Peralta Adobe, Adobe building in San Jose, California

The Peralta Adobe is a clay brick house in San Jose made up of two connected rooms, each roughly 20 by 41 feet in size. The walls were built using hand-formed adobe blocks stacked together, a common building method in early California.

José Manuel Gonzeles, an Apache founder of the Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe, built the adobe in 1797 as his second house after winter flooding made the first site untenable. After his death in 1804, Luis María Peralta acquired it in 1808 and divided it into two rooms, adding a porch, kitchen and chimney. His daughters María Josefa and María Dolores held it until 1866, when it passed to grandson Baltazar Peralta.

The adobe is furnished as it was 200 years ago, and an outdoor horno, a domed earthen oven, stands in the yard. It forms the Peralta Adobe & Fallon House Historic Site with the 1855 Victorian Fallon House across San Pedro Square, run by History San José.

The building is located in the downtown area and can be visited to get a sense of daily life in the region's early period. Visitors should check ahead for when tours are available since it is not open every day.

In 1949, to clear space for the Lusardi building next door, Giuseppe Bacchio had 17 inches cut off the adobe's north-west exterior corner, so the outline visitors see today is trimmed. The building is San Jose's Historic Landmark #1 and California Historical Landmark #866.