2026 Doors Open California
75+ Sites Across the State | Weekends in September, 2026
Doors Open California is the largest statewide celebration of historic places in California. Enthusiasts of historic architecture, design, and cultural heritage will have access to over 75 sites across the state on the weekends during the month of September 2026.
Registration is now open!
Register
Registration Form
Doors Open California is the largest statewide celebration of historic places in California. Enthusiasts of historic architecture, design, and cultural heritage will have access to over 70 sites across the state on the weekends during the month of September 2026. Registration is a flat fee of $20 per person to access all sites (children and students are free). Once you submit your registration, please be sure to select the sites you’d like to visit in order to secure your spots.
What Your Registration Includes
Your Doors Open California registration fee of just $20 includes the following exciting perks.
- Complete access to more than 70 sites across the state of California in six regions
- A Doors Open button, giving you access to all sites on the weekend
- Access to our special Doors Open California virtual map of participating sites
- Self-guided and other tours made available from Doors Open partners
- Special experiences and unique curated content, accessible only to Doors Open participants.
Sites & Schedule
Sept. 5–6
Bay Area · Sierra Foothills
Rarely Open: Alleghany’s Mine Museum and Old Theater
Travel to Alleghany to visit the mining museum and rarely opened old theater and school gym. The town is home to the Original Sixteen to One Mine, one of the longest operating mines in the United States, and its small surviving population preserves a vivid record of boom, decline, and mining heritage.
Berkeley’s Civic Landmarks Behind the Scenes
Tour two Berkeley civic landmarks facing preservation challenges: the Veterans Memorial Building, home to the Berkeley Historical Society and Museum, and the former City Hall by Bakewell and Brown. Visitors will see original auditorium decor, lodge-style collection spaces, and hear about future plans shaped by seismic safety and funding needs.
Inside Oakland’s 16th Street Station
Doors Open 2026 offers rare access to Oakland’s Beaux-Arts-style 1912 Southern Pacific 16th Street Station, designed by Jarvis Hunt. It is one of the grandest stations built in the Bay Area. Guided visits include the main hall, baggage wing, elevated platform, and an exterior view of the signal tower. The tour explains the connection between the station and transcontinental travel, electric rail, and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Share your personal and family memories at the oral history booth. Explore the work of our community partners, who are also dedicated to saving this important historical asset from demolition by neglect. Scheduled Activities
30 Minute Interior Tours– Experience the grandeur of Beaux-Arts designs and walk in the footsteps of the hardworking men and women who made train travel possible. Tours every 30 minutes starting at 10:00 AM, last tour starts at 3:30 PM.
Visit the Oral History Booth and tell us your personal connection to the station
Tour Community Partner Booths– Learn what local non-profit organizations are doing to support the Station and the City of Oakland.
Map your connection to the station – Mark on the United States map where you and family came from before Oakland.
Enjoy food and drink from Javi’s Empanadas, https://javiscooking.com/
Community Partners
African American Museum and Library, https://oaklandlibrary.org/aamlo/
Black Women of Political Action, https://www.bwopatileleads.org/oakland_berkeley_chapter
East Oakland Reclaiming Our Worth, https://evoak.org/
Friends of Hoover Durant Public Library, https://www.fohdpl.org/
Oakland History Center, https://oaklandlibrary.org
Oakland Heritage Alliance, https://www.oaklandheritage.org/
Oakland Recycles, https://www.oaklandrecycles.com/
Oaksterdam University, https://oaksterdam.com/
San Antonio Alliance, https://www.elc-oakland.com/
West Oakland Cultural Action Network, https://www.thewocan.org/
West Oakland Environmental Indicator Project, https://woeip.org/
Register for interior tours at https://events.humanitix.com/doors-open-2026-16th-street-station.
Small-Group Access to California Pioneer Collections
Go behind the scenes at the Society of California Pioneers! On display will be a curated selection of items from our collection of early California history. Staff will open archival boxes, explain preservation and research practices, and share rarely seen photographs, artifacts, and recently processed materials. Behind the scenes tours of our storage areas will also be available. These tours are limited to six guests and held at the top of every hour. RSVP is required for the storage tours; no RSVP is needed to view the displayed items.
