The UC San Diego Chancellor’s house is the longest standing structure in La Jolla Farms.
As evidenced by this 1955 photo, La Jolla Farms was once barren of all the real estate cultivation it’s now known for, before sprawling estates staked their claim to the premium views atop the Torrey Pines bluffs.
The structure at 9630 La Jolla Farms Road prominently standing centered in frame here is the Audrey Geisel University House, tied inextricably to those who furthered La Jolla’s development and growth as a cultural center of the region.
Though homes, gardens, pools and paved roads have bloomed and burgeoned around it, the Audrey Geisel University House has retained its prominence in La Jolla Farms as the private residence of the UC San Diego chancellor, currently Pradeep Khosla.
The 12,000-square-foot house, built in 1950 and 1951 of adobe, was designed by renowned architect William Lumpkins, part of the Santa Fe adobe revival movement in the 1930s.
The structure was originally the residence for William and Ruth Black, who bought the inclusive 248 acres of unimproved blufftop land, above what is now the namesake Black’s Beach, developing it into a thoroughbred horse breeding and training facility they called La Jolla Farms.
La Jolla Farms Stables with the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, under construction, in background. Photo credit: Robert Glasheen Photograph Collection. MSS 154. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego.
The Blacks lived in the house from 1952 to 1967, selling it to the UC Regents as part of a larger deal begun in 1966 between the Regents and Black and his son, William F. Black, in which 132 acres of land were sold to the UC system.
The UCSD chancellors occupied the house as both a private residence and a space to host university events from 1967, such as those to honor faculty, staff and students, with exterior and interior reception areas for up to 100 guests.
In subsequent decades, the Farms lots were developed into the residential collective of affluence it is now, with some of the largest and most opulent homes in La Jolla cropping up around the University House, as the chancellor’s residence came to be called.
Parts of the Blacks’ thoroughbred horse facilities were remodeled into what opened in 2004 as the Estancia La Jolla resort.
The University House was vacated in 2004, due to reports the structure was unstable, with mechanical, electrical and plumbing infrastructures deemed substandard or failing.
Recognized on state and national historic registers as the William Black House in 2007 and 2008, the site is also listed as a Native American Sanctified Cemetery by the California Native American Heritage Commission; there have been several incidences of Kumeyaay remains unearthed from beneath the home.
UCSD undertook a significant renovation of the property in 2012, engaging local architect Ione R. Stiegler of IS Architecture, who specializes in historic preservation.
Stiegler’s rehabilitation “seamlessly included a seismic retrofit, bluff stabilization, reinstalling all utilities and mechanical systems, altering the drainage pattern of the entire building and site, installing new fire suppression and security systems, improving circulation and restoring aesthetic features while honoring the site’s Native American heritage,” the firm’s website wrote.
Much of the funding for the $10.5 million renovation came from the large philanthropic gifts Audrey Geisel, the late La Jolla-based widow of prominent La Jollan Theodor Seuss Geisel, made after her husband’s death.
UCSD renamed the house the Audrey Geisel University House in honor of her longtime support.
The home reopened in 2014; Khosla took up residence there the same year and has lived there since.
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