Casa Romantica Cultural Center and Gardens

Casa Romantica Cultural Center and Gardens is a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization and is the historic home of the founder of the city of San Clemente. Casa Romantica provides programs for all ages in arts, music, history, horticulture, and literature and is a premier Southern California cultural center.

San Clemente is one of the first master-planned cities in California. City co-founder Ole Hanson discovered the site and was inspired to create his ideal community, a Spanish Village by the Sea.
Casa Romantica was built in 1927 as Hanson's family home. The house was designed by Carl Lindbom, who also designed La Casa Pacifica, known to many as the "Western White House". The Casa represented Hanson’s expression of the California dream.
Over the years, the home passed through several owners, including the family of Hollywood entertainer and orchestra leader Fred Waring. The San Clemente Redevelopment Agency purchased the property in 1989. In 1991, it was listed on the National Registry of Historic Places. The City of San Clemente, its Redevelopment Agency, and the Casa Romantica Founding Board elected to renovate Casa Romantica to use it as a cultural center and garden for the community to enjoy.
In early 2003, Casa Romantica Cultural Center and Gardens opened to the public as a 501(c)3 nonprofit and has become a premier southern California cultural center and garden destination. Experiences and program offerings at Casa Romantica include tours of the historic buildings which include Casa Romantica's permanent collection of art and antiques, rotating art exhibits, public hours to enjoy the gardens, and a robust performing arts schedule. In addition, Casa Romantica provides educational experiences for children and adults.

In the past year, Casa Romantica Cultural Center and Gardens welcomed over 23,700 visitors. Over 16,700 of those visitors came to enjoy the public hours available Tuesday through Sunday including the monthly "Family Sunday" program which provides free monthly to all on the first Sunday of every month. More than 5,125 people attended a cultural event, and over 1800 people participated in weekly events ranging from yoga, storytime, ballet, and gardening classes. To expand on the execution of Casa Romantica's mission, a new after-hours series was launched providing the community with access to enjoy music, snacks, and beautiful sunset with friends. A Creative Camp for children was also launched, providing participants 4 weeks of exposure to dance, singing, creative arts, and horticulture during each session. Casa Romantica also updated and curated its entire permanent collection of art and antiques, allowing visitors to experience different portions of the collection throughout the year. Because Casa Romantica is still recovering from the landslide that caused our main salon to be temporarily closed to the public and destroyed our oceanview terrace and the adjacent gardens, our goals for the coming year including resuming our indoor winter programming, increasing our daily house traffic, and increasing revenue to support replenishing our gardens and reinstating programs that were impacted by the landslide.

Casa Romantica Cultural Center and Gardens engages and unites the community in arts and culture program participation.  Casa Romantica typically derives 40% of its required operating revenue from ticket sales and private event rentals. Due to the landslides that began on April 27, 2023, these two revenue streams were greatly diminished. Grants and donations from individuals, corporations, and foundations who share a passion for arts education and engagement are essential partners of Casa Romantica, ensuring the vitality of the organization and the caliber of its programs for the community. Casa Kids - Education programs in music, theater, dance, S.T.E.A.M., ecological sustainability, and visual arts,  Casa Cool - Jazz, folk, and blues music concerts, Casa Classic - Classical music concerts Casa Jazz, Jazz music concerts, Open Casa - Visual artist openings and exhibitions and Casa Wellness Wednesdays - Gardening, yoga, food, fitness, and health workshops and classes Casa Theater - Dramatic and comedic performances, Family Sundays - Free admission on the first Sunday of every month, with activities and noon-times performances patterned after our Casa Captivating series member Events - Monthly Member Nights at the Casa with music, refreshments, and a view of the sunset from our bluff-top estate gardens and historic home preservation-In-kind plant donations, volunteer hours in the gardens, and grants geared toward cultural heritage to account for the upkeep of our property for members and guests.

Visitors to Casa Romantica Cultural Center and Gardens come from San Clemente and the surrounding cities, Orange County, California, United States and Canada, Worldwide

When looking to the future of Casa Romantica, we are inspired to create programming based on our true vision for what Casa Romantica should be: a home to the arts. Our goal is for people to visit our beloved Casa Romantica often, and when they do, we want to provide a new experience for them to engage with and enjoy.