Hardhat Access Inside San Jose’s Bank of Italy
Take an exclusive hardhat tour of San Jose's 1926 Bank of Italy Building, a 14-story National Register landmark undergoing restoration and conversion to residential use. Learn about the building's architecture, historic tax credit financing, and one of downtown San Jose's most significant office-to-residential preservation projects in years.
Gold Rush Machinery at Kentucky Mine
Step into Sierra County's gold-mining past at the Kentucky Mine Museum, where visitors move from the mine entrance and blacksmith shop to a miner's cabin and a remarkably preserved stamp mill. Learn how ore was crushed, processed, and worked by generations of miners before the site became a treasured historical museum.
Gilded Altars and Lost Chinatowns of San Jose
Visit the Chinese American Historical Museum, a replica of San Jose's late nineteenth-century Ng Shing Gung temple. A special presentation and private tour will highlight archaeological artifacts from former Chinatowns, a major 1888 gilded temple altar, Chinese American temple history, and the heritage preserved by the Chinese Historical and Cultural Project.
San Francisco’s Intact Victorian House Museum
Explore the Haas-Lilienthal House, an 1886 Queen Anne residence donated with many furnishings and family contents intact. Listed as a San Francisco landmark and in the National Register of Historic Places, it is the city's only intact Victorian house museum and the home of San Francisco Heritage.
Agnews Hospital Museum: Stories from the People Who Were There
Step inside the history of Agnews State Hospital and Developmental Center through an intimate tour of the Agnews Historic Museum and Cemetery, led by those with firsthand knowledge of the facility’s later years. Kathleen Lee, lead docent at Agnews, will guide visitors through the museum, sharing stories of daily life, care, work, and community at the Center. She may be joined by former employees who will offer their personal insights into the many medical artifacts and archival documents on display.
Visitors will explore the museum’s collection of artifacts, photographs, and historical displays, including rare items that are more than 100 years old. This is a unique opportunity to learn about the history of the care and treatment of individuals with mental illness and intellectual disabilities in the Santa Clara Valley who called Agnews home for many years, as well as the families and staff who were part of its community.
Date: Saturday, September 5
Capacity: Up to 25 visitors inside the museum
Tour Notes: Museum visit and special docent access
Santa Clara University: Archaeology Behind the Mission Campus
Explore more than 2,000 years of history on the Santa Clara University campus, from a pre-contact Native American site and Mission Santa Clara to early university history, aviation, ROTC, and archaeological discoveries. This guided walk highlights major finds and may conclude inside the historic Ricard Memorial Observatory curation facility and labs.
Inside Forest City’s Last Commercial Dance Hall
Visit Forest City, a National Register Historic District high in Sierra County and now almost a ghost town. The Forest City Historical Association will open the Dance Hall, the last large commercial building remaining in authentic condition, along with photo displays, a museum area, and a self-guided walking tour of the historic district.
Pond Farm Pottery: Bauhaus in the Redwoods
Join a docent-led tour of Pond Farm Pottery, a National Historic Landmark associated with internationally renowned ceramicist Marguerite Wildenhain, the first woman to graduate from the Bauhaus as a Master Potter. Visitors will learn how Pond Farm became her home, school, studio, and a lasting center of Bauhaus-inspired teaching.
Oakland Chinatown: Civil Rights, Resistance, and Resilience
Explore Oakland Chinatown's long history of resistance and resilience, beginning at the Chinese American Citizens Alliance lodge, established more than a century ago to fight for civil rights. The program pairs an open house and presentation with a walking tour of places central to the neighborhood's history and contemporary community life.
Leather, Land Use, and Queer Landmarking in SoMa
Walk through San Francisco's South of Market and examine how land use, waterfront industry, postwar redevelopment, and LGBTQ activism shaped the neighborhood's leather subculture. This tour connects bars, businesses, bathhouses, public events, landmarking, and public history projects that interpret the many-layered heritage of the South of Market today.
Maybeck’s Berkeley Masterpiece Up Close
Tour Bernard Maybeck's First Church of Christ, Scientist in Berkeley, an architectural landmark celebrated for its inventive design, craftsmanship, and sense of place. This building tour offers visitors a chance to experience one of California's great early twentieth-century works of architecture up close.
Women of the Black Panther Party, Center Stage
Visit the West Oakland Mural Project, home of The Mural and original Museum honoring the Black Panther Party and its Community Survival Programs. The experience centers around a massive mural celebrating the women of the Black Panther Party, created with community support and informed by the very women who helped shape the movement.
