Lilian Jennette Rice Statue

Lilian Jeannette Rice (1889-1938) grew up in National City, San Diego County, CA, a few miles from the Mexican border. In 1910, she graduated from the School of Architecture at the University of California at Berkeley with an architecture degree, becoming one of the first female architects in the country. A year later, she completed a teaching degree.

Caring for her ill mother brought her back to her hometown, where she worked as a teacher and draftsman for Hazel Wood Waterman, the first female architect of San Diego.

In 1921, Rice started working as an associate in the office of Richard Requa and Herbert Jackson. Soon she got the Rancho Santa Fe project and became its core designer, planning the masterplan, houses, and commercial buildings. In 1927 Rice received her architect license and opened her office in 1928.

She continued designing homes for Rancho Santa Fe and even moved there, took occasional trips to Spain, and worked on projects in the San Diego area, till her death from ovarian cancer in 1938.

Rice was known to design in the Spanish Colonial style, with “restraint in decoration, high-quality craftsmanship and harmony between a home and its site.” Several of her buildings were added to the National Register of Historic Places.

On Lilian Rice Day, October 26th, 2021, the Rancho Santa Fe community unveiled a statue honoring Rice. A Roaring ’20s-themed gala held by the Rancho Santa Fe Historical Society followed the community ceremony.

Peggy Brooks, the former vice president of the Rancho Santa Fe Historical Society, initiated the idea to commemorate Rice with a statue. Jenny Freeborn and the Rancho Santa Fe Historical Society commissioned the local artist Nina de Burgh to sculpt it.