Historic Santa Barbara

HISTORIC SANTA BARBARA
An Illustrated History
by Neal Graffy
Santa Barbara Historical Museum

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HISTORIC SANTA BARBARA
An Illustrated History
By Neal Graffy
Commissioned by the Santa Barbara Historical Museum
Historical Publishing Network
A division of Lammert Incorporated
San Antonio, Texas

First Edition
Copyright © 2010 Historical Publishing Network
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing
from the publisher. All inquiries should be addressed to Historical Publishing Network, 11535 Galm Road, Suite 101, San Antonio, Texas, 78254. Phone (800) 749-9790.
All photographs in HISTORIC SANTA BARBARA are from the collections of the Santa Barbara Historical Museum unless noted otherwise.
ISBN: 9781935377146
Library of Congress Card Catalog Number: 2010925337
Historic Santa Barbara: An Illustrated History
author: Neal Graffy
cover artist: Richard Schloss
contributing wrtiers for “Sharing the Heritage” Joe Goodpasture
Erin Graffy de Garcia
Santa Barbara Historical Museum
president, board of trustees: Eleanor Van Cott
executive director: David S. Bisol
director of research: Michael Redmon
Historical Publishing Network
president: Ron Lammert
project managers: Barry Black
Erin Graffy de Garcia
administration: Donna M. Mata
Melissa Quinn
book sales: Dee Steidle
production: Colin Hart
Glenda Tarazon Krouse
Evelyn Hart
Craig Mitchell
Charles A. Newton, III
PRINTED IN THAILAND
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
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CONTENTS
4 FOREWORD
5 INTRODUCTION
7 CHAPTER I First Contact
12 CHAPTER II The Age of Exploration
18 CHAPTER III The Presidio and Missions of the Santa Barbara Channel
28 CHAPTER IV Secularization—The Fall of the Missions and the Rise of the Ranchos
34 CHAPTER V California Statehood—1850
56 CHAPTER VI “The New Century”
82 CHAPTER VII World War II and Santa Barbara
88 CHAPTER VIII The Search for Water
94 CHAPTER IX Preservation of the Community
97 A TRIBUTE TO FATHER VIRGIL CORDANO
98 SHARING THE HERITAGE
205 SPONSORS
206 ABOUT THE AUTHOR
207 ABOUT THE COVER
C O N T E N T S
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FOREWORD
Those of us who are fortunate to live in Santa Barbara are blessed by the region’s great natural beauty of towering mountains and sublime
seascapes, wherein our city’s history is highly valued. That heritage is a particularly rich one, especially given the relatively modest
size of our community and yet, perhaps because of the richness of our diverse culture, the story of the full range of Santa Barbara’s history
has been rarely told. Santa Barbarans have always felt a great deal of pride for their city. In his book, Material Dreams: Southern
California Through The 1920s, Kevin Starr wrote, “Santa Barbara created for itself in architecture, life-style, civic value, and pageantry an
alternative version of what California offered in the matter of better living.”
So it is with great pleasure that I greet the arrival of Historic Santa Barbara, a publication of the Santa Barbara Historical Museum in
partnership with the Historical Publishing Network. Author Neal Graffy, in a narrative illustrated by over 120 historic photographs and
objects from the collections of the Historical Museum and additional sources, surveys the history of the Santa Barbara area from the days
of the Chumash into the twenty-first century, a story told through its major personalities and watershed events.
It is a colorful and dramatic story, one that gives perspective and context to our community today. An important element of the
Historical Museum’s mission is to further the study and understanding of Santa Barbara’s past. But meaningful history is not just a list of
dates and events; it should also guide and inspire us to envision a better tomorrow. It is that belief which drives the Museum’s motto,
“Upon the foundation of the past, we build a future worth remembering.”
On behalf of the Board of Trustees of the Santa Barbara Historical Museum, I would like to extend my deepest appreciation to those
who lent financial underwriting and to historian Neal Graffy, for his beautiful manuscript. My personal thanks go to the dedicated staff
of the Historical Museum, particularly Michael Redmon, director of research, for his excellent photo and editorial expertise and Marketing
Consultant Dacia Harwood, for her attention to every detail. For turning a dream into reality, a special note of thanks to Ron Lammert,
president, Historical Publishing Network and his incredible production staff, including Barry Black, project manager, and Santa Barbara’s
own Erin Graffy de Garcia.
Welcome to the incredible journey of Historic Santa Barbara.
David S. Bisol, Executive Director
Santa Barbara Historical Museum
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
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✧
The snow-capped Santa Ynez Mountains overlook Santa Barbara on a clear winter’s day in the early 1900s. The twin spires of the Santa Barbara Mission may be seen at back left. Note
how the Riviera foothills are largely devoid of vegetation and residences; the development of the Riviera would not begin in earnest until the 1920s.
INTRODUCTION
Way back in 2002 the Santa Barbara Historical Museum and the Historical Publishing Network, a company specializing in publishing
regional histories, approached me to write a book about the history of Santa Barbara.
Friends and relatives said “Great, with all of the lectures and writing you’ve done, this will be easy.”
I found out very quickly that it wasn’t.
There were several problems. There were already a number of books on Santa Barbara history…well sort of…Thompson and West’s
history was done in 1883, Yda Addis Storke’s in 1891, Michael Phillips published his in 1927 and County Surveyor Owen O’Neill’s came
out in 1939. While most of these are quite unfamiliar to the public at large, I was especially concerned about The Yankee Barbareños by Santa
Barbara’s premier historian, the late Walker Tompkins. I had spent close to three years working on the manuscript with Tompkins’ widow,
Barbara, researching, editing, revising, working on captions, and selecting photos. It was close to being published and I didn’t want to
compete with that book, nor have my words viewed as an abridged edition of Tompkins’.
So I started writing, but I really hadn’t found my voice. I was assured that what I had written was wonderful, but it just wasn’t jelling.
It turned out that what I was looking for was right in front of me the whole time. The Santa Barbara Historical Museum had just finished
their new signature exhibition entitled, “The Story of Santa Barbara.” Determining what the story would be had taken well over a year with
a well-rounded committee (including myself) narrowing down hundreds of ideas, themes, people, and events. This book would be the
perfect companion to expand upon the vignettes of history summarized in the displays.
This book presents a number of interesting views of our history not only for the readers of today, but the historians of tomorrow. Historic
Santa Barbara reflects what we, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, think are the key elements of our history. In addition, this
book has something very much in common with the earlier histories—a gallery of the businesses of our time. And akin to those previous
accounts, some have been long established, others well on their way and several are brand new and ready to make their mark. They
represent a wide view of the technology, innovation and commerce of their eras, and though separated by over 120 years of great change,
all share in being part of the Historic Santa Barbara.
Neal Graffy
July 2009
I N T R O D U C T I O N
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H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
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CHAPTER I
F I R S T
C O N T A C T
J U A N R O D R Í Q U E Z C A B R I L L O
Fifty years had passed since Columbus failed in his attempt to find Asia by sailing west.
Under the time honored rule of “finders’ keepers” (or perhaps as the Spanish might say—¡es mío!)
Spain had claimed possession of whatever it was Columbus had found and soon set about
a system of exploration, conquest, and exploitation—all in the pursuit of gold, silver, and
other treasures.
By 1518 Cuba, Puerto Rico, and much of the Caribbean were under their control. Rumors of
a large land with a great population (and riches) to the west sent Hernán Cortés to Mexico. Within
three years, he had taken Mexico and in turn Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador
became part of Nueva España.
Eyewitness to, and fully involved in the conquest and battles, was a young man named Juan
Rodríquez Cabrillo. He had arrived in Cuba when he was ten or eleven, probably serving in the
military as a page. In the campaign for Mexico it is recorded that he wore many hats—a
crossbowman, captain, ship builder, and as he had a horse, a rare honor in the New World,
possibly a cavalryman. Some have claimed him as a son of Portugal, others say he was of Spanish
blood. Either way, having served well and survived the carnage of the conquest, by 1542 he was
a wealthy merchant, the owner of vast lands in Guatemala and married with two children.
Perhaps most importantly, he was owner of the San Salvador, a ship built to his specifications at
the port of Iztapa, Guatemala.
Thus, when the Viceroy of Mexico, Antonio de Mendoza, decided it was time to mount an
expedition to add more lands for Spain, Cabrillo was a perfect choice. Actually, he was a second
choice, but was “promoted” due to the unfortunate death of his predecessor and partner, Pedro
de Alvarado, in an Indian uprising.
When we think of explorers we generally think of daring men heading out into the
great unknown driven to see what lies ahead. But when you get right down to it, we often find the
drive is motivated more to see what treasures lie ahead. This was certainly the case for Cabrillo.
Above all, this was a business venture with profits to be split among the partners and the viceroy.
The expedition consisted of Cabrillo’s San Salvador, a ship about one hundred feet long,
twenty-five feet wide with a capacity of two hundred tons. A second ship, La Victoria, has been
estimated to be about half that size and even smaller was a third ship, the San Miguel. The armada
left Navidad, Mexico, on June 27, 1542, and headed for the tip of the Baja peninsula.
Only three years earlier the land framing the Gulf of California had been explored by Francisco
de Ulloa. His expedition sailed north along the coast of Mexico to the delta of the Colorado River.
Then he headed south along the eastern coast of Baja California, rounded the tip and went north
through the Pacific waters along the western coast to a point about 150 miles south of presentday
Tijuana.
It took nearly two months for Cabrillo to reach this place, known today as San Quentín. What
lay ahead was completely unknown.
Heading up the California coast on September 28 they entered San Diego Bay, which they
named San Miguel, due to that date being the feast day of Saint Michael the Archangel, and stayed
for five days. On October 8 they arrived at “a good port and a good land with many valleys and
plains and wooded areas.” Their arrival coincided with the seasonal conflagration common to
California, causing them to bestow the name Baya de los Fuegos (Bay of Fire) to what we now
know as San Pedro.
✧
The first European to sail through the Santa
Barbara Channel was Juan Rodríguez
Cabrillo in 1542. Artist Russell Ruiz
(1925-1988) imagines what it may have
been like when Cabrillo and his crews first
made contact with the Native Americans in
this region, the Chumash.
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HISTORICAL MUSEUM.
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✧
The exact circumstances surrounding
Cabrillo’s accidental death in January 1543
remain a mystery. This marker on San
Miguel Island commemorates his expedition.
F I R S T
C O N T A C T
On October 10, 1542, Cabrillo and his men
sailed into the Santa Barbara Channel, and four
days later became the first Europeans to gaze
upon Santa Barbara. Can we begin to imagine
the thoughts of the Chumash as they watched
these giant ships with their great white sails
making way though the Channel? Could they
hear the shouts of the men and the creaks and
groans of the timbers and ropes? A flying saucer
landing on the Santa Barbara Mission lawn
could probably only match the effect today.
For the most part, the Chumash were
friendly and seemed quite unafraid, continually
rowing their tomols (canoes) out to greet the
ships and often bringing fish to barter. They also
boarded the ships and pointed out the names
of the Chumash villages they passed. At the
village of Xucu (now Carpinteria) the Spanish
encountered so many canoes they named it,
Pueblo de las Canoas. Further up the coast, in the
Goleta area, the Chumash presented them with
a great supply of fresh sardines so the name Los
Pueblos de Sardinas was bestowed.
Interestingly, the Indians all the way along
the coast from San Diego to Santa Barbara all
told Cabrillo the same story, that men dressed
like him could be found along a great river
several days journey inland. Cabrillo surmised
these men must be from either the Hernando
Ruiz de Alarcón or Francisco Vásquez de
Coronado expeditions along the Colorado River.
Cabrillo spent the next three weeks
exploring the islands and mainland along the
Santa Barbara Channel and then headed north
reaching Monterey Bay before returning.
The ships arrived at San Miguel Island on
November 23 with the intent of wintering
along the Channel Islands and undertaking
repairs to the ships.
It was here that Juan Rodríquez Cabrillo,
who had survived some of the bloodiest battles
in the conquest of Mexico and Central America,
died as a result of a fall. Near the end of
December while landing on the island he stumbled
and broke either an arm or leg. Gangrene
set in and he died on January 3, 1543. For one
of the richest men in this part of the world, there
would be no great funeral procession, no Mass
at the cathedral, no elaborate tomb. He was laid
to rest on the barren and windswept isle of San
Miguel in a grave soon lost to the elements.
Though Cabrillo described the Santa Barbara
area as “very beautiful” and “more than
excellent,” as the inhabitants of California were
observed to be without gold, silver, or precious
jewels the expedition’s report to the viceroy was
this was a “poor country.” It would be centuries
before the riches that Cabrillo had dreamed of—
and some he could never have imagined—
would be discovered and promoted.
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
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T H E
C H U M A S H
“They go dressed in skins and have very
long hair tied up with some long cords.
Inserted between the hair and these cords are
many daggers made of flint, bone, and wood.
“They have round houses, well covered
down to the ground. In their towns they
have large plazas and circular enclosures
around which imbedded in the ground are
many stone posts which stand about three
palm-lengths above it. In the middle of these
enclosures there are many thick timbers like
masts stuck in the ground. These are covered
with many paintings, and we thought they
must worship them because when they danced
they did so around the inside of the enclosure.
“They eat acorns and a white seed the
size of maize, which is used to make tamales.
They live well.”
–Cabrillo’s Log
Cabrillo had no idea what he had come
across. These people, who fearlessly approached
the ships in their tomols, boarded them and
bartered with the Spanish, had been here for five
thousand years. However this date does not tell
the whole story. Humans have occupied the
Santa Barbara area for at least fifteen thousand
years. Whether the Chumash are descendants of
these earliest settlers has yet to be established.
But to put the Chumash timeline into perspective,
they were here two thousand years before
Jerusalem was founded and five hundred years
before the Great Pyramid was built.
C H U M A S H
L I F E
The Chumash were hunter-gatherers. Bears,
deer, rabbits, birds, and other small game were
not only a food source, but provided clothing
and footwear. The ocean, streams, and rivers
supplied fish and mollusks. Devoid of skin,
scales, feathers, and meat, even the bones of all
these critters found their way into other areas
of Chumash life as needles, awls, fishhooks,
knives, beads, and even whistles. One way or
another, nothing went to waste.
✧
Artist Russell Ruiz (1925-1988) portrays a
“typical” coastal Chumash village. The
conical hut was usually made of wooden
branches and tule reeds. The largest of these
structures could be as much as fifty feet
in diameter.
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HISTORICAL MUSEUM.
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✧
With the establishment of the Santa
Barbara Mission in 1786, the Franciscan
padres began a program to induce the
Chumash to convert to Catholicism and to
relocate from their traditional villages to
communities near the mission or on mission
lands. Exposure to disease was a
demographic disaster for the Chumash; the
Chumash population at Santa Barbara
Mission in 1803 was almost 1800, in 1836
it was less than 500. Here a Chumash
couple poses in front of the mission, c.1885.
As they did not cultivate crops, botanical
needs were met where you found them. Plants
served a wide variety of purposes including
but not limited to food, medicine, clothing,
and shelter. A main staple of their diet was the
acorn. However, acorns in their natural state
contain tannic acid which makes them very
bitter to the taste. This problem was solved by
first grinding the acorns to flour in stone
mortars, then boiling water was added and
sloughed off. This “leeching” carried away the
tannic acid and resulted in a very tasty and
highly nutritious meal.
The Chumash home, called an ´ap, was
cone-shaped, somewhat resembling a
beehive. Using sycamore or other available
branches, a frame was constructed and tule
woven over the frame. Inside, a central fire
could be built for warmth or cooking if the
weather outside was too cold or wet. A hole at
the top of the house served as a chimney.
Each village usually had a sweathouse or
apa’yik. Like the homes these were circular in
shape, but were dug out so as to be partially
underground and covered over by tules. Entry
and exit was accomplished by a ladder.
Inside, stones were added to the fire to
maintain heat. Once the participant had had
enough, he would climb out and dive into a
creek to cool down, repeating the task as
necessary. Most accounts state that use of the
sweathouse was for men only.
Asphaltum, which bubbled up from the
ocean floor and washed up on the beach, or
oozed out of the oceanside cliff faces, was the
Super Glue and duct tape of the day. A hot
rock covered with tar, dropped into a basket
and swirled around would soon coat the
inside and make it suitable for carrying water.
It could be used to glue abalone and other
shells to decorate any surface, and at least one
clever musician glued his bone whistles
together with asphalt to make a pan pipe.
The Chumash were noted for their baskets
which, along with other goods, were traded to
Indian tribes throughout the Southwest.
Colorful and artistic, some were woven so
tightly they could hold water and, by adding
hot stones, you could even cook in them.
Cooking vessels were also constructed from
steatite or soapstone, a soft rock quarried
from Santa Catalina Island. Steatite can
endure flame, so when hollowed out, they
were the perfect cooking pots.
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
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Unique to the Chumash was the tomol.
Unlike any other Native American watercraft, it
was built from planks. Though local pine was
sometimes used, redwood was preferred as it
expands when wet thus sealing small cracks.
Redwood is not native to the area, so they most
likely had to wait and watch for redwood logs
floating down from northern California to wash
up on the beach. The logs were split into planks
using stone or whalebone wedges and the boards
with clear grain and no knotholes (which would
leak) were then selected. Using stone knives
and sharpened clamshells the planks were
shaped and edges smoothed. Holes were drilled
into the planks and they were lashed together
and the seams and lashing holes sealed with tar.
The boat was sanded with sandstone and
sharkskin, painted red, and inlaid with abalone.
Fast and highly maneuverable, the
finished product could be from eight to thirty
feet long and carry up to two dozen people or
several thousand pounds of cargo; an
incredible example of ship-building with
only the most “primitive” of tools.
Today we use the word “Chumash” to
identify the Indians who thrived along the
coast, mountains and valleys from Malibu
through San Luis Obispo. But to the Indians
of the period, it identified the Indians from
the islands who were the “minters” of the
coin of the realm made from the Olivella
shell. Loosely translated the word Chumash
means “bead money makers.”
Following Cabrillo’s visit, life returned to
normal for the Chumash. On rare occasions,
a Spanish ship, one of the Manila galleons,
may have been sighted as it passed through
the Channel on the return voyage from the
Philippines. And, some historians promote
the theory that Sir Francis Drake stopped
here in 1579. But with a life expectancy of
forty, by the time the next Spanish explorers
came through, there were probably no
Chumash left that could give a firsthand
account of the first Europeans to stop
here. Cabrillo and his ships more than likely
were relegated to a story told around the
evening fire.
✧
Chumash baskets were true works of art.
Often they were woven so tight, they could
hold water and were highly prized as
trade goods.
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HISTORICAL MUSEUM.
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CHAPTER II
T H E A G E O F E X P L O R A T I O N
S E B A S T I Á N V I Z C A Í N O — 1 6 0 2
After Cabrillo, other ships would follow the California coast adding to the knowledge of “what
was out there,” but as they did not bother to stop in Santa Barbara they are ignored for the purpose
of this history.
However, 1602 was to be a benchmark year for Santa Barbara as well as California. On May 5
of that year three ships; the San Diego, Santo Tomás, and Tres Reyes, left Acapulco under the
command of Sebastián Vizcaíno.
Vizcaíno was born in Spain in 1548, served in the military and then came to Mexico in 1583.
Three years later he headed to the Philippines where he established himself as a merchant. He
returned to Mexico in 1589 continuing in the merchant and investment business and also found
time to marry and have two sons and a daughter.
His instructions from the Viceroy were to sail along the California coast from the tip of Baja “to a
point no further than 38° north latitude” (approximately today’s Drake’s Bay at Point Reyes). Their main
objective was to find safe harbors for the Manila galleons. These ships sailed from Acapulco to Manila,
loaded up with merchandise in the Philippines and then returned via the Japanese current which took
them across the Pacific to northern California. It was on the latter trip that ships under the flag of Britain
had been robbing, torching, and stranding the crew and passengers of the Manila galleons. One British
captain, Thomas Cavendish, after robbing the galleon Santa Ana (a task that took six days) had gone so
far as to hang one of his prisoners, Father Juan de Almendrales, from the mizzen arm of his ship.
The second part of the venture was purely capitalistic. This was as much a business trip as it was
“exploration.” Vizcaíno and other investors were to share in any riches that might be uncovered
along their journey.
Perhaps the biggest impact of this voyage for Santa Barbara as well as California was the order
to bestow the names of the saints to previously unnamed ports and sites along the way. As the maps
Vizcaíno was given were not even close to up-to-date many of the places previously named were
about to get renamed. Thus, by referring to the liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church which
assigns each saint a “feast day” you can fairly accurately follow Vizcaíno’s path.
Bypassing the Baja names and coming into Alta California we have November 12, San Diego
(Saint David); November 23, San Clemente Island (Saint Clement); November 25, Santa Catalina
Island (Saint Catherine); and on November 26, San Pedro (Saint Peter).
Leaving San Pedro on December 1 the ships encountered heavy fog which cleared the following
day and revealed two islands. The first was named San Nicolás, for Saint Nicholas whose feast day
was December 6. The second island as well as the “passage between the mainland and a group of
islands” was named Santa Bárbara for the saint whose feast was celebrated on December 4.
The end of the Santa Barbara Channel was reached on December 8, the Feast of the Immaculate
Conception, resulting in today’s abbreviated Point Conception. Vizcaíno continued as far north as
Cape Mendocino. Perhaps due to fog, he missed San Francisco Bay, but did find Monterey Bay
which he named, not for a saint, but for his benefactor, Gaspar de Zúñiga y Acevedo, the Viceroy
of Mexico and Conde (count) de Monterrey. Monterrey referred to his birthplace in Spain, not the
city in Mexico, although that was named for him too.
Vizcaíno’s sojourn resulted in a complete redrawing of the map of California—as an island.
Although Ulloa’s voyage of 1539 showed Baja was a peninsula and neither Cabrillo nor Vizcaíno found
a large river or sea to the east, Father Antonio de Ascension, one of the priests with Vizcaíno, is credited
with separating California from the mainland and thus it would stay for the next hundred years.
✧
In 1776, Juan Bautista de Anza led an
expedition of two hundred men, women,
and children from Mexico to San Francisco.
PAINTING BY NICHOLAS S. FIRFIRES (1917-1990).
COURTESY OF THE SANTA BARBARA TRUST FOR
HISTORIC PRESERVATION.
C H A P T E R I I
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Whether it was viewed as an island or part
of a great land mass of which only the coast was
charted, Alta California was left to the native
populations for the next century-and-a-half.
T H E L E G E N D
O F S A I N T B A R B A R A
There are many stories and legends
concerning the woman known to us as Saint
Barbara. While they differ on some points they
agree on many. She was born sometime during
the third century in Asia Minor and as was
typical for the time her family was pagan in
their religious beliefs. Her father, Dioscoros,
was wealthy and saw to it that his daughter
Barbara, who was very beautiful, had a good
education, hiring several tutors toward that
end. One of her tutors was a Christian,
identified by some as the noted scholar
Origen, who taught her about Christianity and
she soon converted secretly to that faith.
In the meantime, her father decided to add
a tower to their home (some accounts claim
this was to imprison Barbara until a proper
suitor could be found). While her father was
away on a trip, she had the builders change
the design from two windows to three to
represent the Holy Trinity. Eventually her
father discovered Barbara’s lack of faith
toward the pagan gods and she was brought
to the local judge since the practice of
Christianity was illegal.
When she refused to renounce her beliefs
she was taken to jail and tortured. Praying for
strength she endured the pain and when
asked to repent a second time she again
would not embrace the pagan gods. The
judge then ordered her to be beheaded
allowing the job of executioner to be filled by
her father. At the top of a nearby hill her
father completed the task and as he headed
back to town, though it was a clear day, he
was struck by lightning and killed as was the
judge that had ordered her execution.
The first references to Saint Barbara appear
around the end of the seventh century, four
hundred years after her death. While she is
generally thought of as a saint of the Roman
Catholic Church, she is also venerated by the
Greek and Russian Orthodox Churches.
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Saint Barbara is usually depicted in front of
a tower with three windows. In her left hand
she holds a palm branch (or sometimes a
sword) symbolizing martyrdom, and in her
right, a chalice representing a “happy death”
and occasionally a cannon is by her side.
She is the patron saint of architects, masons,
and other members of the building trades,
miners, sailors, and artillerymen. Within the
latter is a special group not reserved to any
country called the Order of Saint Barbara. And,
mixing sailors and gunpowder together, we
find that on Spanish ships the powder
magazine was known as the “Santa Barbara.”
Relics of Saint Barbara are spread
throughout the world. A few places where
they can be found include the Church of Saint
Barbara in Cairo; the Cathedral of Saint
Vladimir in Kiev, Russia; the Chapel of the
Metropolitan Archbishop of the Ukrainian
Orthodox Church of Canada in Winnipeg; in
Burano, Italy; and at the Saint Barbara Greek
Orthodox Church here in Santa Barbara.
Saint Barbara was removed from the
calendar of the Catholic saints in 1969 causing
some to proclaim that the Church considered
her to be a myth. This assumption is in itself a
myth. Starting around the fifteenth century
the Catholic Church established a number of
“tests” and conditions that must be fulfilled
before a saint can be canonized. As Barbara and
a number of saints predated these standards the
church “demoted” them as their qualifications
could not be proven.
“In no other place had we met natives so
affectionate and good natured.”
–Father Juan Crespí
P O R T O L Á , S E R R A A N D
T H E S A C R E D E X P E D I T I O N
The first link of what would become the
California mission chain was established in
Loreto, Baja California, in 1697. Under the
Jesuit fathers, twenty missions were built in Baja
before they were expelled at gunpoint
in June of 1767 by King Carlos III of Spain. To
replace the Jesuits the King selected the Order of
Friars Minor, known as the Franciscans. From
their headquarters at the Franciscan College
of San Fernando in Mexico City, fifty-six-yearold
Father Junípero Serra was chosen to be
the president of the California Missions and to
expand them into Alta (Upper) California.
But more was at stake here than just the
souls of the Indians. There was a concern
that the Russians, already in Alaska, would
move into California. To check any potential
advance, along with the missions, two
presidios (forts) would be established at San
Diego and Monterey, both having been
identified as good ports by the earlier
explorers. Under the title, “The Sacred
Expedition,” a joint land and sea expedition
was assembled to accomplish the task.
Using less than perfect maps with latitude
and longitude taken with less than perfect
instruments, three ships were to rendezvous
at San Diego and await the overland parties.
The ships would carry the tools, equipment,
and heavy supplies needed to establish the
outposts in this new frontier.
Meanwhile the ground party, leaving in
two groups, was to follow the 450-mile-long
Jesuit Trail connecting the missions in Baja,
and upon leaving Mission Santa María de los
Angeles, the last outpost, travel another 450
miles of uncharted territory through the Baja
desert, work their way to the Pacific, and
hopefully find and recognize San Diego Bay
and the ships.
From the presidio at Loreto, a town of about
four hundred, the first group left on March 24,
1769. They were led by Captain Fernando de
Rivera y Moncado, the commander of the
presidio, and included Father Juan Crespí,
pilotín José Cañizares, twenty-five soldados de
cuera (leather-jacketed soldiers), eleven
Indians, and three muleteers to drive the
horses, cattle, and mules. They arrived in San
Diego without incident on May 14.
However, the ships that had arrived nearly
a month earlier had not fared as well. The
San Carlos had left La Paz on January 9, the
San Antonio on February 15. The San José,
built for this journey and named for the saint
designated as the patron and protector of the
Sacred Expedition, left a few months later.
She was never seen again.
The San Carlos encountered heavy winds
and could not get past Cedros Island, spending
✧
Opposite: The Santa Barbara Channel was
named after St. Barbara, whose feast day
was December 4, on the expedition led by
Sebastian Vizcaíno in 1602. St. Barbara
was martyred for her Christian faith
sometime in the third century. Pictured is an
18th-century French polychrome on wood
figure of St. Barbara in the collection of the
Santa Barbara Historical Museum.
PHOTOGRAPH BY BILL DEWEY.
C H A P T E R I I
1 5