History Park Walking Tour
Our tour offers visitors the opportunity to explore the grounds of History Park and learn about the ways in which people worked and lived in San José from 1850 to 1970. Through this tour, visitors discover how people utilized the valley’s resources to reshape their environment and transform the region into a global innovation center. The tour is approximately 1 hour. Please arrive 10-15 minutes before the tour is slated to begin. We recommend you wear walking shoes and some sunscreen and bring a water bottle.
Preview the Rebirth of Boyle Heights’ Queen of the Shuls
Preview the transformation of Breed Street Shul, the Boyle Heights landmark once known as the Queen of the Shuls. This guided experience highlights the 1923 Byzantine Revival synagogue, the earlier 1915 building, and the preservation effort connecting Jewish, Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, and other Los Angeles communities.
David Ireland’s Living Artwork at 500 Capp Street
Step inside 500 Capp Street, the former home and living artwork of conceptual artist David Ireland. This open house reveals how Ireland transformed an ordinary San Francisco residence into an immersive work of art, making its walls, floors, fixtures, and accumulated details part of a singular creative environment.
Treasure Island’s Magic City Revealed
Explore Treasure Island, the man-made island built for the 1939-40 Golden Gate International Exposition and later used by Pan Am flying boats and Naval Station Treasure Island. Museum visits, walking tours, and presentations will highlight Art Moderne buildings, exposition history, public art, and the island's transformation into a new neighborhood.
Julia Morgan’s Little Castle, Beyond the Lobby
Tour the Berkeley City Club, Julia Morgan's 1930 clubhouse created for twelve women's clubs and affectionately known as the Little Castle. The 44,000-square-foot building blends Beaux Arts inspiration with elegant spaces including a ballroom, theater, library, meeting rooms, restaurant, bar, and indoor swimming pool.
After 20 Years Closed: Oakland Auditorium Reborn
See the Henry J. Kaiser Center for the Arts, the 1915 Beaux Arts Oakland Auditorium reopened after a 20-year closure. This tour highlights Stirling Calder's monumental terra cotta niches, the building's event history from Elvis to Martin Luther King Jr., and its restoration through a public-private partnership.
Sept. 12–13
North Coast · Central Coast
The Magdalena Zanone House: A Closer Look at Eureka’s Queen Anne Craftsmanship
Doors Open offers a rare chance to step beyond the façade of the Magdalena Zanone House, one of Eureka’s standout Queen Anne residences. Built in 1908 and listed on the National Register, this richly detailed home reflects the artistry, ambition, and redwood-era craftsmanship that made Eureka’s Victorians famous. Special access makes this an intimate look at a remarkable private historic place rarely experienced up close.
Victorian Craft Still at Work at Blue Ox
Step inside Blue Ox Millworks, one of the country's last working Victorian job shops, where historic craft is still practiced with antique machinery, traditional tools, and hands-on skill. Visitors will see how custom millwork, blacksmithing, ceramics, plasterwork, and other trades help preserve and recreate California's historic buildings.
Inside Eureka’s Annie B. Ryan House and Gardens
Visit the 1892 Annie B. Ryan House and Gardens, home of the Eureka Heritage Society and an ongoing community restoration project. This open house highlights the Ryan family legacy, volunteer preservation work, and historic gardens now used for education, native plants, and neighborhood stewardship.
Charlie Chaplin in Niles: Films and Footsteps
Visit the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum in Fremont to explore Charlie Chaplin's brief but pivotal 1915 period with the Essanay Film Manufacturing Company. The program pairs a screening of Chaplin's celebrated Niles films with a presentation and neighborhood walk identifying surviving locations featured in the silent shorts.
Shinn House at 150 and the China Camp Bunkhouse
Visit Shinn Historical Park and Arboretum, where the 150-year-old Big House preserves the stories of horticulture, fruit ranching, education, writing, and family life. Visitors can also learn about the last bunkhouse of the Shinn Ranch China Camp and ongoing community research to preserve this fragile building.
How Napa Wineries Became Icons
Join architectural historian Christine Madrid French for an illustrated lecture on more than 150 years of Napa Valley winery architecture. From stone cellars and gravity-flow wineries to grand estates and modernist icons, the program reveals how agriculture, innovation, and design helped shape Napa Valley's global identity.
