Arcadia Bandini de Stearns Baker

Arcadia Bandini de Stearns Baker (1825–1912) was a wealthy Los Angeles landowner.

Arcadia Bandini born 1825 in San Diego, California, the eldest of three daughters of Juan Bandini and Marie de los Dolores Estudio. Arcadia and her two sisters were considered the most beautiful women of California.

According to tradition, the first United States flag, flown over the plaza in Old Town San Diego in July 29, 1846, was made by Arcadia and her two sisters out of red and blue flannel dresses and a white crib sheet.

At age 14 Bandini married 43 year old Abel Stearns. Stearns was a former U.S. citizen who became a Mexican citizen and converted from Judaism to Catholicism, in order to become a citizen. He was one of the wealthiest men in Los Angeles and she had a sizable dowry in land. They lived in an elegant adobe, El Palacio, in Los Angeles.He died in 1871. The couple had a son, Irving, who left California for good when he was a young man.

In 1874 she married Colonel Robert L. Baker, owner of Rancho San Vicente y Santa Monica, and they settled in Santa Monica. Baker died in 1894 and Arcadia was again widowed.

Mrs. Arcadia de Baker died in 1912, and left an estate of seven to eight million dollars, with no will and no children in California. The estate was widely contested, with several cousins hoping for a share of the money.