✧
This map illustrates the routes taken by four
expeditions into Alta California led by Juan
Rodríguez Cabrillo, Sebastián Vizcaíno,
Gaspar de Portolá, and Juan Bautista
de Anza.
the better part of a month attempting to do so.
To make matters worse, the barrels containing
fresh water had split and lost their contents
so they were forced to search for a source of
good water along the desolate coast of Baja.
Eventually scurvy set in and by the time the
ship arrived at San Diego, on April 28, several
of her crew had died.
The San Antonio meanwhile had sailed
completely past San Diego, not recognizing it
from the maps nor able to plot its location due
to incorrect latitude and longitude readings. She
continued north as far as the Santa Barbara
Channel Islands, mistaking them for Vizcaíno’s
Los Coronados (the Coronado Islands off San
Diego). The only fortunate part of this mishap
was the loss of a cross mounted on a staff by one
of the priests who had gone ashore on the island
called San Salvador by Cabrillo. An Indian
returned the cross and the island was renamed
Santa Cruz (Holy Cross). The San Antonio, now
believing she was too far north, retraced her
steps and entered San Diego Bay on April 11. By
now the men of both ships were ravaged with
scurvy and were dying at a rapid rate.
Back at Loreto, the second group of fortyfour
men left on May 15, the day after Crespí
had arrived in San Diego. Under the
command of the first governor of California,
Gaspar de Portolá, they included Father
Junípero Serra, Sgt. José Francisco de Ortega,
fifteen soldados de cuera and the rest a mixture
of servants, Indians, and muleteers. They too
arrived without incident at the end of June.
Overall, for a Sacred Expedition, things
were not looking too blessed. The two ships
anchored in the bay had carried ninety
souls—officers, sailors, and most importantly
for the new outposts, craftsmen, blacksmiths,
and carpenters. Sixty were now dead.
Portolá quickly appraised the situation.
With her captain and a skeleton crew of eight
sailors, the San Antonio was to be sent back to
San Blas (the main naval base, located on the
Pacific coast of Mexico) to report on the
situation and procure supplies. Captain Vila of
the San Carlos had lost all of his officers and
Portolá offered several of his men as crew
hoping to get the San Carlos up to Monterey.
Captain Vila declined and refused to put the
San Carlos to sea without an experienced crew.
Meanwhile, the third ship, the San José had
not shown up. Hoping the San José had
missed San Diego and would be waiting at
Monterey with supplies, Portolá gathered
sixty-four men and on July 14, headed north
for Monterey, a distance of 450 miles.
Father Serra stayed behind and on July 16,
founded the first of the upper California
missions, San Diego de Alcalá.
Portolá and his men arrived at the Santa
Barbara Channel August 14. On the 18th they
passed a Chumash village which Father Crespí
named San Róque. Observing that the Chumash
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
16

were engaged in the building of tomols, the men
gave it the name la Carpintería (the place of the
carpenters). More than likely, this was the same
place called Pueblo de las Canoas by Cabrillo.
The next day they passed through many
Chumash villages, crossed a large swamp, and
camped near a small lake. To this place they
gave the name La Laguna de Concepción, a
laguna being a small lake. Unlike Carpintería,
this name would not last too long.
The Chumash they encountered were
friendly, in fact too friendly. Father Crespí’s diary
for August 19 opens with “Our only objective of
traveling today was to get rid of so many
people.” The Chumash accompanied them from
village to village and presented them with so
much fish and other foods “that we were obliged
to tell them not to bring any more because the
fish would spoil.” Father Crespí next relates
what happened as they camped near Goleta:
They were not satisfied with spreading
food before us, but also desired to amuse us.
One could notice the mutual strife and rivalry
among the different villages to excel in their
gifts and sports, in order to merit the approval
of our people. Toward evening, the chiefs of
each town came, one after the other, all in
their finery of paints and feather ornaments,
holding in their hands split reeds, the motion
and noise of which served them to keep time
in their chants and dances. This they
performed so well and so uniformly that it
sounded very harmonious. The dances lasted
all through the evening, and we had a hard
time ridding ourselves of them. We dismissed
them, begging them by signs not to come back
during the night and trouble us; but in vain.
As soon as darkness had set in, they returned,
blowing horns, the infernal noise of which
was sufficient to tear our ears to pieces. As
we were afraid our horses would stampede,
the commander, with his officers and some
soldiers, sallied forth to meet the Indians.
They gave them some beads and endeavored
to impress on them that they must retire, and
that in case they returned and disturbed our
sleep, they would not be our friends and we
would not receive them well. This sufficed to
induce them to depart and leave us in peace
during the remainder of the night.
At a pace of nearly five miles per day, the
expedition continued along the California
coast following Indian trails and making their
own as necessity dictated. On September 30,
they reached Monterey Bay, but were unable to
recognize it from the descriptions they’d been
given, nor were they able to identify it from
the latitude and longitude. They pressed on
and in early November found San Francisco
Bay instead.
By this time a number of the men were sick
and food was running out. In early December
they decided to return to San Diego. Desperate
for food they were “compelled to eat the flesh of
[the] male and female mules.” Upon reaching
Santa Barbara the situation improved thanks to
the hospitality of the Chumash and a well
fortified Sacred Expedition arrived back in San
Diego on January 24, 1770. Upon hearing of the
“failure” to find Monterey Bay, a disappointed
Father Serra remarked to Portolá, “You have
been to Rome but did not see the Pope.”
In the spring of 1770 they set out again,
reaching Monterey Bay on May 24 which this
time they recognized. On June 3, 1770, the
second mission of the California chain, San
Cárlos Borromeo de Monterey, was founded as
was the presidio at Monterey.
The Sacred Expedition left us with a
valuable firsthand observation of the Chumash
and its passage through Santa Barbara is
recalled by the names given to several places.
As noted earlier, Carpintería was named for
the Chumash carpenters. A Chumash village
on an island in the Goleta slough was named
Mescaltitán, probably because it reminded
them of Mexcaltitan, an island in the middle of
a swamp in Mexico (said to be the birthplace
of the Aztec civilization). A neighboring village
was called Los Pueblos de la Islas. Somewhat
coincidentally, it was not far from today’s Isla
Vista, the community next to the University of
California, Santa Barbara.
It is illegal to do so today, but one of the
soldiers shot a seagull resulting in the name
Gaviota (seagull) applied to the location of
that incident. Cojo (lame) takes its name from
the place where they met a Chumash chief
with a bad leg. An encounter with a thin
grizzly bear is memorialized at Oso Flaco
(skinny bear).
C H A P T E R I I
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H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
18

CHAPTER III
T H E P R E S I D I O A N D M I S S I O N S
O F T H E S A N T A B A R B A R A C H A N N E L
By 1782 three presidios, San Diego, Monterey, and San Francisco, guarded the ports along Alta
California and eight missions stretched between them. However, a vast empty space of some 167
miles stretched between Missions San Gabriel and San Luis Obispo. Plans to fill this void along the
Canal de Santa Barbara with three missions and a presidio had been in the works for several years.
Finally, in the spring of 1782, Father Serra received word from Governor Felipe de Neve that
approval and funding had been given.
Hastening from Mission San Carlos, Serra arrived at Mission San Gabriel and in late March a
procession of two hundred, más o menos, left the mission. The bulk of the party was soldiers along with
their families and nearly a dozen pobladores (settlers) and their families, the new settlers for the presidio
community. Joining them were Governor Neve and his guard, ten soldiers from the Monterey presidio,
Father Serra and Father Pedro Benito Cambón, and two hundred or so mules, horses, and oxen.
It took four days to cover the sixty-seven miles between Mission San Gabriel and the pre-selected site
for the first of the Channel missions. Arriving on Good Friday they rested and the next day built and
erected a cross and a primitive chapel. The following day, Easter Sunday, March 31, 1782, the ground was
blessed, a Mass celebrated and Mission San Buenaventura, named for Saint Bonaventure, was founded.
Governor Neve had been called away not long after leaving San Gabriel, but returned in early
April. As things were progressing quite well the Governor decided it was time to continue on to
Portola’s La Laguna Concepción to establish the presidio and mission. Sixteen soldiers were left
behind to help Father Cambón with construction and to provide protection.
Making remarkable time in comparison to the journey from San Gabriel, Serra, Neve, the soldiers,
and their wives and children made the thirty-mile journey in one day, arriving on April 15, 1782.
Now where to put the presidio? With the empty plain of Santa Barbara before them, they could
have put it just about anywhere, but security and necessity would dictate its location. After a week
of exploring the area, the site selected was on a small rise about a mile from the beach. This put them
out of the range of most ship’s cannon and a respectable distance from Syukhtun, the large Chumash
village along the waterfront to the west. From any direction, attackers or visitors could be easily
seen. To the south towards the beach and to the west and north was open land for quite a distance.
A few hundred feet to the east the land dropped sharply thirty feet or more. Much of this lower
area was marshland during the rainy season. Wet or dry, an opposing force would have to cross
this area well in view of the presidio garrison and climb the steep hill making an attack difficult.
With the location secured, on Sunday, April 21, the site was blessed, the cross raised and the
Real Presidio del Canal de Santa Bárbara (Royal Presidio of the Channel of Saint Barbara) was
founded. The name La Laguna de Concepción was soon replaced with this name and just as quickly
the word “channel” dropped, and “Santa Barbara” became the recognized name for the new
settlement. The old laguna was not entirely forgotten. It lives on as a street name which passes
though the location of the lake, long since filled in, near Ortega and Cota streets.
In the twelve years since the founding of Monterey and Mission San Carlos in 1770, Father Serra
had passed through Santa Barbara several times and “his heart bled at the sight of the thousands
of Indians…who were as yet excluded from sharing the benefits that the neophytes of the Missions
enjoyed.” With Mission San Buenaventura on its way and the presidio work initiated, he could now
begin on the mission he had dreamed of for so long.
Sadly, the Padre Presidente of the missions was about to receive a rude awakening. Governor
Neve announced he had no intention of starting the second of the channel missions until the
presidio was completed. This was a complete reversal from the sequence of events for the presidios
and missions at San Diego, Monterey, and San Francisco.
✧
Santa Barbara’s Royal Presidio was founded
on April 21, 1782. The completed presidio
included storerooms, a church, chaplains’
quarters, soldiers’ barracks, and facilities
for military and civilian families. By 1790
the non-native population had risen above
two hundred.
DRAWING BY RUSSELL RUIZ (1925-1988). COLLECTION OF
THE SANTA BARBARA HISTORICAL MUSEUM.
C H A P T E R I I I
1 9

