rispin purchases Capitola.
1919 Work begins on Capitola improvements, including building the Esplanade. Work also starts on the Rispin Mansion.
1919 Rispin creates a stock company, The Capitola Company, to raise money for the development of Capitola. Work on the mansion continues.
1920 Movie, The Testing Block, is shot in Capitola. Rispin organizes summer events to attract visitors, including swimming races and a wild west show.
1921 (February 20) Allen McPherson, night watchman at the Rispin Mansion, dies while on duty (age 53).
1921 (about June 1) Mansion is completed and the Rispins move in.
1921 (December 12) Alan W. Rispin enrolls at Santa Cruz High School.
1922 Rispin creates a second stock company, The Bay Head Land Company, to develop Capitola and other interests.
1922 Alan W. Rispin graduates from Santa Cruz High School and later takes classes at Stanford University.
1922 Walter Brennan (later an academy-award winning actor) sells real estate in Capitola for Rispin.
1923 Rispin offers to sell or trade Capitola for oil wells.
1924 Rispin sells the Hotel Capitola to E. V. "Teddy" Woodhouse, who had been its manager.
1924 Many Capitola properties offered at a giant auction.
1926 (February 12) Large storm waves damage waterfront and flood downtown.
1926 Capitola Airport and Camp McQuaide established.
1927 Rispin offers his mansion to President Coolidge as a vacation home. Coolidge politely declines.
1928 Rispin sells mansion to the Marian Realty Company of San Francisco, then buys it back. Proposes making it into a clubhouse for the Monterey Bay Golf and Country Club, then under construction.
1928 Developer C. Everett Blanchard begins work on the Riverview Terrace subdivision.
1929 Monterey Bay Golf and Country Club opens in the hills northeast of Capitola.
1929 Most Rispin holdings in Capitola offered at auction to pay off creditors.
1929 Lacking leadership, Capitola considers merging with Soquel and becoming an incorporated city (suggested name of Sotola), but the plan has insufficient support.
1930 Bank begins foreclosure proceedings against Rispin's real estate holdings. Rispin leaves the area. Many of the holdings, including the mansion and golf course, are eventually acquired by Robert Hayes Smith of Burlingame, who had been a stockholder in The Capitola Company.
1930 Alan W. Rispin drills test oil well near Watsonville but fails to strike oil.
1930 to 1936 Series of lawsuits concerning property ownership and unpaid debts.
1931 Robert Hays Smith acquires last of Rispin's Capitola holdings and begins using mansion as a "beach house."
1935 County of Santa Cruz gains ownership of Capitola streets and seawall.
1937 A motion picture company briefly considers using the mansion as headquarters.
1940 Mansion sold to the Poor Clares (a cloistered order of nuns) and becomes St. Joseph's Monastery.
1941 (August 29) Annette A. Rispin dies in Santa Clara.
1941 (October 13) Dedication of St. Joseph's Monastery.
1946 (January 14) Alan W. Rispin dies in Watsonville.
1947 (April 10) Henry Allen Rispin dies in San Francisco.
1956 Poor Clares move to new home in Aptos.
1959 Poor Clares put Rispin Mansion up for sale. Eventually it is purchased as an investment by three local businessmen: Fenner Angell, Mannis Dick, and Emmet Rittenhouse.
1969 Site deemed a public nuisance. Outbuildings are demolished and the mansion boarded up.
1972 City of Capitola considers purchasing mansion but is unable to make a deal with the owners.
1979 John Bakalian and Associates propose converting mansion into a hotel.
1982 Developer Howard Dysle proposes developing site for senior citizen housing or for single family dwellings.
1985 City of Capitola purchases mansion and surrounding acreage for $1.35 million.
1991 Draft EIR evaluates the impact of six possible uses for the mansion and land.
1994 Rispin Steering Committee established.
1995 Steering Committee recommends library or bed and breakfast inn as best possible uses of the site.
1996 Developers Ron Beardslee and Dan Floyd form Rispin Partners Inc. and seek rights to develop the property as a bed and breakfast inn after the mansion is determined to be unsuitable for a library.
1996 City constructs bridge over Soquel Creek between the mansion and Peery Park.
1996 Volunteers work on cleaning up gardens around the mansion.
2000 A revised EIR is prepared.
2003 City of Capitola sells mansion to the Capitola Redevelopment Agency to facilitate private development. The property is later transferred back to the City after redevelopment agencies are discontinued in California in 2011.
2006 Barry Swenson Builder and Ron Beardslee form Rispin L.L.C. to develop the mansion and property.
2009 Capitola City Council approves a 55-year lease on the property to Rispin L.L.C. to allow a $14 million renovation of the mansion into a 25-room hotel.
2009 (May 28) A fire guts much of the interior.
2009 Rispin L.L.C. fails to begin construction by a September deadline due to lack of financing.
2010 (November) City Council approves demolition of the mansion.
2011 (January) Developer Barry Swenson proposes a two-phase restoration, to be funded in part by the City of Capitola.
2011 (February) City Council rejects Swenson's proposal and votes to mothball the mansion instead of demolishing it.
2012 Mansion roof is rebuilt, doors and windows sealed, and the structure mothballed.
2014 City of Capitola receives grant to develop the land around the mansion as a park. Michael Arnone is landscape architect.
2020 City seeks additional grant money to finish the park project. Public input sought at meetings held online due to pandemic.