Photographing Shirley Temple's Wedding House in Monterey

Some listings you photograph for the architecture. This one came with a story attached. In April 2026, David O'Neil of Sotheby's International Realty asked me to photograph a restored 1940 adobe in Monterey's Aguajito Oaks, tucked under a canopy of live oaks a few minutes from the Del Monte Golf Course. It is the house where Shirley Temple married Charles Black on December 16, 1950. Within two weeks of the listing going live, the photographs were in Robb Report, House Beautiful, the New York Post, Cottages & Gardens and Elite Agent.

150 Littlefield Road, at a glance

Address: 150 Littlefield Road, Aguajito Oaks, Monterey, CA 93940
Built: 1940 by Carmel architect Robert Stanton for James B. Black, president and chairman of PG&E, and his wife Katherine. The family called it Mesita.
Cover story: Sunset Magazine, 1941
The wedding: Shirley Temple and Charles Alden Black, December 16, 1950, in front of the living room fireplace
The house: 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, about 2,180 sq ft on a 17,678 sq ft lot, 20-inch adobe walls, beamed ceilings, original hardwood floors
Listing: $2,450,000 · David O'Neil, Sotheby's International Realty, Carmel Brokerage · April 2026 · pending as of September 2026
Press, spring 2026: Robb Report, House Beautiful, New York Post, Cottages & Gardens, Elite Agent
Photography: Manny Espinoza · Fujifilm GFX 100 II · HDR interiors, twilight exterior

The house before the wedding

Robert Stanton was the architect the Monterey Peninsula turned to in the 1930s. He designed the Monterey County Courthouse in Salinas in 1937, now on the National Register, and he had supervised houses in Beverly Hills for Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks before settling in Carmel. In 1940 he built this adobe as a weekend retreat for James Byers Black, the president and later chairman of Pacific Gas and Electric, and his wife Katherine. The Blacks called it Mesita. A year after it was finished, Sunset Magazine put it on the cover.

What Stanton built is a single-story California adobe with 20-inch walls, whitewashed inside and out, a red tile roof, wood-beamed ceilings and a loggia running the length of the garden side. Shirley Temple later described it in her autobiography as a blend of the Spanish mission fathers' adobe brick and red roof tiles with the slat shutters and mullioned windows of New England. Standing in it, that is exactly right.

Live oak branch arching over the white adobe entrance wall and blue gate of 150 Littlefield Road, Monterey — The oak over the entry gate

Front entry of the 1940 Robert Stanton adobe in Monterey with red tile roof, whitewashed adobe brick and potted plants — The front entry, tile and whitewashed adobe

A wedding in front of the fireplace

By 1950 Shirley Temple was 22, freshly divorced from John Agar, and done with Hollywood. She met Charles Alden Black, a Navy officer and the son of the house, at a cocktail party in Honolulu that spring. He had never seen one of her films and did not recognize her. They were married that December at his parents' adobe in Monterey because, as the New York Post put it this year, the local churches would not marry a divorcee. In her book she wrote that they were "married by a local justice in front of a fireplace bedecked with boughs." Charles shipped out to Korea days later. The marriage lasted 55 years, until his death in 2005.

That fireplace is still there. It is the first thing I photographed inside, and it is the frame every editor chose.

Living room of Shirley Temple's wedding house in Monterey, the original fireplace lit, whitewashed adobe walls and beamed ceiling — The living room fireplace where the 1950 ceremony took place

Dining room of the 1940 Monterey adobe with white beamed ceiling, iron chandelier and French doors — The dining room under Stanton's beamed ceiling

Photographing a house with 20-inch walls

Adobe is beautiful to stand in and difficult to photograph. Walls that thick turn every window into a deep, bright reveal, and the interiors, even whitewashed, sit several stops darker than the oak-filtered daylight outside. If you expose for the room, the windows blow out. If you expose for the windows, the room goes to mud. I shot every interior on the Fujifilm GFX 100 II as an HDR sequence at base ISO, the same way I photographed The Edge in Pebble Beach, so the finished frame holds the garden through the glass and the texture of the adobe in the same exposure.

The exterior is the opposite problem, and the answer is patience. A white house under a dark canopy of oaks is flat at midday. At twilight, with the loggia lit, the adobe warms up and the roofline separates from the trees. The photograph at the top of this post is that window, and it is the one that ran at the top of the press coverage.

Deep window reveals in the 20-inch adobe walls of 150 Littlefield Road, Monterey, looking out to live oaks — Twenty inches of adobe, and the oaks beyond

Brick-floored hallway with vaulted white beamed ceiling and windows to the garden in the Monterey adobe — The brick hallway toward the guest wing

Exposed adobe brick wall detail inside 150 Littlefield Road, Monterey — The 1940 adobe brick, left exposed

From the MLS to Robb Report in two weeks

The listing went live on April 16, 2026. Robb Report ran it on April 22, House Beautiful and Elite Agent on April 23, the New York Post on April 30, and Cottages & Gardens on May 4, with the New York Post and Cottages & Gardens crediting the photographs to Manny Espinoza Photography for Sotheby's International Realty. AOL and Yahoo picked the stories up from there. That is the value of a house with a story: the photographs do not just sell a property, they travel. And when editors at national magazines choose which listing photos to run, the frames have to hold up next to everything else on the page.

The house sold for $1.81 million in May 2022. After a careful restoration, new doors and windows, updated systems, the original floors and fireplace kept, David brought it back to market at $2.45 million, and as I write this it is pending. I photograph a lot of listings on the Peninsula for agents, builders and designers. Very few of them end up in five magazines. This one earned it.

Rear elevation and walled garden of the 1940 adobe at 150 Littlefield Road, Monterey, under live oaks with the loggia and patio furniture — The garden side, loggia and oaks

Common questions

Where did Shirley Temple get married?

Shirley Temple married Charles Alden Black on December 16, 1950, at his parents' home at 150 Littlefield Road in the Aguajito Oaks neighborhood of Monterey, California. The ceremony took place in front of the living room fireplace, performed by a local justice, because local churches would not marry a divorcee.

Who designed the house at 150 Littlefield Road in Monterey?

Carmel architect Robert Stanton, who also designed the 1937 Monterey County Courthouse in Salinas, completed the adobe in 1940 for James B. Black, president and chairman of Pacific Gas and Electric, and his wife Katherine. The family called it Mesita, and Sunset Magazine put it on the cover in 1941.

Who photographed Shirley Temple's wedding house for the listing?

I did. I'm Manny Espinoza, a commercial and architectural photographer based in Carmel-by-the-Sea, and I photographed 150 Littlefield Road for listing agent David O'Neil of Sotheby's International Realty in April 2026. The photographs ran in Cottages & Gardens and the New York Post credited as Manny Espinoza Photography for Sotheby's International Realty.

How much is Shirley Temple's wedding house listed for?

The house was listed in April 2026 at $2,450,000 by David O'Neil of Sotheby's International Realty, Carmel Brokerage. It is a three bedroom, three bath adobe of about 2,180 square feet on a 17,678 square foot lot, and it previously sold for $1.81 million in May 2022. As of September 2026 the listing is pending.

Which magazines featured the Shirley Temple wedding house?

In spring 2026 the listing was covered by Robb Report, House Beautiful, the New York Post, Cottages & Gardens and Elite Agent, with syndication on AOL and Yahoo. The house had been on the cover of Sunset Magazine in 1941.

What camera and technique were used to photograph the adobe?

The Fujifilm GFX 100 II medium format system. Interiors were shot as HDR sequences at base ISO to hold the bright oak-filtered daylight in the deep adobe window reveals, and the exterior was photographed at twilight with the loggia lit.