The Governor had two reasons for the delay.
In direct opposition to standard policy, he
believed the Indians should remain on their
lands and in their villages and come to the
missions only for education and religious
services. Serra maintained that the Indians must
remain within the mission compound under
the watchful eye of the friars for upon returning
to their villages each night they would be
tempted to continue in their pagan practices.
Like children, they would need full supervision
to understand and accept the new ways.
✧
Russell Ruiz (1925-1988) drawing of the
Santa Barbara presidio. The presidio chapel
is at the rear of the quadrangle.
COLLECTION OF THE SANTA BARBARA
HISTORICAL MUSEUM.
A plan similar to Neve’s ideals had been put
into effect at two missions, Puerto de la Purísima
Concepción and San Pedro y San Pablo de
Bicuñer, along the Colorado River. The result
proved disastrous. On July 17, 1781, the Yuma
Indians arose and attacked the two missions
and nearby settlements, killing the four
Franciscans, and most of the male settlers
and soldiers. The next day they attacked the
camp of Captain Fernando Javier de Rivera y
Moncada who was leading a group of soldiers
and settlers on their way from Sonora, Mexico,
to Los Angeles. There were no survivors. Rivera
it should be noted had come with Portolá into
California in 1769 and at the time of his death
was the lieutenant-governor of Baja California.
The second reason for the delay was
personal. Neve did not like nor trust Father
Serra. Of Serra, he wrote, “There is no mischief
these religious will not attempt if exasperated,
such is their boundless unbelievable pride. My
politeness and moderation over more than four
years have not been enough to turn them from
the hostility with which they engage surreptitious
conspiracies against the government and
its laws. There is no means whatsoever they
would scorn. He knows how to feign compliance
in matters put before him, as well as how
to avoid it….” Rest assured, Father Serra was
equal in his disdain for Governor Neve.
A disgusted Serra returned to Monterey
leaving the fledgling community of Santa
Barbara without a cleric. For the necessities of
the church, Father Cambón would have to
come up from San Buenaventura or the new
Barbareños had to make the trek to the south.
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
20

For the new immigrants to Santa Barbara it
would be a tough life. Without shelter they
were exposed to the elements and possible
attack. Though water was available at the
nearby laguna it was at a lower level so it had
to be brought by hand to the fort. Whatever
tools, cooking utensils, and clothing they
possessed had been carried by hand or loaded
on the mules at Mission San Gabriel. They had
to conserve what they had, create what they
needed and wait for the annual visit of the
supply ships from San Blas for new supplies.
of a defense wall and some kind of suitable
shelter for the supplies and people. A more
convenient method of getting water was
accomplished following the construction of
an aqueduct, nearly a mile and a half in
length, bringing water from Pedregosa (now
Mission) Creek to the presidio.
Ortega was replaced by Lieutenant Felipe de
Goycoechea, who arrived in January 1784.
Under his command a presidio of adobe walls
and tiled roofs slowly began to take shape.
Surprisingly, the Chumash from the nearby
Lieutenant José Francisco Ortega, formerly
of the presidio at Loreto, a veteran of the
Portolá Expedition and credited as the
discoverer of San Francisco Bay, was
appointed as the first commandant of the
Santa Barbara presidio. The success or failure
of the fledgling community would fall on him.
Being a semi-arid desert, Santa Barbara was
not covered in wood, yet here and there oak
groves and sycamores could be found along
the creeks. This wood and other saplings and
brush was utilized in the initial construction
village of Syukhtun lent a hand in helping the
“squatters” build their fort. Their reason for
doing so was not quite altruistic. Their chief,
Yanonali, thought having these newcomers on
his side might be beneficial in his conflicts with
neighboring villages. Nearly seventy years later,
when the streets were laid out and named,
Yanonali was memorialized with a street that
passed through the site of his former village.
The completed presidio was about four
hundred by four hundred feet. Surrounding a
central courtyard were storerooms, a church,
✧
Mission Santa Barbara was founded in
1786. This drawing by Alexander Harmer
(1856-1925) shows how the mission may
have looked in 1798. The mission was
placed high on the hill about a mile and a
half from the presidio.
C H A P T E R I I I
2 1

✧
Above: Junípero Serra, padre presidente of
the California missions. Serra did not live to
see the founding of Mission Santa Barbara,
having died in 1784.
PAINTING EXECUTED BY J. MOSQUEDA FROM THE
LOST ORIGINAL.
chaplains quarters, barracks for single
soldiers, and thirty-six dwellings for military
and civilian families. By 1790 Santa Barbara’s
non-native population of soldiers, civilians,
and children exceeded two hundred.
T H E F O U N D I N G O F
M I S S I O N S A N T A B A R B A R A
In July 1784, Father Serra, at Mission San
Carlos, received word that approval for
building a mission at Santa Barbara had been
given. Unfortunately, the Padre Presidente
would not live to see the founding of Mission
Santa Barbara nor the third of the channel
missions, La Purísima de Concepción. He
passed on at Mission San Carlos on August
28, 1784, nearly a month after receiving word
that the approval for building Mission Santa
Barbara had finally been given. Even so, two
more years would pass before this mission
would become a reality.
As with the presidio, an intelligent decision
had to be made as to where to put the mission.
It needed to be near water, tillable lands, and
close enough to the presidio for protection,
but not too close, as the padres wanted to keep
some distance between the soldiers and the
native women. And, of course, it should be
close to a large Indian population.
The first site selected had been in
Montecito. However this was quite a distance
from the presidio and though a Chumash
village was nearby, it was not a large one.
Presidio comandante Felipe de Goycoechea
and Serra’s successor, Father Fermin de
Lasuén started searching for a new site and
found it a mile and a half from the presidio. It
was well in view of the fort, was near water,
had tillable lands, and was in a central
location for many Chumash villagers. Fathers
Antonio Paterna and Cristóbal Orámas later
seconded the selection.
A few months later, on the day of the feast
of Saint Barbara, December 4, 1786, Father
Lasuén blessed the ground and raised a cross.
Twelve days later, the Governor arrived and
this time a full Mass was said.
The mission we see today is not the
mission of 1786. It would take several
remodels and an earthquake to produce the
design that would make Santa Barbara the
“Queen of the Missions.”
The earthquake responsible for the
redesign occurred in 1812. That year
California was rocked by a steady stream of
earthquakes starting in the spring and
culminating in December with two huge jolts
on the 8th and the 21st that destroyed or
severely damaged a number of the Southern
California missions, including Santa Barbara.
It would take three years to get permission
and the funding to rebuild Mission Santa
Barbara. Fortunately, housed within the
mission library was a book on architecture
taken from the writings of Vitruvius Polion, a
Roman architect in the first century B.C.
Using his designs the new church was built
and completed in September of 1820 and
celebrated with a grand fiesta. This new
church, though it had the façade familiar to us
today, only had one tower. The second tower
was added in 1833.
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
22

F A T H E R J U N Í P E R O S E R R A ,
T H E A P O S T L E
O F C A L I F O R N I A
The man who would become known as
the Father of the Missions was born on 1713
on the Island of Mallorca off the eastern coast
of Spain. He entered the studies for the
priesthood when he was sixteen and became a
Franciscan priest in 1737 when he was
twenty-four (the minimum age).
Serra was noted as a great lecturer and
teacher of philosophy, but his heart was
elsewhere—the New World where he felt a
calling to convert the native tribes. In 1749 he
got his wish and left the comfort and safety of
the University of Palma and came to the
Franciscan College of San Fernando outside of
Mexico City. Accompanying Serra was one of
his former students, Father Francisco Palóu,
who would later write Serra’s biography.
As noted earlier, with the expulsion of
the Jesuits from Baja in 1767, the Franciscans
took over the missions of Baja California and
Serra was chosen to be the President of the
California Missions and to extend the chain
through the vast and unexplored wilderness
of Alta California.
Despite the pain—at times excruciating—
from a sore on his leg, the diminutive (5’2”)
Father Serra journeyed thousands of miles on
foot throughout California as well as Mexico
and Baja California. He founded missions San
Diego (1769), San Carlos (1770), San Antonio
(1771), San Luis Obispo (1772), San Juan
Capistrano (1776), Santa Clara (1777), and
San Buenaventura (1782). Two more missions
established during Serra’s tenancy, though
not by Serra himself, were San Gabriel in
1771 by Fathers Pedro Cambón and Angel
Somero and San Francisco (also known as the
Mission Dolores) in 1776 by his friend and
former student Father Palóu. In all, twentyone
missions would be built.
Father Serra died on August 28, 1784,
at Mission San Carlos de Carmelo, his
“headquarters” and was buried there the
following day.
Father Serra’s journeys did not end with
his death. He is, as of 2009, on the road to
sainthood. On August 28, 1934, exactly 150
years after his death the first steps were
taken to have Father Serra declared a saint. In
1985 Pope John Paul II declared Serra eligible
for the sainthood and in 1988 “beatified”
him following the miraculous recovery of a
nun from lupis erthematosus (or lupus
erythematosus) a cure attributed to the
intercession of Father Serra. He has now
passed two of the three steps that lead to
sainthood, a journey that has so far taken
nearly twice the time Serra spent walking
through Mexico, Baja, and along the missions
of California.
F A T H E R G O N Z Á L E S R Ú B I O ,
A G U I D I N G P R E S E N C E
While certainly every pastor has a special
place within his parish and to some extent the
community, the love the entire community of
Santa Barbara had for Father Rúbio is shown
in what can only be called, “The Benevolent
Kidnapping of Father Gonzáles Rúbio.”
✧
Father José María de Jesús Gonzales Rubio
arrived at Mission Santa Barbara in 1842.
Due to be transferred in 1856, Father Rubio
was so beloved, the townspeople of Santa
Barbara interceded and convinced the
ecclesiastical authorities to allow him to
stay. Father Rubio lived out the rest of his
life in Santa Barbara.
PORTRAIT BY LEONARDO BARBIERI, (1810-C.1873).
COURTESY OF THE SANTA BARBARA MISSION
ARCHIVE-LIBRARY.
C H A P T E R I I I
2 3

✧
Perhaps the outstanding figure of Santa
Barbara during the periods of Spanish and
Mexican rule was José de la Guerra y
Noriega, “El Gran Capitán.” Twice serving
as comandante of the Santa Barbara
presidio, de la Guerra became one of the
largest land owners in Alta California.
PORTRAIT BY LEONARDO BARBIERI, (1810-C.1873).
COLLECTION OF THE SANTA BARBARA
HISTORICAL MUSEUM.
Father José María Gonzáles Rúbio was born
in Guadalajara in 1804 and in his teens entered
the Franciscan Missionary College not far from
the place of his birth. In 1833 he was sent to
California, serving at Mission San José until
1842 when he came to Santa Barbara to serve
as the secretary for Bishop Francisco García
Diego. Following the death of the bishop in
1846 and his vicar-general (basically, the “vicebishop”),
Father Narciso Durán, a month later,
Father Gonzáles took care of the needs of the
diocese (basically the entire state of California)
until a new bishop was named in 1850.
In 1855 the Franciscan College in Mexico
notified him that he had been chosen as
guardian of the college. Father Gonzáles was
understandably reluctant to go. For one,
there were less than two dozen priests in
all of California, he was the pastor of Santa
Barbara, and also vicar-general for Bishop
José Sadoc Alemany.
But orders were orders. Father Gonzáles
resigned as vicar-general and in January 1856,
told his parishioners that it was far from
his choice, but he would soon be leaving
them for Mexico.
On January 22 the padre
packed his bags and headed
down to the beach to await the
southbound boat. Upon his
arrival at the beach he found his
seaward progress blocked by
nearly two dozen men who had
surrounded the rowboat assigned
to take the beloved padre to
the waiting ship. A few moments
later a crowd estimated at nearly
one thousand people (which
was pretty much the entire
population of Santa Barbara)—
men, women and children “of
every nationality and creed”
congregated around his carriage.
Francisco de la Guerra told
Father Gonzáles that the “townspeople
had determined to oppose
his departure by every means
and that it was useless for him to
think of going away for it was
impossible for him to move a
step toward the ocean.”
Orders were given to the sailors to return to
the ship without their passenger and the mayor
himself, Antonio María de la Guerra, took the
reins to the carriage and returned the priest to
his home at Our Lady of Sorrows (then at the
northeast corner of State and Figueroa streets).
A number of the townspeople then took watch
around the house to ensure the priest would
not leave.
The mayor and Judge Joaquín Carrillo then
wrote letters to the Bishop asking that he
intercede in the affair and if necessary forward
their request to the Pope himself. The
Franciscan College heeded the pleas of the
town and chose another guardian.
Father Gonzáles lived out his days in Santa
Barbara and died at the Old Mission on
November 2, 1875. Plaza Rubio, the street
opposite the rose garden in front of the
mission, was named for him.
T H E
D E L A G U E R R A F A M I L Y
De la Guerra, the name that was to eventually
grace a street, plaza, adobe, and define the
politics of our city, county, and state, arrived in
Mexico in 1792 in the person of thirteen-yearold
José de la Guerra y Noriega. The words “y
Noriega” often seen added to his name are part
of the Spanish tradition of bestowing the
mother’s maiden name to the eldest son.
Born in Spain on March 6, 1779, he came to
Mexico to work as an apprentice to his uncle, a
merchant in Mexico City. De la Guerra eventually
decided on a change of career and though
contemplating the priesthood, he instead put
the “sword before the cross” and enlisted in the
army. Being of noble birth from a family with a
long and distinguished history he was accepted
and rose quickly through the ranks.
His assignment to the presidio at San Diego
brought him to California in 1798. Two years
later he was assigned to the Monterey presidio
where he met the lovely María Antonia Juliana
Carrillo, the daughter of the comandante, José
Raimundo Carrillo. The two were wed in 1804,
the union resulting in thirteen progeny and the
foundation of a political dynasty that would
shape the politics and future of California for
the next seventy years.
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
24

Don José was appointed comandante of the
Santa Barbara presidio in 1815, having
already served as comandante at Monterey and
San Diego, and was promoted to captain in
1817. He retired from the military in 1842
after serving for almost fifty-two years and
was granted a pension “with the full pay of
a Captain.” This may have been a hollow
gesture as the Mexican government already
owed him $12,000 in back pay.
He was not short of money though. As
early as 1808 while at San Diego he had
engaged in commercial enterprises in
partnership with his uncle in Mexico bringing
much needed merchandise into upper
California. He later owned several ships, two
of which were wrecked a few miles up the
coast from Santa Barbara thus becoming
candidates for the origin of the name for that
locale. In Spanish, a schooner is a goleta.
Following Mexico’s independence from
Spain, the Mexican government barred persons
of Spanish birth from holding any political
office and many were deported. De la Guerra,
due to his many friends and faithful service to
Mexico following independence, was spared the
deportation order. Even so, although he had
been elected to the Mexican Congress in 1827,
he was refused his seat when he arrived in 1828
and was compelled to leave the country
incognito as anti-Spanish sentiment escalated.
By this time Casa de la Guerra was
completed and it soon became one of the most
famous homes in California. The hospitality of
the de la Guerras was legendary and well
documented in the journals of early visitors to
Mexican California. In the affairs of politics,
despite the stigma of Don José’s birthplace he
still wielded tremendous influence and his
opinions and favors were highly regarded by
California’s governors and other officials.
Don José passed away on February 11,
1858, and was given the high honor of being
buried in the vault under the altar at Mission
Santa Barbara. All business and schools were
closed in his honor on the day of his funeral.
The procession from Casa de la Guerra to the
mission was so huge that possibly the first
mourners arrived at the church before the
final group left the casa.
Don José had seen Spanish California in its
infancy and watched the change of flags and
languages as California grew and matured. An
era had come to a close with his passing and
though the sons, daughters, and grandchildren
of Don José would continue to bring honor to
the de la Guerra name, it would be another
decade before someone would fill the shoes of
El Gran Capitán. And, it would be a colonel.
C A S A D E L A G U E R R A
As comandante of the Santa Barbara presidio,
de la Guerra was furnished with private quarters
for his family as befitting his rank, but the
family was quickly outgrowing the living space.
✧
Casa de la Guerra, the home of José de la
Guerra, was for years the social center of
Santa Barbara. The casa was completed
in 1827.
C H A P T E R I I I
2 5