Inside Napa’s 1901 Goodman Library
Step inside the 1901 Goodman Library, designed by Luther M. Turton and now home to the Napa County Historical Society. This open house features the exhibition At Work: Industries that Built the Valley, introducing the people, labor, and institutions that shaped Napa County's history.
Inside Napa’s Newly Restored Juarez Building
Tour the restored Juarez Building at Tulocay Cemetery in Napa, built in 1906 and used as the cemetery's main office for more than a century. Recently renovated in 2025, the building preserves original features and uses historic photographs to illuminate the early history of the cemetery and Napa.
Rare Access to the Rosa Butron Adobe
Step inside the Rosa Butron de Canet adobe, built between 1845 and 1860 and not usually open to the public. This outdoor open house explores the women who lived there, the planned Waterman Village affordable tiny home community, and Mary Gail Black Neighborhood Park, connecting preservation with future community use.
Open Doors at Sonoma’s Maysonnave House
Visit Sonoma's Maysonnave House for an open house focused on local history and community storytelling. While the submitted materials note newsletter and newspaper interpretation, the Doors Open experience offers a chance to encounter a historic Sonoma place and learn how its story is being shared with the public.
Bale Grist Mill: The 36-Foot Wheel Still Turns
Visit Bale Grist Mill State Historic Park, home to one of the last operational water-powered grist mills on the West Coast. Built in 1846, the mill still grinds grain today, and tours include demonstrations of the 36-foot water wheel while illuminating early life and agriculture in Napa Valley.
River Captains and Mansions of Napa Abajo
Walk through Napa Abajo Historic District with historian Kara Brunzell and discover the nineteenth-century families, steamboat captains, merchants, bankers, and industrialists who shaped Napa. The tour connects grand mansions, architectural treasures, river commerce, and the enduring legacy of a neighborhood once tied closely to San Francisco by water.
California Nursery: Roses, Adobe, and Living Landscape History
Discover the California Nursery Historical Park, the last twenty acres of the once 463-acre California Nursery Company founded in 1884. Visitors can explore show gardens, a historic rose garden, test orchard, packing shed area, 1840 Old Adobe, bungalow, 1907 nursery office, museum, and archives that preserve the nursery's remarkable legacy.
Inside Sonoma’s 1842 Vallejo-Castañada Adobe
Experience the 1842 Vallejo-Castañada Adobe, now a downtown Sonoma wine tasting and hospitality home rooted in early California history. Doors Open visitors can step into an adobe that embodies the region’s layered heritage, architecture, and sense of place, with the option to stay for a splash of wine after the open house. NOTE: All guests must be over 21 years of age. Wine available for an additional fee of $15. There is a strict no-dogs policy at the space, unless they are a verified service animal.
Behind the Neon at Eureka’s 1939 Movie Palace
Doors Open goes beyond the theater seat at Eureka’s ultra-modern, neon-brilliant 1939 movie house, identified by the host as the last theater built by George Mann. Visitors can experience films on preservation, then tour rarely seen spaces including Mr. Mann’s apartment and the projection booth.
Bell Tower Access at Mission San Luis Obispo
Explore Mission San Luis Obispo with docents and, for Doors Open, enjoy special access to the bell tower where five bells are still rung by hand. Visitors will learn about the mission's architecture, art, courtyard, and long role as a gathering place at the heart of San Luis Obispo.
Julia Morgan’s Monday Club, Open for One Day
The Monday Club of San Luis Obispo opens its historic clubhouse for a Doors Open program of docent tours, exhibits, and a screening of a new documentary. Visitors will learn the relation between the 90-year-old building to the 100-year legacy of the women’s club and its continuing role in community service.
One District, Many Histories: Mission San Jose
Mission San Jose District: Step Back in Time
Doors Open schedule for Mission San Jose/Fremont on Sunday September 13th.
Date: Sunday, September 13th, 2026 Time(s): Sunrise to 5pm
Multiple sites in the Mission San Jose District of Fremont, California.
All sites are ADA accessible.
Bathrooms are available at each location, except for the Gardens at Palmdale.
All sites located are within a pleasant walk in a one-half mile stretch in the historic Mission San Jose District.
