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The new house for the commandant, built of square beams, 8 sazhens [1] long by 4 wide. There are 6 rooms and a vestibule. Inventory for Mr. Sutter, Dec. 20, 1841.

Along with the chapel, the structure of most historical interest at Fort Ross is the Rotchev house, an existing building renovated about 1836 for Alexander Rotchev, the last manager of Ross. It is the only surviving structure which contains construction techniques dating back to the Russian era. This structure was known as the "Commandant's House" from the 1940s through the 1970s. It was titled the "new commandant's house" in the 1841 inventory to differentiate it from the Kuskov or "old commandant's house."

The Rotchevs apparently lived in comfort--or with as much style as they could manage in the wilderness of the California coast. One visitor commented on their "choice library, French wines, a piano, and a score of Mozart" (Duflot de Mofras, 1841). All these refinements disappeared with the Russian inhabitants in that year; the house as it exists now is stripped to its bare walls.


The Benitz family sold the ranch in 1867. The house was also used as a dwelling by James Dixon for a short time after his purchase of the fort in 1867, and by Ada Fairfax, her mother, and her entourage, after her husband's death in 1869. The Russian Rotchev house was the George Call family's dwelling from their purchase in 1873 until early 1878, when they built their own house. It then became a hotel, and was so operated into the early 1900s. It was later occupied by a caretaker family.

