The Centinela Adobe, also known as La Casa de la Centinela, is a Spanish Colonial style adobe house built in 1834. It is operated as a house museum by the Historical Society of Centinela Valley, and it is one of the 43 surviving adobes within Los Angeles County, California. The Adobe was the seat of the Rancho Aguaje de la Centinela, a Mexican Alta California-era land grant partitioned from the Spanish Las Californias era Rancho Sausal Redondo centered around the Centinela Springs. The Centinela Adobe, which is the Centinela Valley's oldest residence, was built by Ygnacio Machado in 1834. Since then, farmers, ranchers, a Scotsman, and Inglewood's founding father, Daniel Freeman, have lived in the structure. It is the oldest building in the area and has been called the "Birthplace of Inglewood". History of the Ranchos and Centinela Adobe Antonio Ygnacio Avila In 1822, after the Mexican War of Independence brought freedom for Mexico from Spain, Antonio Ygnacio Avila received a Mexican land grant for Rancho Sausal Redondo in Alta California, where he grazed cattle. The rancho's lands encompass the present day cities of Redondo Beach, Inglewood, Hawthorne, El Segundo, Lawndale, Manhattan Beach, and Hermosa Beach. Ygnacio Machado - Rancho Aguaje de la Centinela In the early 1830s, Ygnacio Machado, one of the "leather jacket soldiers" who escorted the original settlers of Los Angeles, began cultivating a portion of the rancho. Ygnacio Machado's brother Augustin Machado owned the nearby Rancho La Ballona, as well as the Rancho La Laguna and Rancho Santa Rosa. Ygnacio Machado became the grantee of a portion of Rancho Sausal Redondo, the Rancho Aguaje de la Centinela and built the 'Centinela Adobe' in 1834 “of adobe brick upon foundation of field stones. Subsequent additions were built of wood frame with vertical wood sheathing…the original roof has been replaced with wood shingles.” Ygnacio Machado owned Rancho Aguaje de la Centinela only briefly, trading it in 1844 for a keg of whiskey and a small home in the Pueblo de Los Angeles. Robert Burnett The rancho changed hands several times in the 1850s, including a sale in 1859 for $930. Joseph Lancaster Brent bought the rancho the same year for $3,000, but when the American Civil War commenced in 1860, Brent returned to his home in the Southern states, where he served in the Confederate Army. Scotsman Robert Burnett purchased the rancho from Brent for $3,000 in 1860.