Washington Township Museum of Local History
Open 10am – 4pm – come in anytime
Tour guides will be onsite
All tours are free – donations of $2 per person appreciated
Old Mission San Jose Museum
Tour guides will be onsite. Two options:
Self-guided tours
10am – 4:30pm
Cost range: Free to $15
No reservations are needed
Guided (docent-led) half tours
1:00 PM start – duration is 1.5 – 2 hours
Includes Rosales Opus 14 Spanish Organ Presentation by music director Ron McKean
Cost range: Free to $20
Reservations are recommended and available
https://www.saintjosephmsj.org/mission-public-tours/
Gardens at Palmdale – A Garden Conservancy Garden
Open Sunrise to Sunset
Parking is limited next to the garden. Find parking along Mission Blvd or Washington Blvd near Olive Hyde. If parking near Olive Hyde, you can walk to the garden through the neighborhood.
All guided tours are free – donations of $5 per person is appreciated
Three options:
Self-guided tours. Find “Walking Tour 2019” on the website
Free; No reservations are needed
Guided Tours at 10 AM and at 12 Noon (one-hour duration)
Free – donations of $5 per person appreciated
No reservations are needed
Priority for Doors Open ticket holders
For the guided tours, please meet your Palmdale Garden Guide at 43266 Mission Blvd in Fremont 10 minutes before the scheduled tour start time. This location is the Old Mission San Jose Church steps.
Olive Hyde Art Gallery
Open from Noon to 5 pm – come in anytime
All tours are free
Sept. 19–20
Monterey · Sacramento · Sierra Foothills
Step Aboard Steinbeck and Ricketts’s Western Flyer
Board the restored Western Flyer, the 1937 sardine fishing boat made famous by John Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts during their 1940 Sea of Cortez expedition. Guided by the Western Flyer Foundation, visitors will explore the wheelhouse, engine room, science lab, craftsmanship, and the vessel's new life in research and education.
Old East Davis: Before the University Farm
Walk through Old East Davis, where some of the city's earliest homes predate the University Farm and reveal Davisville's original town plat. Neighborhood docents will connect architecture, infill, preservation, and community pride in a 1.5-hour tour tracing the past, present, and future of this evolving historic neighborhood.
Colfax Beyond Gold Rush and Rails
This walking tour looks beyond Colfax’s familiar Gold Rush and train-town reputation to reveal the people and industries that truly shaped its identity. We’ll explore how early settlement, agriculture, orchards, and the fruit-packing trade supported a diverse and often overlooked community. Along Main Street, we’ll highlight the stories of women who ran boarding houses, cafes, and small businesses; immigrant laborers who tended orchards, built regional infrastructure, and worked in packing sheds; and the families who sustained Colfax through shifting economies. Together, we’ll trace how these everyday lives – not just miners or locomotives – formed the backbone of this Sierra foothill town, and how their legacies continue to inform its character today. The tour is led by the Historic Colfax Downtown Association, a non-profit working to transform our historic downtown into a vibrant destination where history, commerce, and community come together. Learn more at: https://historiccolfax.com/.
Behind the Stone Walls of Gold Rush Mariposa
Take an intimate behind-the-scenes tour of the 1855 Pendola Store and the nearby 1895 Rosa Pendola Canepa House in historic Bear Valley. Visitors will see hand-laid stonework, surviving commercial spaces, period objects, and evidence of the area's Gold Rush, ranching, stagecoach, and family histories along the Mariposa Land Grant.
Behind the Doors of the Historic Packard Library: A Vision for Yuba County’s Future History Museum
For 75 years, the Packard Library served as Yuba County's principal public library and remains one of Marysville's most recognizable civic landmarks. Although no longer functioning as a library, the building remains an important architectural treasure and is now the focus of a community effort to transform it into the future Yuba County History Museum and Cultural Center.
Doors Open California offers a rare opportunity to step inside this historic building while learning about its architecture, community significance, and exciting preservation future.
Visitors will explore original public spaces and hear stories of generations of residents who discovered books, researched family history, attended community gatherings, and experienced lifelong learning within these walls. The tour will also highlight the building's architectural features, its role in downtown Marysville's development, and current plans for adaptive reuse that will preserve the structure while giving it new life as a regional museum and educational center.
