# @lahistorygirl on Instagram

- **Type:** Video
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DTTwAwHkkWx
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/63386400-lahistorygirl-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/b0b0ad9d97.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-01-09T23:37:08.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Malia Miglino │History & Travel │L.A. (@lahistorygirl) — https://gondola.cc/lahistorygirl

## Caption

Was this crumbling Victorian—now marooned in the middle of a mobile home park—once home to spiritual healers, experimental medicine… and a woman who flew with the Wright Brothers?

Absolutely. And it gets darker.

📍Welcome to the Coffee Rice house in Oceano, CA. 

Built in the 1880s by ambitious land speculator Coffee Adam Rice, the mansion was meant to herald a booming new town. Instead, it became a monument to tragedy: a son lost, a wife broken by grief and later killed by an automobile, and Rice himself dead of sudden pneumonia at just 45.

Their daughter, Sadie Rice—later known as Lady Jack—escaped it all. She became the first American woman to fly in a powered airplane, traveled across Africa, and published her own book. Her childhood home, meanwhile, took a far stranger turn.

In the early 1900s, the house was transformed into a sanatorium run by the Temple of the People and their home base in Halcyon, CA. Tuberculosis patients slept in tents, electric shock therapy was used inside, and the nearby dunes were believed to have healing powers. The legends of deaths and hauntings started when it was still in use before closing in 1949. 

Today, the mansion still stands, and from my understanding, is the caretaker’s home for the mobile home park despite its….well, rough shape. It does definitely make an impression, looming over Highway 1, every bit of it looking out of place and from a bygone era. My hope is that one day it will be restored to its former glory and the correct history to be shared more than its legends. 

#californiahistory #victorianhome #spookytravel  #historian #californiablogger

haunted Victorian house, California occult history, Temple of the People, Halcyon California, abandoned mansions, tuberculosis sanatorium, early electric therapy, women aviation history, Wilbur Wright passenger, macabre history, haunted California homes, spiritualist communities, forgotten landmarks, eerie places California, historic hauntings, oceano ca, arroyo grande ca, california blogger, historic home, spooky travel, la history girl, female historian, medical history, victorian history

## Stats

- **Views:** 6,225
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## Tags

victorianhome, spookytravel, californiahistory, californiablogger, historian

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