The original adobe structure surviving from the Villa de Branciforte was one large rectangular room with two covered corridors (porches) on both length-wise sides of the house.

Lorenzana partitioned a small bedroom from the main room so that he and his wife could sleep separately from their reported 21 children.

Jose Lorenzana lived in the house until his death in 1863, ending the reign of Spanish inhabitants.

It is one of only two adobe structures left in the City of Santa Cruz and the only one remaining from the Villa de Branciforte.

[3]The house was then bought in the 1970s by Edna Emerson (née Cleave) Kimbro (25 June 1948 - 26 June 2005),[4][5] a bachelor of art history from the University of California, Santa Cruz, 1974,[6] named Monterey District historian for the California Department of Parks and Recreation,[7] and her husband, Joseph Rushton Kimbro (August 29, 1943 - June 30, 2011)[8] who continued the restoration by stripping chicken wire and plaster from the exterior and restored the original adobe.