Former libraries of a similar vintage have been reimagined as museum and cultural centers in a number of cities including Petaluma and San Luis Obispo.
Concept drawings, historic photographs, and proposed exhibits will illustrate how preservation can revitalize an important public building while creating a lasting cultural resource for future generations.
Guided by representatives of the Yuba County Historic Resources Commission, the Yuba County History Museum, Friends for the Preservation of Yuba County History, and the Wheatland Historical Society, this approximately one-hour experience will demonstrate how thoughtful preservation can strengthen community identity, promote heritage tourism, and celebrate the unique history of Yuba County.
Visitors will also learn about Marysville's remarkable Gold Rush heritage, Chinese American history, agricultural development, 10,000 years of indigenous inhabitants and the vision for making the Packard Library a centerpiece for preserving and sharing those stories.
From Incarceration to Remembrance: Discover the Story of the Arboga Assembly Center
Before the construction of more permanent incarceration camps such as Tule Lake, Manzanar, and Heart Mountain, more than 2,500 Japanese Americans were confined at the Arboga Assembly Center in Yuba County during the spring and summer of 1942. Built in only a matter of weeks at a former farm workers camp, the temporary compound housed families who had been forcibly removed from their homes following President Roosevelt’s signing of Executive Order 9066.
This guided tour explores one of California's least-known but historically significant World War II sites. Visitors will learn about the daily lives of those confined here through personal stories, historic photographs, survivor accounts, and interpretive artwork installed throughout the memorial park.
Highlights include the life-sized steel silhouettes of original barracks, community murals depicting former incarcerees' memories, and discussion about the planned Wings of Remembrance sculpture featuring three monumental origami cranes honoring resilience, peace, and reconciliation.
Presented in partnership with the Marysville Chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League, the Yuba County Historic Resources Commission, and descendants of former incarcerees, this experience demonstrates how public art and historic preservation work together to preserve difficult history while encouraging dialogue, understanding, and healing.
The approximately one-hour walking tour is appropriate for students, families, veterans, history enthusiasts, and anyone interested in California's civil rights history.
Sept. 26–27
L.A. · High Desert · Inland Empire
Route 66’s Armstrong House Rock Shop
Visit the 1936 Armstrong House, a Route 66 landmark in Newberry Springs that evolved from a homestead into a popular rock shop and community stop. Learn how changing transportation, geology, local business, and roadside culture shaped this historic property along the Mother Road's 1926 alignment.
Route 66 Preservation Road Trip: Foothill Icons
Take a self-driving Route 66 tour through San Bernardino County foothill communities, with stops at preservation success stories from Rancho Cucamonga to San Bernardino. Highlights may include the Cucamonga Service Station, Wigwam Motel, Santa Fe Depot, California Theatre, Camp Cajon, and suggested vintage dining along the Mother Road.
Inside Neutra’s 1950 Modernist Office
Visit Richard Neutra's 1950 Planning Professionals Building, the office he shared with Robert E. Alexander and later with his son and partner Dion Neutra. Now listed in the National Register of Historic Places, the building offers a focused look at Neutra's commercial work and midcentury modern architecture in Los Angeles.
Step Inside Neutra’s Private Reunion House
Step inside Reunion House, a 1951 Richard Neutra residence rarely open to the public. Built as a speculative home and later occupied by Richard and Dione Neutra after the VDL Research House fire, the house showcases glass, natural materials, a water feature, and the modernist design principles that shaped Neutra's legacy.
Riverside’s Salvaged-Material Masterwork
Visit Riverside Landmark #52, the Peter J. Weber House, built between 1933 and 1938 by an accomplished designer in G. Stanley Wilson's architectural office. The house stands out for its eclectic Depression-era design, thoughtful engineering, and creative use of salvaged materials, making it a vivid story of resourcefulness and endurance.
Michael White Adobe: Usually Closed, Open for Doors Open
Tour the Michael White Adobe, one of the few surviving nineteenth-century adobe structures in Los Angeles County and a hidden landmark on the San Marino High School campus. This open house offers access to a building usually closed to the public, with interpretation on its history, significance, restoration, and future preservation plans.
Glendora’s First Firehouse and Hand-Built Castle
Celebrate Glendora history with visits to two distinctive local landmarks: the Glendora Historical Society Museum, housed in the city's first fire station, city hall, and jail, and the iconic Rubel Castle. Together, the sites reveal civic history, imaginative reuse, and the humor and ambition behind Glendora's most unusual historic destination.
