This property was once Cambria’s historical Chinese Center, the social focus for workers who harvested seaweed and abalone for shipment back to China or worked in local quicksilver mines in the mountains. Local Chinese celebrated holidays, gambled, socialized, and took refuge from coastal storms here. The buildings included a bunk house, laundries, cabins, and a structure people called the Chinese Temple, which had both fraternal and religious uses. Of the structures that served the Chinese Center, only the Chinese Temple remains, and original buildings like this from the 1890s are rare in California. Chinese residents left the site about 1916, and the Warren family purchased the property. The older and less stable buildings were eventually torn down, leaving only the Red House, familiar to Cambrians. Its core dated from between 1895 and 1906. About 1919, a building from Main Street was moved and joined to it to form a kitchen. Then in 1925, the former Chinese temple was moved from near the creek and added, making one dwelling out of three parts. This composite structure was occupied until 1970. In 2001, the dilapidated portions of the Red House were demolished, leaving only the original temple building.