✧
Above: In 1818 privateer Hipólito
Bouchard, under commission from
Argentina, attacked targets of opportunity
along the Alta California coast. In
December he pillaged the Ortega family’s
Rancho Refugio and threatened to do the
same to Santa Barbara, but was deterred
after negotiations with presidio
comandante José de la Guerra.
FROM A PAINTING BY THEODORE VAN CINA (1865-1940).
COURTESY OF THE SANTA BARBARA COURTHOUSE
LEGACY FOUNDATION.
Opposite, top: Members of the de la Guerra
family sit in Casa de la Guerra, c. 1870.
The portrait of “El Gran Capitán” hangs at
left. The wooden floor and fine furnishings
speak to the family’s wealth and status.
Opposite, bottom: Pablo Andrés de la
Guerra, one of the sons of “El Gran
Capitán,” forged a distinguished political
career, serving as a county supervisor,
district judge, state senator, and California
lieutenant governor. He also helped in
drafting the constitution for the new state
of California.
In fifteen years of marriage the de la Guerras
had already produced seven children. In 1819,
with number eight on the way, de la Guerra
embarked on construction of La Casa Grande.
Completed in 1827 the casa was the social center
of Santa Barbara and destined to become
one of the most celebrated homes in California.
The bride’s father’s house was the principal
one in the place, with a large court in the
front, upon which a tent was built, capable of
containing several hundred people. As we
drew near, we heard the accustomed sound of
violins and guitars, and saw a great motion of
the people within. Going in, we found nearly
all the people of the town—men, women, and
children—collected and crowded together,
leaving barely room for the dancers; for on
these occasions no invitations are given, but
everyone is expected to come, though there is
always a private entertainment within the
house for particular friends.
-Richard Henry Dana, Two Years Before
the Mast.
M E X I C A N
I N D E P E N D E N C E
A N D R U L E — 1 8 2 2 - 1 8 4 8
Starting around 1810 the former New
World Spanish colonies began declaring their
independence and one at a time wriggled free
from the grasp of Spain.
Though Mexico’s claim for independence
began on September 16, 1810, it wasn’t official
until September 27, 1821, when the two
countries signed the Treaty of Cordoba. The time
in between was filled with various uprisings and
revolutions which had little effect on California.
It was during this period that Argentina, also
seeking its independence from Spain, hired
the services of a French sea captain, Hipólito
Bouchard. He is popularly called a pirate but in
truth he was not. He may best be described as a
mercenary or privateer as he legitimately—as
Argentina was at war with Spain—directed his
guns against Spanish targets of opportunity.
And so it was in October of 1818, Bouchard
left Hawaii and with two ships, the Argentina
and Santa Rosa, headed to Monterey, California,
where the Spanish flag flew above the presidio.
Following a short cannon duel between
Bouchard’s ships and the presidio forces,
Governor Pablo de Solá abandoned the town
and left it wide open for Bouchard and his men
who pillaged, sacked, and burned the capital city.
Heading down the California coast, on
December 2, they landed at the wealthy
Ortega rancho at Refugio, twenty-two miles
above Santa Barbara. Finding the rancho
abandoned as the Ortegas had fled over the
Refugio Pass to Mission Santa Inés, Bouchard’s
men torched the ranch and killed the
livestock. Sgt. Carlos Antonio Carrillo from
the Santa Barbara presidio arrived in time to
capture three of Bouchard’s men.
Four days later Bouchard anchored off
Santa Barbara and under a flag of truce sent a
note to de la Guerra offering an exchange of
prisoners and a cessation of hostilities if such
a trade were made. De la Guerra replied that
the exchange would need Governor Solá’s
permission which would take six days.
Bouchard must not have received this
information too well and responded with
threats as de la Guerra sent another note
informing the French captain that:
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
26

If your men are so anxious to fight, let me
assure you that mine are desperate to come to
blows; but inasmuch as feelings of humanity
prompt you to propose the cessation of
hostilities and return the prisoners you hold,
provided the three taken from your ship at
Refugio are also surrendered, I, who value the
lives of my fellow men above every earthly
interest, give you my word of honor to have
them from where they now are and absolutely
to deliver them to you tomorrow.
Surprisingly, Bouchard agreed and the
exchange took place. From their communications
de la Guerra had thought Bouchard had
taken several prisoners during his visit to
Monterey and was disappointed to find out he
was now in receipt of one Ysidor Molina, a
man sadly recorded by history as pretty much
being the town drunk of Monterey.
Bouchard was not the only one stacking the
deck. De la Guerra in fact was outmanned and
outgunned, but his bluff of being willing to fight
had been backed by another clever piece of
chicanery. While the parley was
underway, Bouchard could easily
see a strong column of troops
arriving from the south heading
for the presidio. In reality, de la
Guerra had his small complement
of men crossing the top of a large
bluff at the East Beach oceanfront
(today covered by apartments and
the Mar Monte Hotel) and heading
into a low point where they circled
back behind the hill and crossed it
again and again.
Due to this subterfuge the hill
became known as Cerritos de los
Voluntarios (Hill of the Volunteers).
The incident is still recalled by
Voluntario Street which originally
led to the hill from which it takes
its name.
As for Bouchard, after leaving Santa
Barbara he stopped off at San Juan Capistrano
and torched and looted the little mission
before leaving the California waters for good.
C H A P T E R I I I
2 7

H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
28

CHAPTER IV
S E C U L A R I Z A T I O N — T H E F A L L O F T H E M I S S I O N S
A N D T H E R I S E O F T H E R A N C H O S
In 1834 the Mexican government decided to secularize the missions. In essence this meant the
end of the mission system. After a half-century of living and working in this system it was felt the
Indians should be able to fend for themselves.
The vast lands under the control of the missions were to now be divided with the Indians
receiving a portion of their former lands along with some of the mission livestock. Lands not
returned to the Indians were under the control of government-appointed administrators that
would decide the best use of the land for settlers and expanding communities.
The missions themselves, now free of their wards, were to become parish churches serving the
community at large. The Franciscan priests would remain until parish priests replaced them.
It fell to California Governor José Figueroa to issue the order of secularization with a gradual
phase-out beginning with ten missions in 1834, six in 1835 and five in 1836.
Mission Santa Barbara was inventoried by Anastácio Carrillo in March of 1835 and determined
to have a net value of $112,960 (about $2,086,433.80 in 2005). His report, preserved at the Santa
Barbara Mission Archive-Library, gives an idea of how successful this mission was, though all
missions were not as fortunate.
The livestock of the mission (3,400 cattle, 2,624 sheep, 340 horses, 70 mules, 55 pigs and 25
goats) was spread over five ranchos totaling around 140,000 acres. Values were given as:
buildings $22,936; furniture, tools, goods, vineyards, orchards, corrals and animals $19,590;
sacristy $1,500; church $16,000; vestments $4,567; library $159; credits $14,953; debts $1,000.
Mission ranchos: San Antonio $9,421, Dos Pueblos $12,055, San Marcos $6,111, Santa Cruz
$1,650, San José $1,050, and Guyzapa $674.
Despite the abundance of livestock, crops, and acreage, it did not work as planned. The lands
returned to the Indians were soon gone. It has been said that they still had not grasped the
concept of ownership or management of the land—planting and tending of crops and nurturing
of herds—without the supervision of the Franciscans. They sold, traded, or gambled away their
acres, or were cheated or forcibly removed.
Also, the Chumash didn’t get back all of their land. Vast tracts of ex-Mission lands were now
available by petition to the governor. The land had to be four leagues (roughly ten miles or the
distance covered by a two-hour walk) from a town and could not have any Indian villages on them.
Thus began the highly romanticized era of the rancho with soft guitars and voices under rose arbors
illuminated by a full moon. In what is now Santa Barbara County (Ventura became a separate county in
1873), forty-one ranchos encompassing approximately 958,246 acres were granted between 1835 and
1846. The de la Guerra family (including in-laws) received four grants totaling nearly 167,000 acres.
Nine grants covering some 226,000 acres were given to the Carrillos.
To get a rancho one had to first draw a diseño (a map) describing the land desired. The
descriptions were vague at best. The top of a mountain ridge, along the edge of a creek, a pile of
stones, an oak tree with a mark cut into it—were all acceptable monuments to note the boundaries
of the desired property. Nicholas Den’s fifteen-thousand-acre Rancho Los Dos Pueblos grant was
described as “bounded by the beach of the Canal [Santa Barbara Channel], by the high hills in the
direction of the Sierra; the boundary of the rancho of Antonio María Ortega [El Capitan]; and by
the place called La Cochera [carriage or coach house, along or near today’s Fairview Avenue].
Ranchos were supposedly limited to about 48,818 acres, but accurate measurement was not
that important. After all, land was cheap and abundant. The true value of the land was measured
by the cattle that roamed it.
✧
Mission Santa Barbara, c. 1880.
C H A P T E R I V
2 9

✧
Above: The Mexican flag flies over the
presidio in Santa Barbara, c.1840. Note the
Santa Barbara Mission at upper left. From
Alfred Robinson’s Life in California.
Left: Merchant Alfred Robinson’s marriage
to Ana María de la Guerra in 1836 was
described in Richard Henry Dana’s
bestseller, Two Years Before the Mast.
Robinson’s memoir, Life in California,
published in 1846, is an invaluable
document on Alta California before the
advent of American rule.
Opposite, top: The lack of timber in the
Santa Barbara region made adobe the
favorite building material during the
Spanish and Mexican periods. The bricks
were made of clay soil, straw, and water,
often coated with a lime plaster for
protection against the elements. Roofs were
constructed of wood and reeds or fired
clay tiles.
Opposite, bottom: Ana María de la Guerra.
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
30

B U I L T O F M U D A N D S T R A W
Whether you were on the rancho or in
the town, Santa Barbara had little to offer
settlers in the way of plentiful wood so they
turned to what they had at hand to produce
one of mankind’s oldest and simplest building
materials—adobe.
Soil and water were mixed together with
grass, straw, pine needles or similar agents
added as a binder. When the mass reached a
desired consistency it was scooped up and
packed into a four-sided mold and then placed
on a bed of straw or grass to keep it from
sticking to the ground. The mold was removed
and a brick, about 22” x 11” x 4”, was left for
several days to dry. Finally the bricks were set
on edge to “air-dry” for several weeks.
Foundations were made from sandstone,
fortunately found in a great abundance
of sizes and shapes. To bond everything
together, mortar was made from either mud
or a combination of mud mixed with lime.
A mud and lime mix was also used to plaster
the exterior to protect it from the rains.
Lime at first was produced from seashells
which were crushed and burned. Later,
outcroppings of limestone were uncovered
and utilized. One major source of limestone
was found in an area the settlers called La
Calera (the limekiln). Though we know it as
Hope Ranch today, there is still a subtle clue to
this area’s past. La Cantera (the quarry) Road
deadends at the site of the limestone deposit.
C H A P T E R I V
3 1

A R R I V A L
O F
“ T H E F O R E I G N E R S ”
✧
Above: Irish native Nicholas Den arrived in
1836 and, in 1842, became grantee of
Rancho Los Dos Pueblos in the
Goleta Valley.
STEEL ENGRAVING FROM HISTORY OF SANTA BARBARA
COUNTY, CALIFORNIA BY JESSE D. MASON, 1883.
Right: Daniel Hill settled in Santa Barbara
in 1825 and married into the Ortega family.
The adobe home he built in the city still
stands at 11 East Carrillo Street and is one
of the oldest adobes in Santa Barbara. His
adobe ranch house in the Goleta Valley still
stands at 356 South La Patera Lane.
A popular story tells us that the roofing
tiles were formed over the thigh of an
Indian maiden. In reality, a mixture of clay
was formed over a wooden mold, dried, and
then baked or fired in a kiln. Roofing tiles
could easily weigh from 10 to 15 pounds
and even a small house would use about
1,400 tiles, totaling somewhere between
7 and 10.5 tons.
Once the adobe walls were completed a
wooden ridge pole was placed spanning the
length of the building. Evenly spaced beams
and rafters provided a sturdy framework
between the tops of the walls and the ridge
pole. Next bundles of reeds—called wattles—
were tied together and placed across the
rafters. Finally, the roofing tiles were laid over
the wattles.
Like any other building material, adobe
required maintenance to keep it strong and
healthy. Loose or cracked plaster on the
exterior provided an entrance for moisture
which further aided in separating the plaster
from the adobe. Once exposed, the adobe
was very vulnerable to rain. Just the back
splash of rain running off the roof would eat
into the adobe near the base slowly wearing it
away and weakening the wall until its
inevitable collapse.
The Californians are an idle, thriftless
people, and can make nothing for themselves.
The country abounds in grapes, yet they buy
bad wine made in Boston and brought round by
us, at an immense price, and retail it amongst
themselves at a real (12 1/2 cents) by the small
wineglass. Their hides too, which they value at
two dollars in money, they give for something
which costs seventy-five cents in Boston; and
buy shoes (as like as not, made of their own
hides, which have been carried twice round
Cape Horn) at three and four dollars, and
“chicken-skin boots” at fifteen dollars apiece.
“Things sell, on an average at an advance of
nearly three hundred percent upon the Boston
prices. This is partly owing to the heavy duties
which the government, in their wisdom, with
the intent, no doubt, of keeping the silver in
the country, has laid upon imports.
-Richard Henry Dana, Two Years Before
the Mast.
Californians, for the most part isolated
from Mexico and short on many of the
luxuries and goods for a quality of life, became
dependent on outsiders for their goods. The
abundance of cattle, at first from the missions
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
32

and later by the vast ranchos, became a
source of trade for American and British
companies dealing in hides and tallow.
The cattle would be driven to the matanza
(slaughtering grounds) and once dispatched,
their hides would be stripped, cleaned, and
dried. Their fat was boiled in large cauldrons
and rendered into tallow, a valuable commodity
used to make soap and candles. The carcasses
were left for the vultures and grizzly bears.
A ship could take on as many as 40,000
hides as it made its way along the coast. In
the meanwhile, they opened their storerooms
and unloaded goods from Boston and in
some cases China, the Philippines or Hawaii
depending on where a ship had been or had
picked up from another ship.
Also working their way to California were
hunters and trappers. A demand in China for
otter pelts soon brought a number of them to
the Pacific coast and Santa Barbara.
However, California possessed something
more attractive than hides, tallow or pelts,
yet it was a commodity not available for trade
or sale and only a daring few would be able
to negotiate for this prize. It was not as easy
as simply bidding good-bye, leaving one’s
ship, and marrying the prettiest girl around.
One had to learn Spanish, become a Mexican
citizen and, for most, abandon Protestant
ways and become Catholic. Then and only
then was one eligible to take a bride,
assuming of course that her father, brothers,
uncles, and cousins agreed.
✧
Santa Barbara’s geographical isolation was
partly solved with the inauguration of
stagecoach service to the city in 1860. Here
a coach negotiates a portion of the route
over San Marcos Pass known as Slippery
Rock. A stage trip between Santa Barbara
and Los Olivos in the Santa Ynez Valley
took some eight hours.
C H A P T E R I V
3 3

H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
34

CHAPTER V
C A L I F O R N I A S T A T E H O O D — 1 8 5 0
Problems between the inhabitants of Alta California and the government of Mexico had been
brewing for many years. The Californios had tired of non-native governors appointed solely as
political favor or military promotion and had driven several of them out through popular
uprisings. Mexico had its own problems of internal strife and, for many, California was too far away
to care about. The dependence on foreigners and their trading ships brought the Alta Californians
an awareness of and familiarity with the views, politics, and customs of other countries.
There were several options for California’s future and its leading families debated the correct course
to pursue—an independent republic like Texas, or annexation to France, England, or the United States.
All the plots, plans, and speculation came to a head on June 10, 1846, when a group of American
settlers staged the Bear Flag Revolt and declared an independent California Republic (their flag is now
the state flag). The new republic lasted but a month. Unbeknownst to the revolt leaders, the United
States had declared war on Mexico on May 13, 1846, and to prevent California from slipping into
British hands had warships at the ready. On July 7, 1846, Commodore J. D. Sloat seized Monterey
signaling the start of a short-lived war in California which ended on January 13, 1847.
Hostilities with Mexico were concluded with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in February 1848
and California was ceded to the United States. Californians voted in a state government in
November 1849 and California officially became a state on September 9, 1850.
Out of the war with Mexico, Santa Barbara gained a number of new residents. From the depths
of New York City, Colonel Jonathan Drake Stevenson had recruited the First Regiment of New York
Volunteers consisting of eight companies totaling 844 men. They left New York in September of
1846 and by the time they had sailed around the tip of South America and landed in San Francisco
in March 1847 the war in California was over. Nevertheless, Company F, under the command of
Captain Francis J. Lippitt was sent to Santa Barbara where they made their headquarters at A. B.
Thompson’s adobe.
When Company F was mustered out in September 1848 many men headed straight to the gold
fields or back home. But a handful stayed behind to find opportunity in the little town as a
blacksmith, druggist, attorney, judge, and even highwayman.
✧
Santa Barbara, 1873. Note the shorter (and
short-lived) Chapala Street Wharf to the left
of the deep water Stearns Wharf. The lowlying
area to the far right was prone
to flooding.
G O L D , B A N D I T S , A N D
H I G H W A Y M E N
We learn that a gentleman, who arrived here on Saturday, reported that at San Miguel he counted
seven dead bodies lying by the roadside. We do not know the particulars.
- Santa Barbara Gazette, June 19, 1856.
The discovery of gold in Coloma in January 1848 drew hordes of would-be millionaires all
hoping to strike it rich in the gold fields. Too often disappointment, illness and death were what
they found. Some indeed did find gold while others soon realized there was more money to be
made supplying the miners with stores, saloons, hotels, food, and other services. Then there were
those who found new careers relieving all of the above of their gold, goods, and lives.
Possibly the best known of the California banditos is Joaquín Murieta. It was said his hatred
towards Americans started when he was forced off his mining claim. After his brother, though
innocent, was hung as a horse thief and his girlfriend was raped, his life was lived for revenge from
that moment forward. Throughout California murder, robbery, horse thievery, and cattle rustling
were all blamed on Murieta to the extent he was apparently in many different places all at the same
time. He was supposedly tracked down and beheaded by Captain Harry Love though there were
C H A P T E R V
3 5