Union Theatre’s Immersive Panorama World
Enter the Velaslavasay Panorama inside the 1910 Union Theatre, Los Angeles' oldest purpose-built cinema. Visitors can experience the Shengjing Panorama, explore exhibition spaces, theatre, and garden, and see pop-up displays on the building's many lives and the immersive history of panorama painting.
Her Pasadena: Women Remaking Home and Civic Life
Tour Pasadena's Blinn House, a 1906 Prairie-style residence that became home to the Women's City Club in the 1940s. Through architecture, archival materials, interactive photo exhibitions, and modeled period clothing, visitors will see how the house supported women's civic leadership, social engagement, and changing ideas of home in midcentury Southern California.
Marion Davies Guest House: Hollywood’s Beachside Remnant
Explore the rehabilitated Marion Davies Guest House with Santa Monica Conservancy docents at the Annenberg Community Beach House. Doors Open visitors can connect the remaining pool and guest house to William Randolph Hearst, Marion Davies, Julia Morgan, Hollywood’s 1920s beach culture, original artifacts, and the estate’s public rebirth as a community beach house. Along with the tours, for the first time, the Beach House will be exhibiting historic remnants that are stored on site.
Santa Monica’s Little House with a Big Survival Story
Visit Santa Monica's 1897 Shotgun House, a rare survivor from the city's early history and a LEED Gold example of adaptive reuse. Docents will share how the small house was moved three times to save it and how its story connects to the development of Ocean Park and the work of the Santa Monica Conservancy.
Exclusive Tour of Long Beach’s Bembridge House
Tour Long Beach's 1906 Bembridge House, a Queen Anne Victorian filled with original fixtures, ornate details, and family contents preserved by its longtime owners. This special tour explores the home's architecture, furnishings, and layered stories, offering an unusually complete glimpse into early twentieth-century domestic life in Southern California.
La Casa Nueva at 100: Behind the Scenes
Celebrate the centennial of La Casa Nueva, the Spanish Colonial Revival centerpiece of the Homestead Museum in the City of Industry. Doors Open participants will enjoy behind-the-scenes access to spaces, blueprints, letters, photos, carved wood, plaster, tile, stained glass, and stories of the Temple family, architect Roy Seldon Price, and the builders.
Long Beach’s Landmark Church of Glass, Terra Cotta, and Sound
Tour First Congregational Church of Long Beach, a 1914 Italian Romanesque Revival landmark with a 110-foot tower, terra cotta detailing, Joseph McKay stained glass, a mahogany sanctuary, and a large Möller organ. Doors Open interpretation connects architecture, craftsmanship, the 1933 earthquake, and later seismic lessons drawn from this beloved civic landmark. Learn about the church’s architecture and its rich history as a significant part of the development of Long Beach. Tours are one hour at 9 AM, 10:30 AM, and 12 PM on Saturday, 9/26 and at 12PM and 2 PM on Sunday, 9/27. Limited to 15 per time. Preservation and restoration enthusiasts will particularly be interested in the tours, which will cover in special detail the important work done to the church and the conservation of its iconic stained glass windows.
Hollywood Heritage Archives: Attic Access
Go behind the scenes at the Hollywood Heritage Museum, housed in the Lasky-DeMille Barn, associated with the filming of Hollywood's first full-length feature. Small groups will explore rarely displayed archival materials with curators in the attic, then tour the museum's permanent collection on early motion picture history.
One Tour Only: Inside Hand-Built Rubel Castle
Visit Rubel Castle Historic District, a monumental artist-built environment created by Michael Rubel and friends over more than two decades on a former citrus ranch. Explore the castle, its courtyard, and the Tin Palace museum, housed in Glendora's last remaining citrus packing house, now listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
Board the Queen Mary with Doors Open Access
Doors Open participants receive special discounted admission aboard the Queen Mary (50% off admission), the legendary ocean liner permanently berthed in Long Beach. Visitors can explore a landmark where maritime history, hospitality, dining, public tours, and popular legends continue to overlap, turning a former transatlantic vessel into one of Southern California’s most distinctive historic destinations.
