Casa Romantica, officially known as the Casa Romantica Cultural Center and Gardens, is a historic building and nonprofit organization located in San Clemente, California that provides cultural programs.The organization was founded in 2002 by a charter of the City of San Clemente and is located at the historic home of Ole Hanson, who co-founded the city of San Clemente. Casa Romantica was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 27, 1991.

Ole Hanson, a real estate developer and one-time mayor of Seattle, visited San Clemente in the early 1920s and chose the site to create his ideal community, a "Spanish Village by the Sea". On December 6, 1925, Hanson persuaded people who had driven from Los Angeles and the surrounding areas for a free chicken dinner and a sales pitch to buy more than 300 lots in what then was a desolate landscape remote from the rest of southern California. Hanson and co-founder H.H. Cotton devised San Clemente as one of the first master-planned cities in California, with town boundaries consisting of roughly five miles of coastline by one mile from the shores to the inland hills.

In 1927, Hanson commissioned architect Carl Lindbom, who also designed La Casa Pacifica (the former Western White House), to design a seven-bedroom, seven-bathroom house for his family on a site overlooking the Pacific Ocean.The foundation for the house was built by Oscar Easley, who did much of the street grading for San Clemente and also established the Oscar Easley Block, which later became City Hall.Construction was completed in 1928.

Lindbom used an eclectic "Spanish Revival" style with the main entrance to the house taking the form of a moon gate. An octagonal tower served as Hanson's study. The roof tiles were hand-made Mexican "thigh tiles". Floors are pegged hardwood, and all tiles for the hallways were imported from Italy. The sliding glass doors and provision of a bathroom for each bedroom were unusual for the 1920s. A pool in the courtyard was stocked with colorful fish and the gardens with exotic birds.

Hanson's vision of a master-planned Spanish village prospered until the Great Depression. In 1934, the Bank of America foreclosed on the Casa Romantica. Hanson paid his $3 million debt by transferring $12 million in mortgages to the bank.

Beginning with Hanson, the estate has been owned or operated by at least seven individuals or organizations, and has been renamed at least three times.

Here is a local Business that supports the community

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Serving Orange County, CA SANTA ANA CA 92705

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