✧
Above: Banditry was a problem in
California during the mid-1800s. One of the
most notorious bandits was Joaquín
Murieta, who was especially known for his
raids on the gold camps in the early 1850s.
His legend grew after his death and he
became known as the Robin Hood of El
Dorado. This painting is attributed to a
priest at Mission San Carlos Borromeo de
Carmelo, c.1853.
COLLECTION OF THE SANTA BARBARA
HISTORICAL MUSEUM.
Opposite, top: Highwayman Jack Powers, at
right, talks with Edward “Ned” McGowan
in this drawing from Narrative of Edward
McGowan, 1857. McGowan was on the
run from the Second Vigilance Committee in
San Francisco and was recognized by
authorities in Santa Barbara. Powers hid
McGowan and the latter eventually made
his escape. Ultimately brought to trial,
McGowan was acquitted of all charges.
Opposite, bottom: After a storm-lashed trek
over San Marcos Pass, John C. Fremont and
his California Battalion took possession of
Santa Barbara for the United States on
December 28, 1846.
DRAWING FROM LIFE ADVENTURES IN CALIFORNIA BY
THOMAS J. FARNHAM, 1846.
some who claimed Love killed the wrong
man. Murieta’s adventures were celebrated in
1854 with the publication of The Life and
Times of Joaquín Murieta by John Rollin Ridge.
Copies of this book are so rare the last one
sold in 2003 for $86,250! In legend, Murieta
is celebrated as a Robin Hood-type of outlaw,
but in truth he preyed upon the weak and
defenseless and kept the spoils for himself.
S A L O M O N
P I C O
The legend of Zorro has been attributed to
Salomon Pico who plied his trade of robbery
and murder primarily along the lonely
stretches of roads between Los Alamos
and San Luis Obispo. Like Zorro, he was
born into a noted California family (relatives
included Governor Pío Pico and General
Andres Pico) but unlike Zorro, he was not as
delicate with the sword, choosing to slice off
his victim’s ear rather than cut his initials into
their jackets or pantaloons. Perhaps because
his victims were generally Americans or other
foreigners he was protected and welcomed at
the de la Guerra and other ranchos in the area
where he roamed. Many of the old Santa
Barbara families have stories of Pico riding
into a fandango with his grisly string of ears
swinging from his saddle. Pico left Santa
Barbara around 1857 and went to Baja where
it is said he was killed in 1860.
Despite the difference in spelling, the
Solomon Hills and Mount Solomon between
Orcutt and Los Alamos, and Solomon
Canyon just west of Betteravia are named for
him, recalling the days when travel through
these areas was often a fatal trip.
Neither Zorro nor Robin Hood was Jack
Powers. Born in Ireland, he came to Santa
Barbara as a soldier in Company F of the New
York Regiment. Intelligent and athletic he
quickly learned Spanish and was an excellent
horseman, thus earning the respect and
admiration of the Californios. Gambling and
horse racing were his main occupations,
though he supplemented his income as a
highwayman assisted by a gang composed of
several Americans and Californios. Though
suspected of having a hand in various deaths
and disappearances there was no proof and
he strode the streets of Santa Barbara
unmolested. In 1857 it appeared his luck had
finally run out. Vigilante law was spreading
across California and several of Jack’s former
associates were rounded up and hung,
though not before they implicated him in
some murders. Jack fled to Mexico where he
straightened out his life and became a
rancher. In 1860 he and his cattle moved a
few miles across the border into Arizona
near Tubac. Near the end of October that
year, his body was found in his house
“so much mutilated by hogs as to be
unrecognizable.” His throat had been cut
and his skull crushed “from a blow from
behind with an ax.” Conspicuous by their
absence, several of his ranch hands were
suspected in the bloody deed and the
suspicions confirmed when they were seen
headed to Mexico, one of them riding
Jack’s horse.
Another reminder of the handiwork of
Pico and Powers is just south of Los Alamos
along Drum Canyon Road. La Cañada
de Calaveras (The Canyon of the Skulls)
purportedly takes its name from the
bones uncovered from time to time of
the hapless victims of Santa Barbara’s
notorious highwaymen.
J U D G E C H A R L E S F E R N A L D
The frequency with which reports of murders
and robberies throughout this section of
the state reach our ears and the very great loss
of human life which has occurred during the
past four years, make it especially necessary
for our people, through the election of active
and efficient officers, and by a hearty cooperation
with them, put an end to such things.
-Santa Barbara Gazette, May 31, 1855
Charles Fernald could have stayed at
home in the small town of North Berwick,
Maine, and lived an uneventful simple
life as a country lawyer. Instead he was
bitten by the gold bug and infected with a
greater destiny.
He arrived in San Francisco via the
Panama route in June of 1849 and headed for
the gold fields. After a year of little or no
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
36

success he returned to San Francisco where
he finished what he had started back
home—the study of law. He had also been a
compositor at the Boston Post and that skill
may have landed him a job at the San
Francisco Alta California newspaper. His
exact position there is unknown. Though
there is no byline, it is believed he wrote for
the paper as a court reporter or he may have
assisted in the printing or both.
Following his admittance to the bar he
decided to leave California and return
home, an act possibly prompted by the
fifth great San Francisco fire of May 4, 1851,
which consumed his law books and other
belongings (along with three-fourths of the
city), and the sixth great fire a month-and-ahalf
later which burned down the offices of
the Alta California.
Leaving San Francisco in June 1852 he
decided to stop over in Santa Barbara to visit
Edward Sherman Hoar, an old friend from
C H A P T E R V
3 7

✧
Top: The exquisite Queen Anne-style home
of the Charles Fernald family was
threatened with destruction in the late
1950s until moved and restored by the
Santa Barbara Historical Museum. Today it
is operated as an historic house museum at
414 West Montecito Street.
Above: Young attorney Charles Fernald
arrived in Santa Barbara in 1852 and was
promptly offered the vacant post of sheriff.
He went on to serve as district attorney,
county judge, and mayor. At the time of his
death in 1892, the Honorable Charles
Fernald was honored as one of the
community’s outstanding leaders.
Right: Alpheus Basil Thompson.
New England. Hoar too had come for gold
and ended up in Santa Barbara in 1849
and was appointed the town’s first district
attorney in 1851. What transpired between
the two friends is not known, but upon
Fernald’s arrival Santa Barbara was without
a sheriff (Sheriff Valentine Hearne had been
recently fired by Judge Joaquín Carrillo).
When the sun rose the following morning the
badge of sheriff was now worn by the twentytwo-year-old
Charles Fernald.
Fernald had obviously made a strong and
positive impression on the de la Guerras and
Carrillos, who still controlled local politics.
So strong in fact that after two months as sheriff
he was appointed the district attorney and seven
months after that appointed county judge.
Serving and surviving through the worst
of Santa Barbara’s lawless days, Fernald’s
appointment to judge was firmly approved
by the voters who kept him in for two terms
until he declined to run for a third term in 1861.
Fernald was elected mayor and served
from 1882 to 1884, refusing the pay as the
salaries had been set by the council rather
than the voters. He was one of the founders
of the Chamber of Commerce, the Santa
Barbara College, and a partner in the Santa
Barbara Electric Company in 1886. Fernald
died in 1892, well-honored as one of the
most honest and incorruptible public officials
of his time.
T H E F E R N A L D M A N S I O N
In 1862, Fernald returned to his ancestral
roots to marry Hannah Hobbs, a young
woman whom he had met during a vacation
some time earlier. The Fernalds built a
magnificent house at 412 Santa Barbara
Street on the block bounded by Santa
Barbara, Haley, Garden, and Gutierrez streets.
Covering nearly five acres, the grounds were
beautifully landscaped. Here the Fernalds
raised their five children: Beatrice, Edith
(who died in 1873 at age seven), Florence,
Charles, Jr., and Reginald.
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
38

✧
Left: Tourism became more important to the
local economy in the 1870s. The Lincoln
House, which opened in 1872, today still
operates as the Upham Hotel, one of the
oldest continuously operating hotels in
Southern California.
Florence Fernald outlived her siblings and
lived at the house until her death in 1958.
Threatened with destruction, the house was
saved by the Santa Barbara Historical
Museum and moved to its current home at
414 West Montecito Street.
Below: Merchant Alpheus Basil Thompson
built one of the first two-story Montereystyle
adobes in Alta California in the mid-
1830s. Through the decades the building
was used for a number of purposes before
being razed in 1913.
PAINTING BY ALEXANDER HARMER (1856-1925).
COLLECTION OF THE SANTA BARBARA
HISTORICAL MUSEUM.
C H A P T E R V
3 9

J O H N P E C K S T E A R N S
O P E N S T H E D O O R
At the beginning of the 1870s Santa
Barbara was on the cusp of evolving from an
adobe town to an American city. After an
absence of nearly a decade, Santa Barbara
now had three newspapers, Mortimer Cook
established the community’s first bank in
October 1871, and the Santa Barbara College
was founded in 1869.
With all eyes upon her, Santa Barbara was
ready to mesmerize, entertain, and enthrall
visitors—what she did not have was a way in.
Getting to Santa Barbara was not a delightful
experience. Travel by stagecoach had been
available since April 1861, but it was a long,
uncomfortable, and dusty journey. The
suspension of the stagecoach—such as it was—
resulted in the coach swaying to and fro and
that sickness, usually reserved for the sea,
would often descend upon the land-bound
✧
Above: Thomas Robbins settled in Santa
Barbara in 1830 and married into the
Carrrillo family. In 1846 he was granted
Santa Catalina Island and later came into
possession of Rancho Las Positas y La
Calera where the wealthy enclave of Hope
Ranch is today.
Right: An early view of Stearns Wharf. The
wharf played a key role in Santa Barbara’s
economic development.
Below: Otter hunter George Nidever settled
in Santa Barbara in 1841. He is probably
best known for his role in bringing the Lone
Woman of San Nicolas Island back to the
mainland in 1853. The Indian woman,
christened Juana María, had lived alone on
the island for eighteen years. The story was
retold by Scott O’Dell in his novel, Island of
the Blue Dolphins.
Of the utmost importance to Santa
Barbara’s future was a visit in the fall of
1871 by Charles Nordhoff. Nordhoff had
journeyed to California via the two-year-old
transcontinental railway and was writing
about what he found in California for
Harpers’s Magazine and other publications.
He consolidated these reports into the book,
California: For Health, Pleasure and Residence;
A Book for Travellers and Settlers, published in
1872. In Chapter 8, “Southern California for
Invalids,” he wrote “Santa Barbara is on many
accounts the pleasantest of all the places I
have named; and it has an advantage in this,
that one may there choose his climate within
a distance of three or four miles of the town.
It has a very peculiar situation…Santa
Barbara faces directly south…with the sea
and lovely islands in front of it and a range of
mountains to the north…Santa Barbara
temperature is not extreme.”
occupants. Train travel was nearly two decades
away. The coastal steamers were the more
preferred option for passengers and cargo, but
there was a problem here too—getting ashore.
Without a wharf, passengers were brought
ashore by the crew in rowboats. Depending on
the waves and skill of the oarsman, people,
their belongings, mailbags, and other goods
could and would get dumped into the briny.
Larger items, like lumber were simply tossed
overboard and floated ashore.
In 1868 a wharf was built at the foot of
Chapala Street. At five hundred feet in length
though, it barely fulfilled the need as it
was too close to the shore for large ships to
tie up and if the tide was high or sea was rough
it was difficult for passengers to get from
the rowboats and launches to the stairs
alongside the wharf. It fell to John Peck Stearns,
a transplant from Vermont, to build the door
that would open Santa Barbara to the world.
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
40

Stearns was born in 1828 and like so many,
came to California with the Gold Rush. Unlike
many of his contemporaries, however, he
ignored the call of gold and instead taught
school, studied, and passed the bar, and was
elected and served two terms as the district
attorney of Santa Cruz County. He was next
appointed as United States Assistant Assessor
for the division of Monterey and Santa Cruz
counties. Inexplicably, despite a lifetime
pursuit of education and law, he sold his law
practice and library and moved to Santa
Barbara in 1867 to open a lumber yard.
Stearns’ lumber yard was located at the foot
of State Street. Not satisfied with having his
lumber shipments floated ashore and collected
up and down the beach, he offered to extend
the nearby Chapala Wharf another one thousand
feet and was turned down. Undaunted he
approached Santa Barbara’s leading philanthropist
and businessman, W. W. Hollister, for a
$41,000 loan to build a 1,600 foot wharf.
Hollister agreed and the deal was struck with a
payment schedule of $500 a month for seven
years. Despite storm damage and problems
with the city Stearns never missed a payment.
Stearns’ longer wharf would allow the coastal
steamers to tie up and safely unload cargo and
passengers. On September 16, 1872, the Anne
Stoffer, a lumber schooner, was the first ship to
use the new wharf. Santa Barbara was now
poised to accept the health seekers and tourists
that were ready to descend upon her.
A C C O M M O D A T I O N S
F O R T H E V I S I T O R
Making ready for the influx of visitors was
another problem. In the 1850s and 1860s
Santa Barbara had little to offer new arrivals in
the way of housing and lodging. An adobe
smack in the middle of State Street above
Canon Perdido Street served as the Lefevre
Hotel (aka the City Hotel) and rooms could
be found here and there at taverns and
restaurants. With the completion of the wharf
and Stearns’ convenient lumber yard, a
burgeoning hotel industry quickly emerged.
T H E A R L I N G T O N —
A D E S T I N A T I O N H O T E L
Despite the increased availability of
lodging for visitors, Santa Barbara’s leading
hotelmen and civic leaders knew it was not
enough. Throughout the spring and early
summer of 1874 meetings were held for “all
citizens interested in the project of building a
large hotel.” Though the desired goal was the
same, the momentum quickly escalated into
two factions. One group wanted to build on
the beachfront while the second group
wanted something on higher ground by the
Mission “away from the damp beach air.”
Both parties were surprised when
something in between was proposed—an
empty block framed by State, Sola, Chapala
✧
Above: Although Stearns Wharf is known
primarily today as a recreational and
tourist attraction, for most of its history it
was a “working” wharf as this view, c.1895,
would attest.
Below: John Peck Stearns, builder of Stearns
Wharf. Owner of the county’s first lumber
mill, he was frustrated by the inadequacies
of the 500-foot Chapala Street Wharf so
built his own wharf. He later served as
Santa Barbara mayor.
C H A P T E R V
4 1

✧
Above: In 1851 Salisbury Haley was hired
by the city fathers to survey the town in
preparation for laying down a grid pattern
of streets. This detail from the resulting
1853 map shows how Santa Barbara
ultimately lost many of its historic
structures when the streets were laid out.
Right: The construction of a railroad spur or
“wye” connecting to Stearns Wharf in 1888
facilitated offloading of lumber and other
commodities from shipping tied up at
the wharf.
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
42

and Victoria streets. In August of 1874 the
newly formed Santa Barbara Hotel Company
bought the 4.5 acres of land for $9,000.
The stockholders of the company included
banker Mortimer Cook, attorney Charles
Huse, rancher Dixey Thompson, Reverend
J. W. Hough of the Congregational Church
and W. W. Hollister. Peter J. Barber was
selected as the architect and construction
began in the spring of 1875.
In February 1876 the new hotel, the
Arlington, was ready. It was without a doubt,
the finest hotel between San Francisco and
Los Angeles and considered on par with some
of the leading hotels in those two cities.
On the second and third floors were guest
rooms. Most had fireplaces, gas lighting,
“pure mountain stream water,” and all were
connected to the lobby via a “patent annunciator
[sic]” and “speaking tubes.” Balconies, both
private and public, were on the third floor,
and adding two-and-a-half more stories,
albeit small ones, was the observation tower.
In all, there were eighty to ninety guest
rooms. The cost of the hotel went above the
anticipated $100,000 initially capitalized. The
construction, furnishings, and landscaping
were reported to be as high as $170,000.
With a first-rate hotel in place, Santa
Barbara was poised to become a tourist
destination point attracting a higher class of
visitor. A number of them would find Santa
Barbara a perfect paradise and stayed, bringing
new skills, businesses, and great horticultural
endeavors to the expanding community.
T H E
H O L L I S T E R S
✧
Left: Colonel William Welles Hollister,
rancher, entrepreneur, capitalist, was one of
the outstanding figures of Santa Barbara in
the latter half of the 19th century.
A wide veranda wrapped the Victoria and
State street sides of the hotel with
unobstructed views of the ocean, islands, and
mission. Inside, on the first floor, in addition
to the requisite lobby and offices were two
billiard rooms (one for the men and one for
the ladies), a smoking room, reading room,
saloon, private dining room, reception room
(for no lady would dare greet or meet visitors
in her room), and various other rooms. The
main dining room was detached from the
hotel, as was the kitchen, so as to avoid the
loss of the entire hotel should the kitchen
catch fire, a common occurrence.
When you think about it, it was the
animals that were responsible for the future
of Santa Barbara. Cattle and the associated
hide and tallow trade had developed the
ranchos and helped increase the wealth of the
families that owned them. American and
English trading ships came here for the hides
Right: W. W. Hollister married Annie James
in 1862.
C H A P T E R V
4 3

and left in their wake men like Nicholas Den,
Alfred Robinson, Captain Alpheus Basil
Thompson, and John C. Wilson. The sea
otter brought hunters and trappers including
Lewis T. Burton, Isaac Sparks, and George
Nidever. All of these men married into local
families and made their mark on the history
of their time.
✧
Above: One of Hollister’s investments was
the Arlington Hotel, Santa Barbara’s first
luxury hostelry, which opened in 1876. The
hotel and grounds took up a full city block
in the 1300 block of State Street; the
Arlington Theatre is on the site today.
Right: One result of the railroad’s arrival in
1887 was the construction of the Arlington
Hotel Annex on Victoria Street to
accommodate the city’s growing number
of visitors.
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
44

✧
Left: Santa Barbara’s first hospital opened
in December 1891. The original concept of
Cottage Hospital was to have a cluster of
cottages, each of which would house a
separate department. This idea was
scrapped due to cost. When the hospital
opened, a week’s stay in a ward cost eight
dollars. At the end of the first year of
operation the hospital showed a profit of
fifty-one cents.
Below: The Occidental Hotel at the
southwest corner of State and Cota streets,
began operation in 1873. It operated under
a variety of names until it was destroyed in
the 1925 earthquake.
C H A P T E R V
4 5

