Francisco Diaz has been making adobe bricks out of a tiny property in the Hopewell Mann neighborhood for more than 50 years after purchasing land on C De Baca Lane in 1975.

On a good day, he can make hundreds of bricks, which have to sit out in the yard and dry for three days before they can be piled onto pallets, which he sells to people building adobe houses, including at one time Jane Fonda, who he said he sold 70,000 bricks to when she was building a ranch.

Now 70, he said his family has started asking him when he plans to stop: “And I say, ‘When I die,’ ” Diaz said during a break from laying bricks Wednesday afternoon, a wide-brimmed hat and cloth wrap protecting him from the hot sun. “I feel real strong.”

Diaz’s Adobe Man business is surrounded by beautiful homes and adjacent to t

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