In 1987, SUA was formed as a not-for-profit organization incorporated in the state of California. Initially it was a small graduate school located on the former Gillette−Brown Ranch in Calabasas and the Santa Monica Mountains. Originally the location was the site of pre-Columbian "Talepop", a settlement of the Chumash people. It was within the Spanish land grant Rancho Las Virgenes in the 19th century. In the 1920s, it became the rural estate of King Gillette with a mansion designed by Wallace Neff. In 1952, it became the Claretville seminary of the Claretian Order of the Catholic Church, and in 1977 it became the religious center of Elizabeth Clare Prophet and the Church Universal and Triumphant (CUT). In 1986, CUT sold the property to Soka University of Japan.