✧
Mortimer Cook opened a private bank, the
city’s first, in 1871. Two years later he
founded the First National Gold Bank of
Santa Barbara which opened its new
headquarters in this building in 1876. The
bank averted catastrophe in 1877 when
bank vice president W. W. Hollister halted a
financial panic by placing himself at the
bank’s doors and personally guaranteeing
the holdings of worried depositors.
DRAWING FROM THE LETTERHEAD OF THE FIRST
NATIONAL GOLD BANK.
Yet it was sheep that were responsible for
delivering to Santa Barbara the man who it
could be said transformed it from an adobe
pueblo into an American city, the man who in
many ways became as important to Santa
Barbara in his time as El Gran Capitán, José de
la Guerra, had been in his.
William Welles Hollister was born in
Licking County, Ohio, January 12, 1818, the
second of five children. Following the call of
gold Hollister came to California in 1852, but
soon realized there was a larger need for
mutton and wool than there was for digging
gold. He returned to Ohio and with money
borrowed from his widowed sister, Lucy A.
Brown, he bought six thousand sheep. Joined
by his brother Joseph Hubbard Hollister, their
sister Lucy, and fifty men, they got the flock
out of Ohio and headed to California.
They reached California in late December
1853, crossed the Mojave and came through
the Cajon Pass into San Bernardino, then a
Mormon settlement. Hollister headed up
along the coast and finally came to a welldeserved
rest about eleven miles west of Santa
Barbara at Tecolotito Canyon on Nicholas
Den’s Rancho Los Dos Pueblos.
Lush and green from the winter rains,
Hollister thought the canyons, creeks, and
fields to be about the most beautiful he had
seen in two crossings of the continent. The
notion of returning to this paradise would
stay with him for the next fourteen years.
The sheep were driven up to Monterey
County where Hollister (funded again by his
sister) bought the 35,000-acre Rancho San
Justo in partnership with Dr. Thomas Flint
and Llewellyn Bixby. Bixby and Flint had also
been driving sheep to California and had met
Hollister along the way.
The sheep business went well for Hollister,
but went even better with the advent of the
Civil War and the subsequent demand for
wool. After the war, prices for wool dropped
substantially, but Hollister had other ideas.
In the fall of 1868 he subdivided his
Rancho San Justo holdings and sold them
to the San Justo Homesteaders Association
netting Hollister $100,000 and the honor
of having his name bestowed on the new
town created by the grateful homesteaders.
Flush with money, Hollister headed to
Santa Barbara.
During his San Justo years, Hollister had
become acquainted with Albert Dibblee, who
had acted as his agent in selling wool. Now
they formed a partnership along with Albert’s
brother, Thomas Bloodgood Dibblee, an
attorney, and started buying ranch lands in
Santa Barbara County.
Southern California had been in a drought
since the early 1860s. It has been estimated
that well over eighty percent of the county’s
livestock had withered and died on the
former fertile lands. In 1867, for around
$1.30 an acre, they picked up the 4,400-acre
Mission Viejo la Purísima and the 42,000
acres of Rancho Lompoc. Seven years later
they sold these two ranches for $500,000
representing a profit of nearly $9.50 per acre.
Other purchases included José de la Guerra’s
Rancho San Julián (48,221 acres), Las
Cruces, Salsipuedes, and several large
portions of the Ortegas’ Rancho Nuestra
Señora del Refugio. By the time they had
finished the spending spree, the Hollister-
Dibblee partnership owned well over
125,000 acres.
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
46

Sadly, the property Hollister had dreamed of
for sixteen years was still not his. In 1863
he had paid a visit to Rancho Los Dos Pueblos
with the intent of making an offer on Tecolotito
Canyon, only to find Nicholas Den had died
the previous month. Den’s will stipulated that
the ranch not be sold until the youngest child
(one-year-old Rosa) had reached adulthood,
which would not be until 1882.
But things had changed over the past six
years. The drought had taken most of the
cattle and livestock on Rancho Los Dos
Pueblos and the ten Den children were facing
hard times. Hollister was so desperate to get
this property he offered the Den estate $10 an
acre—well over five times the value—for the
2,500 acres. The offer was accepted.
Hollister turned Tecolotito Canyon into a
showcase. He built a magnificent mansion,
planted a great variety of trees and a broad
avenue of palms leading from the county road
to his home.
In honor of his wife, Annie James Hollister,
he renamed Tecolotito Canyon, Glen Annie.
As for the county road, it became known as
Hollister Avenue—the road from Santa
Barbara to the fabulous Glen Annie Ranch,
the home of the Hollisters.
Yet all was not well in Hollister’s paradise.
In 1877 the Den Family sued to get back
their estate on the grounds it had been sold in
violation of Nicholas Den’s will. Fortunately,
Hollister never lived to see the results.
Accidentally poisoned by strychnine he
was preparing for gophers, after a lengthy
illness, William Welles Hollister died on
August 8, 1886.
Four years later, after thirteen years of
judgments, appeals, and new trials, the
Den family was victorious and Annie James
Hollister, her children, and Lucy Hollister
Brown were evicted from their former
palatial ranch. In the fall of 1890, Annie
returned to the Hollister mansion for the last
time to remove her belongings. Mysteriously,
moments after her departure the house
erupted into flames and burned to the
ground. Subsequent investigations could
not prove the cause and she was never
charged with arson. The Dens gave half of the
former Hollister property to their attorney,
Thomas Bishop, as payment. The portion of
the property surrounded by Highway 101,
Glen Annie Road, Cathedral Oaks Road,
and Patterson Avenue is still known as the
Bishop Ranch.
Despite the loss of the Den property, as well
as a division of the Dibblee-Hollister holdings
in 1882, the Hollister family still had a lot of
land. The Dibblees had retained the Rancho
San Julián (still in the family today) and the
Hollisters had Rancho Salsipuedes, parts of
Lompoc, five ranches totaling some 39,000
acres which included over 20 miles of land
fronting the Pacific Ocean and parcels in and
around the city of Santa Barbara.
The five ranches—Salsipuedes, La Espada,
Santa Anita, Gaviota, and Las Cruces stayed in
the Hollister family until 1961 when John
James Hollister died at ninety-one years of
age. He had served two terms as a state
senator as had his son John James Hollister,
Jr., who died in November 1961, six months
after his father.
The Santa Anita Ranch between Gaviota
and Cojo by this time had become more
familiarly known as the Hollister Ranch. In
1970 it was subdivided into 135 parcels of
about 100 acres and remains today an
exclusive and mostly undisturbed retreat.
In the 1930s the Hollister Estate Company
developed a large parcel of land west of Santa
Barbara which took its name from a nearby
✧
Santa Barbara College, founded in 1869,
was actually a co-educational boarding
school through the twelfth grade. Among its
founders were W. W. Hollister and Goleta
rancher, Ellwood Cooper. The school closed
in the late 1870s and was turned into
a hotel.
C H A P T E R V
4 7

I M M I G R A T I O N — T H E
C H I N E S E A N D C H I N A T O W N
hotel, the Samarkand. The streets however
are all Hollister. Stanley Drive honors W. W.’s
youngest son, one of Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough
Riders and a casualty of that war.
Clinton Terrace serves a dual
purpose. Colonel Hollister’s only
daughter, Jennie, was married to
Clinton B. Hale and Jennie’s
brother John James named his
twins, born in 1905, Clinton B.
and Jennie. Alegria, San Onofre
and Santa Anita are canyons
on the Hollister Ranch between
Gaviota and Cojo. Peregrina
recalls the Hollister involvement
with the Peregrina Mine (silver
ore) outside of Guanajuato,
Mexico. Tallant Road has a dual
purpose, recognizing Edward C.
Tallant, the secretary/treasurer
of the Hollister Estate Company
who lived for several years
at 2636 Tallant Road and
his father, Henry Tallant, who
headed the drive to create
Oak Park.
For most people the thought of the
Chinese in California is limited to two
images—Chinese laborers building the
transcontinental railroad and San Francisco’s
Chinatown. However, the Chinese experience
in California predates the railroad perhaps
by centuries and many towns including Santa
Barbara once had a thriving “Chinatown.”
Though some historians debate it, evidence
is strong that the Chinese “discovered”
California at least several hundred years before
the Spanish. Most likely it was an accidental
discovery, the result of hapless fishermen being
picked up by the strong Japanese current
and carried up to the edge of North America
and down along the coast. Spanish ships—the
famous Manila galleons—would later use this
same current to leave Asia and reach California
on their return trip to Acapulco.
The first real influx of Chinese to California
came as a result of the Gold Rush. As for Santa
Barbara, though some sixty Chinese laborers
began working on the Santa Ynez Turnpike
Road in 1860, the first Chinese believed to have
settled in Santa Barbara was Ah Lin who opened
a restaurant around 1865. By 1875 he was
running a column ad on the front page of the
Santa Barbara Daily Press advertising himself as
an “Agent for Chinese Laborers.” Lin’s address
was simply listed as Canon Perdido Street for
everyone knew the first block of East Canon
Perdido Street was Chinatown.
Santa Barbara’s Chinese population could be
found working as merchants, cooks, gardeners,
laborers, housekeepers, and fishermen. There
were a half-dozen junks working out of Santa
Barbara by 1885 and at least three of them
were built in Santa Barbara. Great commerce
was carried on in abalone, dried fish, kelp, sea
moss, and shells.
In addition, many Chinese had their own
businesses. A map made in 1894 of the first
block of East Canon Perdido street shows
close to fifty structures, a mixture of brick,
wood, and adobe. Nestled there were three
grocers, the Chinese Free Mission, a restaurant,
two employment offices, eleven general
merchandise stores, a joss house, several
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
48

