Edgemoor Farm Dairy Barn - Santee, California
Posted by: 
brwhiz
N 32° 50.608 W 116° 58.194
11S E 502816 N 3633933
The Edgemoor Farm Dairy Barn, or Edgemoor Polo Barn, was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 16, 1985.
Waymark Code: WMAJA4
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 01/20/2011
Views: 8
Excerpted and edited from http://sohosandiego.org/endangered/mel2009/edgemoor.htm
The Edgemoor Farm Dairy Barn, now known as the Edgemoor Polo Barn, is the last remnant of the Edgemoor Dairy Farm, listed as a Historic District on the California Register of Historical Resources since 1987. All of the other buildings have been demolished by the County of San Diego in preparation for expanding the Las Colinas Women's Detention Facility, something which the residents of the predominently residential area oppose vehemently. So the land sits empty, surrounded by temporary chain-link fence, occupied only by trees, vacant building foundations plus concrete floor slabs, and unused driveways and parking lots.
In addition to the individually-listed National Register Edgemoor Polo Barn, the site contained over twenty buildings dating to three distinct historical periods. The land was originally part of one of the first ranches in the El Cajon Valley. In the 1910s, it was owned and operated as a world-renown dairy and polo pony farm by millionaire Walter Hamlin Dupee, a Chicago transplant to Coronado who made a major contribution to the world-wide spread of the sport polo. The farm was purchased by the County in 1923 for use as a poor farm and home for the aged and indigent. Three dairy barns were converted to hospital wards. Between 1923 and 1929, San Diego Master Architects, the Quayle Brothers, with buildings on the local, State and National Registers, were commissioned to design an inter-related complex of early Transitional Modern buildings to house and service the farm home "guests." At the end of the Poor Farm era, Edgemoor transitioned into one of California's first publicly-funded geriatric medical facilities. Several Modern buildings constructed during the 1950s and 1960s period demonstrated the most up-to-date concepts in medical and rehabilitative care for their times.
The historic Polo Barn now houses the Santee Historical Society.