History
Local carpenter, Jack Hamilton, built this home in 1925. This Dutch Colonial
style home has been beautifully preserved for almost 100 years.
Jack and Rhina Hamilton were born in Illinois. They moved to California and
were married in Orange County in 1913. The newlyweds settled in Los Angeles where
their two children, Grant and Winifred, were born.
The Hamilton family moved to Murrieta in 1917. Jack grew crops and did
carpentry work in the community. In 1923, he built the metal carpenter shop that resides
on the back of the property near C Street. He then built his family home two years later.
Jack built many structures in Murrieta. According to local tradition, he built the
former Howard Sykes barn that use to be located on Adams Ave. He also is credited for
building the portico at Ray’s Café. He also built the 1940 Murrieta post office building
that is located directly across the street from his home.
In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Jack was the construction supervisor for
Guenther’s Murrieta Hot Springs Resort. He dismantled the indoor plunge and
reconstructed it as an outdoor pool with changing rooms and bathrooms next to it.
In the 1940s, he was employed at Camp Pendleton as supervisor of plumbing and
sewage disposal. Then on June 12, 1945, while driving his tractor and harvester on his
farm, he had a heart attack and died.
His son, Grant, was serving in the U.S. Navy when he was informed of his
father’s death. Jack was laid to rest in the Elsinore Valley Cemetery. When Rhina died
many years later, she was buried next to her husband. She commissioned a new joint
graver marker for her and her husband.
Jack’s original grave marker was brought back to the house and laid in the flower
bed next to the house. The grandkids were scared when they visited because they
thought their grandfather was buried there, but he wasn’t.
Today, the grave marker is next to the front gate. Though Jack is not buried on
the property, the marker serves as a way to honor a man who contributed greatly to the
development of Murrieta.