esidences, vacant lots, six opium dens, three
gambling houses, and the Opera House
(Lobero Theatre). By this time Chinatown was
seen as one of our tourist attractions taking
equal status with the Spanish Mission and
Mexican adobes.
Though this block of Canon Perdido Street
was not especially damaged by the 1925
earthquake, owners saw it as an opportunity
for renewal. Most of the buildings were
demolished and new structures arose joining
in with the Spanish-Mediterranean theme for
our downtown.
Chinatown now carried on primarily along
the south side of the second block of East
Canon Perdido and the 800 block of Santa
Barbara Street. Slowly, the community
dissolved as the younger generation moved
away, integrating themselves within Santa
Barbara’s culturally mixed population. One of
the last families to move into this area was
Jimmy Chung’s family. He opened Jimmy’s
Oriental Gardens in 1947. The restaurant was
the last vestige of Santa Barbara’s Chinatown
when it closed in 2007.
T R A I N T R A V E L A T L A S T
On May 10, 1869, the tracks of the Union
Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads were
joined together at Promontory, Utah. It had
taken seven years to cover the 1,775 miles
from Omaha, Nebraska to Sacramento,
California. With the ceremony of the driving
of the last spike the transcontinental railroad
was a reality.
Talk of connecting Santa Barbara to the
outside world by rail began almost
immediately and just as quickly dissolved (as
does almost any issue in Santa Barbara) into
rival factions, each with the same goal, but
with diverse and self-centered reasons.
The Texas Pacific Railroad, the Atlantic and
Pacific Railroad, the Central Pacific Railroad,
and the Southern Pacific Railroad were all
contenders and had their supporters. Railroad
committees of the most influential citizens
were formed, meetings organized, special
elections held, and salvos fired from the local
newspapers which had chosen sides. It would
take eighteen years, more than twice as long
as building the transcontinental railroad,
before the first train whistle, from the
Southern Pacific, would echo over the city
The connection to Santa Barbara was not
the direct coastal route we enjoy today. The
Southern Pacific Railroad had laid its track
from San Francisco to Los Angeles via the San
Joaquin Valley. It was off this track that the
connection to Santa Barbara would be made at
Saugus, about forty miles north of Los Angeles.
In the fall of 1886, the Southern Pacific started
laying track from Saugus to Santa Barbara, a
distance of about eighty miles.
✧
Opposite page, top: Hing Lee and
granddaughter, c.1900. Lee’s retail
establishment was in the heart of Santa
Barbara’s Chinatown at 16 East Canon
Perdido Street. The first Chinese came to
Santa Barbara in the early 1860s.
Opposite page, bottom: The gilded shrine of
the Chee Kong tong. This tong was
dedicated to the overthrow of the Qing
dynasty, the last imperial dynasty of China,
which fell in 1911. The shrine was carved in
a city near Canton and shipped to Santa
Barbara in 1898. The shrine is now housed
in the Santa Barbara Historical Museum.
Below: A red-letter day in Santa Barbara
history—the arrival of the first train from
Saugus, just north of Los Angeles, in 1887.
The arrival of the railroad was of
incalculable benefit to the city. The railroad
link to the north would not be completed
until 1901.
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✧
Above: José Lobero opened the first opera
house south of San Francisco in 1873, a
large adobe with walls twenty-eight feet
high and some four to six feet thick. After
some years of success the theatre hit hard
times and Lobero took his own life in 1892.
Below: An early performance at the Lobero
Theatre. The theatre hosted concerts,
recitals, vaudeville, even wrestling matches.
The newspapers began a nearly daily
account of the progress of the work crews. In
the spring of 1887 as the crews passed Ventura
and crept ever closer, the papers began to fill
with real estate ads as promoters and
speculators pushed the grand opportunities
for land in Santa Barbara ranging from small
lots to entire blocks and acres of ranch land.
The Railroad Boom was upon us!
On Friday, August 19, 1887, at 2:30 p.m.,
the first train was due to arrive. Residents
from all over the county had been descending
on the city since the early morning hours and
by noon thousands were lining the streets.
Their wait was extended for an additional
ninety minutes (a tradition still carried on to
this day) until finally, at 3:55, engineer S. R.
Jenkins brought Engine 226 to a stop at
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
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Gutierrez and State streets. On board were
nearly three hundred passengers, including
the Carpinteria Band which dazzled the
crowd with several tunes as the train backed
down the tracks along Gutierrez Street to the
depot siding at Salsipuedes Street between
Mason and Indio Muerto streets.
At 5:45 p.m. the second train arrived,
being a special excursion train from San
Francisco. This train had a dining car and six
Pullman sleeper cars for the passengers which
were left on both sides of Gutierrez at State.
This train also had a special car for the San
Francisco Presidio Band which played a few
tunes for the crowd before heading up to the
Arlington Hotel where they played from eight
until ten p.m.
Following the cessation of the lively airs, a
grand banquet got underway at the Arlington
dining room with fifty of Santa Barbara’s most
influential men and an additional fifty special
guests (no women were mentioned as being in
attendance). Overwhelming the senses may
have been the theme for the dinner; the
Arlington’s best silver, crystal, and china were
laid out and a fabulous menu had been
prepared with an extensive selection of the
very best wines. Competing for attention were
three stunning floral displays. The first was
over six feet long and depicted the depot, a
locomotive, and tender along with four
passenger cars. Next was a three-foot display
of the time-honored coastal steamer, Orizaba,
flying the pennant of the Pacific Coast
Steamship Company. The final bouquet,
courtesy of the Santa Barbara Yacht Club,
showed a yacht with a cargo of Southern
California fruits.
Saturday saw the arrival of two more trains
carrying excursionists from Los Angeles and
Ventura, one train alone reportedly carrying
one thousand passengers. A conservative
estimate placed the “number of strangers in
town at six thousand.” A grand parade nearly
a mile long left Ortega at State Street at ten
a.m. and headed for Burton’s Mound for more
speeches followed by a sumptuous meal
provided by the ladies of Santa Barbara.
Despite the hoopla and excitement, the SP
tracks would eventually extend only another
fifteen miles past Santa Barbara to Ellwood.
From San Francisco, the coastal line was
halted at Templeton. It would be another
thirteen years before Santa Barbara would
connect directly to San Francisco by rail.
S A M P L I N G T H E W A T E R S —
V E R O N I C A S P R I N G S
The healing waters of local hot springs had
been familiar to Santa Barbarans for generations.
Springs along the beach were frequented by the
✧
The reputation of Santa Barbara as a health
resort was enhanced with the national
marketing of Veronica Springs water in the
late 1800s. By 1914 some 200,000 gallons
were bottled and shipped all over the world.
The water reportedly would relieve a host of
maladies from gallstones to malaria to
opium addiction.
C H A P T E R V
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✧
Santa Barbara inaugurated mule-drawn
streetcar service in 1875. This view, c.1890,
was taken from the foot of Stearns Wharf,
and shows the mule car making the turn
from State Street. Electric streetcars
replaced the mule cars in 1897 and
remained in operation until 1929.
Chumash and later by sailors who soaked in the
sulfur springs for relief from scurvy. As Santa
Barbara’s population and tourist industry began
to grow the old maxim “why give away for free
what you can fence off and charge admission
for” took effect. On West Beach, at the former
site of the Chumash village of Syukhtun, the
Burton Mound Sulfur Baths were established
and high in the hills of Montecito the Hot
Springs Hotel opened its doors.
So too goes the story of the Veronica
Springs except, they were not for soaking,
they were for drinking. According to legend,
the Chumash made pilgrimages to a sacred
hidden spring and drank the “magical” waters
which imparted great health upon them.
With the coming of the Franciscans the
location was still kept secret though from
time to time the Chumash supplied the
Mission Fathers with a cup or two as a
medicinal remedy. Eventually a Chumash
maiden, the daughter of a chief, who had
been baptized with the name of Veronica,
revealed the source of the sacred spring.
The springs were located above Arroyo
Burro Creek about a quarter-mile from
Hendry’s (aka Arroyo Burro) Beach in a little
valley nestled between several hills. The trail
leading to the springs is now Las Positas Road
(las positas means “little springs”) and the site
is between Alan Road, Veronica Springs Road,
and the foot of Campanil Hill.
Exactly when the springs were
commercialized is not known for sure. Limited
bottling is said to have taken place in the
1870s and late 1880s though serious
production was certainly in place by 1893
when Veronica “took the highest award for
medicinal water in the state of California” at
the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
As tourists and promoters took bottles back
east with them the reputation of the Veronica
Springs began to grow. The Arlington Hotel
noted in their ads, “The famous Veronica
Springs are one mile from the hotel.” It was big
news in 1895 when two railroad cars of
Veronica Water were sent to St. Louis. A
decade later, over a half-million bottles were
shipped from Santa Barbara annually.
So what was so magical about Veronica
Water? Scientifically it was found that the water
contained 2,295.45 grains of mineral matter to
the gallon; said minerals primarily being potassium
sulphate, sodium sulphate, sodium carbonate,
magnesium nitrate, calcium phosphate,
sodium chloride, magnesium sulphate,
magnesium carbonate and calcium sulphate.
Unscientifically it was, “one heck of a laxative.”
At a time when many medical quack cures
were promoted for a myriad of problems,
Veronica’s label boldly proclaimed it, “Cures
Disease—Blood, Kidney and Bladder Stomach
and Liver” and invited the skeptic to write for
“testimonials from every State of the Union”
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
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and guaranteed its claim under the Pure Food
and Drug Act of June 20, 1906.
By the late 1940s Veronica was sold
primarily in health food stores and promoted
as relief from gallstones, stomach ulcers,
kidney and liver problems, and, of course,
constipation. A new use via an old remedy was
promoted in a 1948 flyer wherein it was noted
that they had recently installed hydrotherapy
baths at the site and discovered the external
use of Veronica’s healing waters as “an aid for
arthritis and high blood pressure.”
Within a decade the bottling and soaking
business had dried up and the famed Veronica
Water was no more. Today, a row of palm
trees off Las Palmas more or less locates the
road to the site and an adventuresome
explorer will find broken pieces of cement
here and there from the old buildings. But
every so often, a Veronica Springs bottle is
uncovered in a basement, attic, or old garage
recalling the day when Santa Barbara was a
medicinal cure as well as a tourist destination.
J U L I A W I L L I A M S ,
K E E P E R O F T H E L I G H T
Santa Barbara, as a tourist destination, had
much to offer. The ocean, mountain vistas,
scenic carriage drives, the Old Mission. And a
lady lighthouse keeper!
Celebrated on postcards and journals of
the day, Julia Williams was Santa Barbara’s
famed lighthouse keeper from 1865 to 1905.
It did not start out that way though. It was her
husband, Albert Johnson Williams, who had
applied for and received the job as Santa
Barbara’s first lighthouse keeper.
Drawn by the lure of gold, Albert, a native
of Maine, had come to California by way of
Panama. Supposedly he lingered long enough
in Panama to rake in $5,000 by managing a
hotel before arriving in San Francisco, possibly
being the A. J. Williams that arrived there on
July 6, 1850, aboard the ship, Panama. Three
years later he was joined by his wife, Julia, and
their four-year-old daughter, Fanny.
✧
Agriculture remained an important industry
on the South Coast well into the 20th
century. Here workers gather pampas
plumes on the Sexton Ranch in the Goleta
Valley. Pampas plumes enjoyed a faddish
popularity as interior decoration in the
late 1800s.
C H A P T E R V
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✧
The visit of President Theodore Roosevelt in
1903 caused great excitement in Santa
Barbara. After a rousing speech at the
oceanside Plaza del Mar, he visited the
Santa Barbara Mission, and then paid a call
on Mrs. W. W. Hollister. Her son, Stanley,
had served in Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, had
been wounded at San Juan Hill, and
eventually succumbed to illness.
The Williams arrived in Santa Barbara in
March of 1856 and settled in what barely
qualified as a house at State and Montecito
streets. By this time Julia was two months
pregnant with her third child; a second
daughter, Ada, had been born two years earlier.
The lighthouse was completed and
operational in December of 1856 and the
Williams, now expanded to a family of five
with the birth of Bion that October, moved
in. The lighthouse was on the edge of the
Mesa very close to where the current
lighthouse is below La Mesa Park at Shoreline
Drive. It was very remote, with only a few
nearby farms. A trip to town was nearly three
miles; a long distance when confronted with
what could barely pass for roads. Williams
soon tired of his job and Julia took over while
he tried his hand as a house and sign painter.
She eventually applied for and received the
job in February 1865. For the next forty years
Julia faithfully climbed the stairs to light the
lamp, reportedly missing only two nights in
all that time.
When Theodore Roosevelt visited Santa
Barbara in 1903 Mrs. Williams was one of the
distinguished Santa Barbarans presented to
the president. By that time she had served her
duties under eleven presidents. In December,
1905, at age seventy-nine, she finally retired
following a fall that broke her hip.
She was succeeded by another woman,
Mrs. Caroline Morse, who was replaced in
1911 by a member of the opposite sex, thus
ending the reign of Santa Barbara’s lady
lighthouse keepers.
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
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✧
Above: The lighthouse was a landmark of
the Santa Barbara coast until destroyed in
the 1925 earthquake. An automated light
eventually took its place.
Left: Julia Williams daily tended to the
Santa Barbara lighthouse out on the Mesa
from 1865 until her retirement in 1905.
C H A P T E R V
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H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
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CHAPTER VI
“ T H E N E W C E N T U R Y ”
O C E A N F R O N T
A C C O M M O D A T I O N S
In December 1901 possibly the most important real estate transaction in Santa Barbara history
took place when Milo M. Potter bought the property known as Burton’s Mound for $35,000.
Burton’s Mound, a thirty-six-acre tract of land framed by the ocean, Chapala, Montecito and Bath
streets had seen much of Santa Barbara’s history. For centuries it had been home to the Chumash who
called it Syukhtun (“where two trails run”). The property had several sweet water springs as well as hot
sulfur springs which were utilized by the Chumash for a number of curative purposes. An adobe was
built in the 1820s and greatly enlarged over the years by a number of owners and residents that
encompass a Who’s Who of Santa Barbarans including Joseph Chapman, Benjamin Foxen, Isaac Sparks,
George Nidever, the Santa Cruz Island Company, and Lewis T. Burton.
In 1875 Burton sold the property bearing his name to a local hotel syndicate, which despite
much publicity never built a hotel nor, despite several attempts, were able to sell the land. It soon
became the city’s favorite picnicing site and when the Burton Mound Sulfur Baths were
established, bathing facility as well.
Potter’s timing was everything. In March 1901 the missing link of the Southern Pacific’s coastal
railway—Santa Barbara to San Luis Obispo—was finally completed. At last, trains came through
Santa Barbara on their way to Los Angeles and San Francisco. Potter knew Santa Barbara was a
golden opportunity as a seaside resort.
If one is to believe the press of those days, within thirty days of purchase Potter had held a
contest for plans, chosen an architect, and engineered the grading of the mound for the hotel.
He had actually been sniffing around Santa Barbara in early 1900 and Burton’s Mound was the
obvious choice. More than likely everything was planned and ready when Potter made
the purchase. The perceived Potter whirlwind made great headlines and free publicity for the
“new resort hotel for Santa Barbara.”
Despite the historic and nostalgic elements on Burton’s Mound, Potter broke ground on January
19, 1902, and promised that one year to the day the hotel would open. True to his word, the Potter
officially opened on January 19, 1903, and put Santa Barbara on the map as the place to vacation.
The Potter Hotel was six-and-a-half stories high with 390 guest rooms. Roof gardens provided
spectacular views of the ocean, islands, mountains, and the city. The grounds were elaborately
landscaped and included tennis courts, a zoo, a palm and fernery building, cactus gardens, and
enchanting pathways. The gardens were constantly renewed to astonish the winter guests with a
showy variety of blooms.
The Potter had its own water system, power plant, and a railroad siding which led onto the
grounds to allow the bulk shipment of fuel and groceries. In Goleta the Potter Farm provided
suckling pigs, chickens, eggs, and dairy products. The Potter Squab Ranch, also in Goleta,
claimed to be the largest in the world and contained “60,000 milk fed squabs” raised “exclusively
for the Potter table.” These establishments were often visited by guests as part of the Potter
experience and were highly regarded for their sanitary conditions.
In Hope Ranch the Potter Country Club was established and featured a nine-hole golf course,
horse racing track, polo grounds, and other amusements. The hotel also had several glass bottom
boats for channel excursions.
Directly behind the Potter the Southern Pacific Railroad built their new station with a pathway
leading directly to the Potter. Part of it can still be seen in the little park across from the station.
Alongside the station was a siding reserved for the private rail cars of the Potter’s patrons.
✧
The opening of the Potter Hotel in 1903 by
owner/operator Milo Potter was a major
event in the development of tourism on the
South Coast.
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✧
Above: The adobe atop what was commonly
called Burton’s Mound overlooked Santa
Barbara’s West Beach until it was razed and
the hill leveled to make way for the palatial
Potter Hotel in the first years of the 1900s.
The adobe for a time served as Santa
Barbara’s informal post office.
Below: The Moorish-Style Los Baños del
Mar opened in 1901. It boasted two steamheated
salt water pools, a bandstand,
billiard parlor, bowling alley, and
roof garden.
Potter sold the hotel in February of 1919 and
it was renamed the Belvedere. The following
December it changed hands and names again
when it became part of the Ambassador Hotel
chain and was rechristened the Ambassador.
On April 13, 1921, the hotel caught fire.
The 110 guests were safely evacuated as
fire crews arrived from Santa Barbara and
Montecito. Pushed by winds gusting from
fifty to eighty miles per hour the fire spread
quickly and fiercely, burning the hotel to the
ground within three hours.
The owners promised a new hotel would
soon rise from the ashes but time passed and
weeds were the only things that rose along
the once magnificent grounds. A proposal
by the city to acquire the property for a
park through a bond measure was rejected
by voters. The property was subsequently
acquired by several Los Angeles businessmen
for a development of small cottages. This plan
too failed to come to fruition although a few
were built and still stand today as treasured
landmarks of the Ambassador Tract. Slowly the
hotel site and former gardens evolved into
motels, apartments, and homes.
Today, flanked by giant palm trees planted
in the teens, the half-acre Ambassador Park
marks what was once the grand entrance to
the Potter Hotel.
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
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The true measure and worth of the Potter
Hotel is found in the guests that fell in love with
Santa Barbara and began buying property—
especially in Montecito—and built their own
palatial estates. These new Barbareños would
play an important role in preserving our
beachfront, building our hospitals, schools,
parks, museums, and helping to rebuild Santa
Barbara after the 1925 earthquake.
Around 3 p.m. on Saturday, April 25,
1908, the first of the sixteen battleships
appeared at the far end of the Santa Barbara
Channel. From every possible vantage point
Barbareños watched as the battleships drew
closer. Atop a hill near East Beach (now
covered by the Mar Monte Hotel) stood
seventeen-year-old Edward Selden Spaulding
who later wrote:
T H E V I S I T O F T H E
G R E A T W H I T E F L E E T
On December 16, 1907, under the gaze
of President Theodore Roosevelt, sixteen
battleships left Hampton Roads, Virginia, on a
fourteen-month voyage to circumnavigate the
globe. This unparalleled display of America’s
might was a perfect example of Roosevelt’s
maxim “speak softly and carry a big stick.”
By April 1908 the fleet had sailed down the
Atlantic coast, met the Pacific as they rounded
the Horn at the tip of South America and
worked their way to San Francisco, their last
port-of-call before crossing the Pacific to
Hawaii and New Zealand.
Every California coastal city hoped for a
visit by the fleet. San Diego received the entire
fleet but at Los Angeles it was separated and
sent to San Pedro, Long Beach, Santa Monica,
and Redondo Beach.
For some time the fleet steamed westward
along the Channel as though Santa Barbara
was to be passed by a wide margin. Then, to
our astonishment, for we had never seen a
fleet maneuver, we saw that all the ships had
turned as one and now were headed straight
for the city. Perhaps half way in, they again
turned in unison and again steered westward
along the channel. Then, at just the right
moment, they turned a third time and, in
complete silence came straight into the
roadway. There was not a sound. Slowly the
ships seemed to grow larger and larger as they
“drifted” nearer and nearer to the shore. A
signal that we did not see was given and the
anchor chains on each ship rattled as the fleet
reached its berth. It was an amazing spectacle.
As the anchors dropped into the water, the
crowd on the beach went wild. There was a
roar of welcome that was deafening as the City
gave itself over to merrymaking.
✧
The entire city turned out for the festivities
surrounding the visit of the U.S. Navy’s
Great White Fleet on its global tour in
1908. The highlight of the five-day
celebration was the grand floral parade
along the oceanside boulevard.
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✧
Above: This first Los Baños burned down in
1913, to be replaced by a second, and then,
in 1937, the current open-air Los Baños
del Mar.
Below: The Potter was one of the city’s
largest employers with its auxiliary
establishments such as the the Potter
Country Club in Hope Ranch.
Opposite, top: This view of the main dining
room gives a hint of the Potter Hotel’s
elegant luxury which so appealed to
wealthy visitors.
Opposite, bottom, left: Potter
Squab Ranch.
The “amazing spectacle” that Spaulding
witnessed continued for the next four days.
Great dances and balls were held at the
Potter Hotel and Plaza del Mar, attended by
thousands. Baseball games between the sailors
and local teams took place. At night the town
was thrilled by “searchlight drills” as the
powerful beacons of the ships lit up the sky
and then played across the city and danced
along the mountain walls and canyons.
On Monday the 27th the Battle of the
Flowers took place along the length of
West Ocean Boulevard (now West Cabrillo
Boulevard). Sixteen hundred sailors with
bouquets of flowers stuck in the muzzle of their
rifles were joined by scores of Santa Barbarans
as nearly every school, fraternal lodge, and
equestrian group joined in the parade. Ynez de
la Guerra Dibblee was Queen of the Parade.
Though Santa Barbara’s businesses had
pledged to freeze their prices and not take
advantage of the thousands of sailors and
tourists, several stables and restaurants were
accused of price gouging. What can only be
described as a riot ensued on the evening of
April 28 when two sailors dining at John
Senich’s café at 121 State Street were presented
with a bill of $6.50 for what should have been,
Opposite, bottom, right: Milo Potter.
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C H A P T E R V I
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✧
Above: The hotel, by this time known as the
Ambassador, burned to the ground in 1921.
Although rumors of arson flew, nothing was
ever proven. The hotel was never rebuilt.
Opposite, top: The grand home of the
Thomas Bloodgood Dibblee family, located
where Santa Barbara City College is today
on Santa Barbara’s Mesa. Built in the mid-
1880s, it was badly damaged in 1925 and
was torn down a few years later.
Opposite, bottom: The American Film
Manufacturing Company, “Flying A,”
arrived in Santa Barbara in 1912 and
opened its Mission Revival-style production
facilities the following year. The lot took up
an entire city block.
according to their account, two fifty-cent
steak dinners. When they complained the
owner claimed other sailors had joined
them during their meal, ordered, ate, then
left, so the bill covered all their meals. The
two sailors grudgingly paid the bill but
returned later that night with a large
contingent of shipmates and demolished
the restaurant and everything in it. To no
one’s surprise, there were no witnesses and
no arrests were made.
The Great White Fleet left early Thursday
morning, April 30, and headed to Monterey
leaving in its wake many brokenhearted
damsels and one demolished restaurant.
T H E F L Y I N G A
L A N D S I N S A N T A B A R B A R A
An airplane crashes into Sycamore Canyon
and bursts into flame. At the other end of
town at State Street and Constance Avenue a
house explodes into a thousand splinters and
just down the road two cars collide at De la
Vina and Mission streets. Nothing to worry
about; it’s just another day of activity at the
American Film Company—The Flying A.
For all practical purposes, from 1912 to
1921 Santa Barbara served as the back lot for
the Flying A. Based in Chicago, it turned out
its first movie in 1910 and quickly moved
to making primarily westerns with “real
cowboys in the real west” as they cranked out
fifteen-minute-long one-reelers, first from
Arizona, then from Southern California at
San Juan Capistrano, Lakefield, and La Mesa.
In 1912 director Allan Dwan decided
they had pretty much used up all the
scenery around La Mesa and was looking
for someplace with more to offer. His
juvenile lead, Marshall Neilan, suggested
Santa Barbara saying “it had everything
they needed.”
On July 6, 1912, the Flying A arrived in
Santa Barbara and set up their first studio
at the site of a former ostrich farm at the
southeast corner of State and Islay streets.
Within a year a new studio would open
encompassing the block bounded by
Mission, Chapala, Padre and State streets—
said to be the largest studio in the state,
country, or world, depending on the report.
No matter how it ranked, the Flying A
attracted some of the best directors and
actors during its time here. The studio
expanded from one film company making
westerns to several film companies cranking
out comedies, dramas, social commentaries,
and westerns. During its lifetime the studio
made about twelve hundred movies. Most of
them were thrown away or disintegrated due
to the properties of the nitrate film used at
that time. Only about one hundred are
known to have survived.
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C H A P T E R V I
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✧
Above: One of the watershed events of
Santa Barbara history was the massive
earthquake of June 29, 1925. Two people
died when the San Marcos Building on State
Street collapsed.
The studio was demolished in 1948
leaving three small buildings behind: a
portion of the administration building in the
middle of the block, part of the garages along
Chapala Street and the actors’ Green Room at
the corner of Mission and Chapala streets.
E A R T H Q U A K E
At sunrise on Monday, June 29, 1925,
Santa Barbara lacked an architectural identity.
The business corridor along State Street was a
conglomeration of building materials and
Right: The Hotel Californian had opened
only two weeks before the quake struck.
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✧
Top: Also hard hit was the Santa
Barbara Mission.
Middle: Two padres examine some of the
interior damage wrought by the temblor.
Bottom: The collapse of the Arlington Hotel
tower resulted in two deaths. The hotel was
never rebuilt; the Arlington Theatre stands
on the site today.
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H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
66

styles ranging from adobe to modern
concrete and steel. All of this changed at 6:43
a.m. when an earthquake rocked the city for
nineteen seconds.
Estimated at 6.3 on the Richter scale, the
quake was centered in the Channel, though
possibly a fault along the Mesa was also
involved. The shock was felt as far south as
Anaheim, north into San Luis Obispo
County, and east into the San Joaquin Valley.
Within an hour of the quake the Red
Cross and the American Legion had first aid
stations and canteens set up in De la Guerra
Plaza and other locations in the city. By 9:00
all city department heads had reported for
work and members of the American Legion
and Naval Reserve were patrolling the length
✧
Opposite: Until 1908 the Sloyd School was
housed in this building at 814 Santa
Barbara Street before moving to
larger quarters.
Above: A sewing class at the Sloyd School.
The sloyd method was geared to train the
mind, body, and morals of the students.
Left: Anna S. C. Blake founded her Manual
Training School in 1891. It was popularly
called the Sloyd School after the Swedish
educational method which emphasized
manual arts and home economics.
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✧
The school moved to a new campus in the
foothills of Santa Barbara’s Riviera in 1913.
Through the decades, after undergoing a
series of metamorphoses, the school became
the University of California, Santa Barbara.
The Riviera campus buildings still remain
and include the Riviera Theatre.
of State Street with rifles in hand. Teams of
rescuers dug through buildings looking for
survivors, and Boy Scouts relayed messages
from the command post outside city hall to
all parts of the city.
Due to the early hour most of Santa
Barbara’s residents were still at home thus
there were only eleven deaths, all but one
person meeting their demise along State
Street. The majority of Santa Barbara’s homes
were of wood construction which rode out the
earthquake quite well. Broken dishes, pictures
falling from walls, and cracked plaster were
common. A number of homes had chimneys
snap and crash through the roof and a few
houses were knocked off their foundations.
The average cost of residential repair was
$100. It would not be so cheap for the
business section.
Nearly every building on State Street was
damaged or destroyed, but it could have been
worse. Major earthquakes had been followed
by great fires in San Francisco in 1906 and
Yokohama, Japan, in 1923. Santa Barbara
was spared from the greater disaster of fire
by two quick-thinking employees at the
electric and gas companies. Risking their lives
they dodged debris to reach the switches that
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68

