José Manuel Gonzales, who came north with the Anza party in 1776 and was one of the pueblo’s founders, built the adobe in 1797. In 1808 it passed to Luís María Peralta, a Spanish army sergeant, commissioner of the pueblo and owner of the vast Rancho San Antonio in the East Bay. Peralta added a porch, a kitchen and a chimney. The city bought the building in 1966, restored it, and finished the park around it in 1976.
The house measures about 20 by 41 feet, with adobe walls about two feet thick, and is furnished as it would have been two centuries ago, with an outdoor horno oven. It is California Historical Landmark No. 866 and was the first site certified on the Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail. History San José runs it together with the 1855 Fallon House across the street as one historic site.