Cal Edison’s 1931 Lobby and Balcony View
Step into the 1931 Cal Edison lobby and experience nearly a century of preserved art, architecture, stonework, and craftsmanship. Guests will study the lobby's historic details and visit the fourth-floor balcony for sweeping city views that connect the building's refined interior to the energy of downtown Los Angeles.
Little Tokyo’s 142-Year Story, Block by Block
Walk through Los Angeles' Little Tokyo, a 142-year-old neighborhood shaped by immigration, wartime removal and incarceration, the Bronzeville era, redevelopment, civil unrest, and ongoing concerns about gentrification. This accessible walking tour brings three blocks of downtown Los Angeles to life through stories of resilience, culture, and community survival.
Garner House at 100: Restored Claremont Splendor
Celebrate the centennial of Claremont's Garner House, a 1926 residence designed by Pasadena architect Arthur Munson and once the largest single-family home in the city. Now home to Claremont Heritage, the restored house reveals family life, social history, and a meticulous 2024 period-appropriate restoration.
Inside the Maloof Home and Craft Legacy
Tour the historic home and 5.5-acre campus of Sam and Alfreda Maloof, where art, architecture, and craftsmanship come together in a serene setting. Docent-led tours introduce visitors to the Maloofs' architectural and artistic treasures, workshops, exhibitions, and the enduring legacy of one of California's great makers.
Alice Constance Austin’s Utopia in the Desert
Explore the visionary ideas of feminist architect Alice Constance Austin through the Llano del Rio utopian experiment. Using images and drawings uncovered during research at Yale's Beinecke Library, this guided program examines Austin's kitchenless residences and the foundations of a radical desert community imagined in place.
Sponsorship & Media Kits
Sponsorship and Media Details
Sponsorship
Sponsorship provides significant marketing exposure at key Doors Open events. To become a sponsor, you can select the option below or visit californiapreservation.org/doca/sponsor/
Media Details
The California Preservation Foundation invites media professionals to cover the 5th Annual Doors Open California, a unique statewide event offering behind-the-scenes access to over 70 historic sites every weekend in September 2026. For more details, contact Jon Haeber at jon@californiapreservation.org or (415) 495-0349 x201.
Media Information & Press Kits
We’ve provided some downloadable resources and social media promotional tools for you to help spread the word about Doors Open California! Media inquiries can be directed to cpf@californiapreservation.org or by dialing 415.495.0349.
Sponsorship Information
Doors Open California is a signature statewide event that draws over 1,000 participants who will get rare & special access to amazing architecture and hidden histories weekends in September. As a sponsor, you will be highlighted as a supporter of the largest statewide celebration of historic places. Walking tours, hidden vaults of local museums, inaccessible areas of historic buildings, or enlightening stories – it’s a chance to experience history first-hand. Over 70 amazing places in California will be highlighted.
Our Sponsors are invited to join us in supporting our third-ever Doors Open California event, where local, nonprofit, government, and enterprise partners will showcase sites in 50+ distinct cities in all corners of California.
BECOME A DOORS OPEN SPONSOR
Click here or on the thumbnail below for the 2025 sponsorship brochure
Partnership Information
Doors Open California Partners are critical to making this event creative, inclusive, and compelling. Partners could be nonprofit organizations, firms, local governments, educational institutions, museums, property owners, or anyone interested in sharing a special, unique place in their community that is worth recognizing and protecting.
Partners create or provide access to places that typically aren’t accessed by the public, and they may share histories that aren’t typically told. Partners, in turn, tap into CPF’s international audience of more than 40,000 supporters and followers. Partners may also solicit Doors Open attendees to support their own efforts – as volunteers, donors, or other types of supporters.
Ways to Partner with Doors Open…
Submit a Proposal for Doors Open 2027
We would love to hear your ideas! This simple form is meant to be completed in less than five minutes. For full details, visit: https://californiapreservation.org/doca/ideas/
Sign Up as an Affiliated Local Business
Local businesses near Doors Open Sites can choose to sponsor Doors Open – or, if they’d like to be included on participant itineraries, they can offer a special discount or gift to registered Doors Open participants wielding a wrist band.
We Thank Our Generous Sponsors
Interactive Map of Participating Sites for 2026
DRAFT MAP – SUBJECT TO CHANGE
View the full-screen interactive map here
Special Doors Open Partners