✧
Above: A view down State Street from
Canon Perdido Street, late 1880s. The
ghostly image of one of the city’s streetcars
may be seen at center. Note the
wooden sidewalks.
Left: One of the major figures in social
service and community activism in Santa
Barbara in the 1900s was Pearl Chase. In
the early years she concerned herself with
issues of public health then turned her
attention to city beautification in the early
1920s. She was instrumental in founding
the Community Arts Association, the city’s
foremost cultural institution during this
time. In 1962 she helped found the Santa
Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation, the
group that oversees the reconstruction of
Santa Barbara’s Royal Presidio. In 1971 she
said this about herself, “I have helped
encourage people to want to have things
that were good for themselves and
other people.”
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✧
Above: The growth of Santa Barbara may
be traced through the evolution of its county
courthouse. In 1855 the County purchased
the adobe of John Kays to serve as
the courthouse.
Opposite page, top: By the early 1870s,
the courthouse was deemed too small and
modest in appearance to be the center of
jurisprudence and a Greek Revival building
was completed in 1873 followed by a Hall
of Records in 1889.
Opposite page, bottom: Today’s Santa
Barbara County Courthouse is considered
one of the most beautiful public buildings in
the country.
cut the power and flow of gas to the city.
Primarily due to the absence of fire, engineers
and seismologists were able to examine
how the various forms of construction and
building materials fared and recommend new
ideas for stronger and safer buildings.
Wasting no time, civic leaders met and
proclaimed, “Now is our chance!” The earthquake
had provided a golden opportunity to
rebuild the city in what was often called the
“Santa Barbara Style,” variants on Spanish
Colonial and Mediterranean architectural
styles. Four buildings of note in that architectural
style—city hall, the headquarters of the
Daily Press (now home to the Santa Barbara
News-Press), the retail/office complex El Paseo,
and the Lobero Theatre—had survived the
earthquake intact.
Within two weeks the Architectural
Advisory Committee and Architectural Board
of Review were established. The AAC even
provided a Community Drafting Room where
volunteer architects provided free plans for
businesses that would rebuild in the new
“Santa Barbara Style.” The newspapers
strongly endorsed the concept too, printing
full-page plans of the new facades for State
Street. Slowly, from the rubble, a new Santa
Barbara arose with architecture as wonderful
as the climate, destined to make it one of the
most beautiful cities in the world.
A
S P A N I S H - M O O R I S H
M O N U M E N T :
T H E C O U N T Y C O U R T H O U S E
It seems odd to ascribe so much praise to
a disaster, but the magnificent Santa Barbara
County Courthouse we admire today was yet
another benefit of the 1925 earthquake.
The courthouse rests atop the ghosts of
two earlier courthouses. The first, an adobe
belonging to John Kays, was purchased in
December of 1855 for $6,000, ending a
five-year migration from one rented adobe
to another—with much speculation on
papers lost and misplaced with each move.
Though certainly in the heart of town
today, in the block bounded by Anapamu,
Anacapa, Figueroa, and Santa Barbara streets,
at that time there were complaints as it
was considered to be at the far edge of
town. Others noted it was thankfully away
from the noise and hustle and bustle of
the community.
In 1872 local architect Peter J. Barber was
chosen to design a new courthouse which
was completed the following year. Growing
pains and lack of space led the county to
build the Hall of Records in 1889 adjacent to
the courthouse. But within twenty years the
county had again outgrown its home. A new
modern courthouse was sorely needed.
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C H A P T E R V I
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✧
Top: One of the Flying A’s more interesting
productions was Purity (1916). Audrey
Munson, a famous model of the period,
played the girlfriend of a starving writer,
who hires herself out as an artist’s model to
finance his publications. The film was a hit.
Middle: Short westerns made up much of
the studio’s product in its early years.
Bottom: One of the studio’s biggest stars was
Mary Miles Minter, who was with the studio
from 1916 to 1919. She was best known for
her roles as an innocent ingénue. She was
implicated in the murder of director
William Desmond Taylor in 1922 and
retired from the screen the following year.
In 1919 the county offered a $500 prize for
the best plans for a new courthouse to cost no
more than $300,000. Though a winner, Edgar
Mathews of San Francisco, was selected there
was no money for the project. June 29, 1925,
changed all of that.
Just four days after the earthquake, the Board
of Supervisors announced William Mooser
of San Francisco (the second-place finisher
in 1919) would prepare plans for a new
courthouse “of Spanish Renaissance architecture”
with a proposed cost of $1 million.
A $980,000 courthouse bond issue was voted
down that November primarily due to voters in
northern Santa Barbara County desiring a courthouse
in Lompoc and a county split. A second
bond measure for $700,000 was passed in 1926
and construction began in September.
The courthouse was finished in early
1929 but was not formerly dedicated until
Wednesday, August 14, 1929, coinciding with
the start of Fiesta.
“ A N A C R E O F S E A T S I N A
G A R D E N O F D R E A M S ”
T H E A R L I N G T O N T H E A T R E
Another of the magnificent illusions of Santa
Barbara is the Fox Arlington Theatre. According
to legend, when architect Joseph J. Plunkett
heard the Fox Motion Picture Company was
planning to build a typical “box theatre” for
Santa Barbara he hastily arranged a meeting
with Fox executives. During the impromptu
meeting in his hotel room in Los Angeles he
pulled the drawer from his dresser for use as a
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
72

makeshift drafting board and the paper liner for
his sketch pad and began laying out his ideas
for an Andalusian-themed movie palace. The
astonished movie men agreed.
Construction started in the summer of
1930 and the theatre officially opened on
May 22, 1931. The tower was based on the
Alcázar de Segovia in Spain, while all interior
and exterior lighting fixtures were copied
from Catalonian street lamps from the
14th through 16th centuries. Even the fire
escapes were patterned from staircases used
in small villages in Andalusia. For their
creation, Plunkett and his partner, William A.
Edwards, were given a special award from the
Chamber of Commerce.
✧
Above: One of the most distinctive theatres
in the country is Santa Barbara’s Arlington
Theatre. The theatre is a mix of Spanish
and Moorish architectural motifs as
conceived by designer Joseph Plunkett.
Shown is the evocative esplanade leading
from State Street to the main entrance of
the theatre.
Left:The theatre interior features a
recreation of a Spanish village below a faux
starlit sky. Today the theatre serves as a
venue for both film and live performances.
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✧
Opposite, top: Among the many grand
estates in the wealthy enclave of Montecito,
one of the grandest was the home of C. K. G.
Billings, the “millionaire’s millionaire,” built
in 1929. The construction cost for this
10,000-square-foot home was $40,000.
Opposite, bottom: The fraternal riding
group, Rancheros Visitadores, was founded
in 1930 by a coterie who wished to
commemorate the important role
horsemanship and ranching had played in
the history of the South Coast. The group is
best known for its annual horseback trek
through the Santa Ynez Valley and among
some of the participants through the decades
have been Walt Disney, Clark Gable, and
Ronald Reagan. Shown here is the
1957 ride.
Above: The city’s downtown El Paseo, built
in the 1920s, was a watershed in giving the
town a unified architectural look.
Left: This mixed use complex with its famed
Street in Spain is intimately tied to the Casa
de la Guerra, one of the city’s venerable
historic adobes, thus joining together the old
and the new.
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✧
Above: The first artist of note to call Santa
Barbara home was Henry Chapman Ford
who settled here in 1875. He began his life’s
work as a landscapist, but in the early
1880s he turned his attention to California’s
remaining historic buildings, in particular
the California missions. Today, his work
stands as a testament to the beauty of the
state’s natural and historical landscapes.
PORTRAIT OF FORD BY MARY CURTIS RICHARDSON
(1848-1931). COLLECTION OF THE SANTA BARBARA
HISTORICAL MUSEUM.
Top, right: In 1887, Henry Chapman Ford
(1828-1894) executed this oil of El Cuartel,
formerly a portion of the soldiers’ quarters
of Santa Barbara’s Spanish Royal Presidio.
The building still stands and is the city’s
oldest structure, dating from c.1788.
COLLECTION OF THE SANTA BARBARA
HISTORICAL MUSEUM.
T H R E E
S A N T A B A R B A R A A R T I S T S
Henry Chapman Ford (1828-1894) is
considered to be Santa Barbara’s first resident
artist. Born in New York, he showed an
aptitude for art at an early age. In 1858 he
went to France to study, but only lasted a
month before leaving to paint landscapes on
his own. He returned and joined the Union
Army during the Civil War then moved to
Chicago where he helped found the Chicago
Art Institute.
In 1875 he came to Santa Barbara to look
after his delicate health. He was equally adept
in oil, watercolor, and etching, specializing in
landscapes. He painted scenes up and down
California including Yosemite, numerous
landscapes locally, as well as the California
missions. A number of his etchings were used as
illustrations for magazine articles and in books.
“Unbelievably prolific” are the two words
which come to mind in considering Alexander
Harmer (1856-1925). A New Jersey native,
Harmer was fascinated by the American West
at a young age. At thirteen he left home and
lived in Nebraska then Ohio for a time before
Bottom, left: John Edward Borein is ranked
among the finest of cowboy artists, taking his
place alongside such luminaries as Frederic
Remington and Charles Russell. His
experience as a working cowboy gave his
depictions of the West a sense of immediacy
and realism that is virtually unmatched.
Settling in Santa Barbara in 1921, he became
a familiar figure around town, known for his
humor and story-telling abilities.
Bottom, right: Ed Borein’s (1872-1945) gift
for action is evident in his watercolor,
Bucking Horse, an exercise he himself
undoubtedly undertook more than once
during his days as a ranch hand.
COLLECTION OF THE SANTA BARBARA
HISTORICAL MUSEUM.
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✧
Left: Ford’s studio on State Street became
the artistic center of Santa Barbara. Here
he held exhibitions, socials, and open house.
The studio illustrates Ford’s scientific
interest in the natural world, his fascination
with local history, and his deep appreciation
of the glories of the California landscape.
enlisting in the cavalry at age sixteen. He served
in California and upon discharge studied under
Thomas Eakins at the Philadelphia Academy of
Fine Arts for two years.
In 1881 he again joined the army and
served in the Southwest where the Apaches
became an especially rich subject for his art.
As one critic noted, “His canvases depicting
Apache scenes in camp, on the trail, etc., are
excellent contemporary studies, unequalled
by any other illustrator.”
After travelling through California and
Mexico, painting, among other subjects, the
California missions, Harmer married Felicidad
Abadie in 1893 and settled in his wife’s family
adobe in De la Guerra Plaza in Santa Barbara.
He now turned his attention to images of Old
California and his often romantic works could
be found in books, magazines, calendars, even
on fine china. He has been called “Southern
California’s first significant painter.”
Like Ford and Harmer, John Edward
Borein (1872-1945) was an early artistic
bloomer. Born in San Leandro, California, he
started drawing around the age of five, his
inspiration coming from the scenes of cattle
drives, vaqueros, and cowboys taking place
Bottom, left: Alexander Harmer’s (1856-
1925) fascination with California’s past is
captured in his Fiesta at Casa de la
Guerra. Among his many other works
illustrating California history are a series of
paintings of the California missions
reproduced on a limited issue of fine china
by Wedgwood of England.
COLLECTION OF THE SANTA BARBARA
HISTORICAL MUSEUM.
Below: Alexander Harmer was entranced
by the American West. As a young man, he
enlisted in the army and took part in an
expedition in pursuit of the elusive Apache
leader, Geronimo. He settled in Santa
Barbara in the early 1890s and increasingly
turned to California history for subject
matter for his art. His home became the
center of an illustrious Santa Barbara art
colony. His work captured the beauty and
romance of a California now long past.
C H A P T E R V I
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✧
Right: Opening in 1924 was the new Lobero
Theatre, designed by George Washington
Smith and Lutah Riggs. The opening of the
theatre marked the beginning of Santa
Barbara’s Old Spanish Days Fiesta, the
community’s largest civic celebration.
Below: The sunken garden of the Santa
Barbara County Courthouse is the venue for
a number of Fiesta events every year.
Opposite: The first Old Spanish Days Fiesta
poster was executed by Frederick A. Pawla
(1875-1964) in 1924.
GIFT OF PETER AND GERD JORDANO. COLLECTION OF
THE SANTA BARBARA HISTORICAL MUSEUM.
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C H A P T E R V I
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✧
Above: Max Fleischmann, heir to the
Fleischmann yeast fortune, gave some
$550,000 towards the construction of the
Santa Barbara harbor, shown here in early
1930. A generous philanthropist who gave
to a variety of causes on the South Coast,
Fleischmann was in part moved to make
this donation so he would have a safe haven
for his yacht. Note the old pleasure pier left
high and a dry by the construction.
around him. When he was eighteen he left
home to pursue the cowboy life, but returned
home after only a year. Impressed by the
sketches he had made during his time as a
ranch hand, his mother enrolled him in an art
school in San Francisco. He could only
endure a month of formal art instruction
before he returned to roaming the Southwest
and Mexico, working on ranches and cattle
drives. All the time he kept on sketching.
Eventually a few of his drawings were sold
to The Land of Sunshine Magazine, published
by Charles Lummis, one of the outspoken
preservationists of western life. This began a
life-long friendship with Lummis and the start
of Borein’s career as an artist.
He had a studio in Oakland for a few years
then, late in 1907, he moved to New York. It
was about as far away from the west as you
could get, but it was here that he developed and
Below: Several federal WPA projects, worth
over $22 million, helped Santa Barbara
navigate the Great Depression in the 1930s.
One of these was the County Bowl,
completed in 1936. The County Bowl today
continues to be the South Coast’s
outstanding outdoor entertainment venue.
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
80

honed the skill he was probably best known for
etching. During this time he earned his living as
an illustrator with his work appearing on the
pages of America’s top magazines. Advertisers
also sought him out and he also illustrated for
Stetson hats, Pierce Arrow automobiles, and
others. During his New York years his studio,
decorated with western artifacts, became a
gathering place for other western artists and
fans of the American West.
Borein left New York and in 1921 moved
to Santa Barbara with his new bride, Lucille
Maxwell. His studio was on the famed Street
in Spain in El Paseo, Studio 17, and, like his
New York studio, was frequented by
Hollywood elite, western film stars, and
artists as was his Hopi-styled home, La
Barranca. (Located on the mesa, it was
demolished in the 1970s for a housing
development.) He not only kept the memory
of the West alive through his art, he was also
one of the founders of Los Rancheros
Visitadores, an equestrian group formed to
recall and preserve the traditions of the Old
West in a week-long ride from Santa Barbara
over the mountains from ranch to ranch.
That Borein lived the life he portrayed so
famously in pen and ink, etchings and water
colors can be summed up in three simple
words—“The Cowboy Artist.”
S A N T A B A R B A R A
W E A T H E R S
T H E D E P R E S S I O N
At the start of the Great Depression the
population of Santa Barbara County was sixtyfive
thousand with the city of Santa Barbara
accounting for a little over half that number.
Nationwide, as factories closed, unemployment
rose, and food lines lengthened, the government
agencies set up to battle the
Depression began to read like an alphabet
soup—the SERA, FERA, CWA, PWA, and WPA.
Santa Barbara was fortunate to have
influential citizens, sympathetic politicians
(including Senator William McAdoo who had
a home here) and the relentless publisher of
the Santa Barbara News-Press, Thomas Storke,
who pointed out that while every state, county,
and town had their hand out for help,
California paid the second highest income tax
in the nation and Santa Barbara had the fourth
highest per capita income. Their intercession
paid off. Through the WPA (Works Progress
Administration) alone, Santa Barbara received
an astounding $22,000,000 to keep its
citizens—primarily the men—working.
Men employed through the WPA projects
constructed and improved roads including
Gibraltar Road (originally called “Depression
Drive”) and Camino Cielo, dug sewer lines,
cleared groves of trees for firewood, and built
parks and public buildings. Many of the
projects they undertook are still in use today,
including the County Bowl, the municipal
tennis courts, Leadbetter Beach Park, and the
nearby municipal pool, Los Baños del Mar.
One would also think that during these
hard times businesses fueled by discretionary
spending would close, but Santa Barbara’s
restaurants, for example, actually increased
during the worst period.
✧
The centerpiece of Fiesta is El Desfile de
Histórico, the Historical Parade. In 1952,
Richard Nixon, soon to be elected Vice
President of the United States, is greeted by
film actor Leo Carrillo, a frequent
participant in the parade.
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82

CHAPTER VII
W O R L D W A R I I A N D S A N T A B A R B A R A
“It ain’t the Army, we never had maid service in our quarters before.”
At the start of 1941 Santa Barbara was a sleepy little town of about thirty-five thousand souls
and known for the most part as a popular honeymoon resort and tourist destination, famous for
its Old Mission, courthouse, and Fiesta parade. An incident in another tourist destination on
December 7, 1941, would result in an entirely new class of visitors for the Channel City.
Two months after the attack on Pearl Harbor a Japanese submarine surfaced off the Ellwood oil fields
(now the site of the Sandpiper Golf Course) and lobbed a few shells at the facilities there with very little
to show for their trouble. A number of the shells were duds. One scored a hit on an empty field leaving
a four-foot crater and another hit a pier causing the worst of the carnage—a hole in a catwalk, holes in a
shed door, and shrapnel lodged in the pier timbers. Far more damaging though was the reality that an
enemy sub had fired on the American continent. Santa Barbara would not be this defenseless again.
The Army’s 144th Field Artillery arrived in March of 1942 and set up searchlights and artillery on
the formerly peaceful lawn of the Santa Barbara Cemetery. Similar high spots along the coast were also
soon fortified.
In June 1942 the Marines landed at the Santa Barbara Airport and began construction on a
$10,000,000 Marine Corps airbase. Though the Navy officially made the announcement on July 1,
construction had actually started in May and the first 139 pilots arrived on June 14. Construction and
training were brisk and the base was officially commissioned on December 4, 1942. Within those
seven months the existing runway had been improved and new ones built. To accomplish this, the
Navy completed a job started earlier by the WPA and CAA (Civil Aviation Authority), the filling-in of
the Goleta Slough. Mescaltitán Island, once a sixty-four-acre Chumash village, was carved into a mere
stub as ten to twelve feet of fill was dumped into the former slough. Over one hundred buildings were
constructed, including housing for over two thousand personnel on the nearby mesa now occupied by
the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Many of the facilities, including storage and the assembly and repair departments were separated
from the airport by Hollister Avenue which at that time was Highway 101. This meant traffic had to
be stopped each time planes and equipment were moved from one side of the airport to the other.
The State was supposed to relocate a portion of the highway to avoid this situation but didn’t even
begin until after the war.
Oddly, commercial aircraft still used the airport as United Airlines continued to serve Santa
Barbara. Perhaps on these flights, like swallows returning to Capistrano, were the vacationing elite
on their seasonal visits to Santa Barbara. The tradition however was about to come to an end.
On July 11, 1944, the Army announced it would be taking over the crème de la crème of Santa
Barbara’s hotels, the Biltmore, Miramar, and Mar Monte, for use as “redistribution stations and
other military purposes.” The six hundred hotel guests, both visiting and permanent, were given
five days to clear out before the first 1,200 service men arrived. Though the hotels were booked
through October it was of no consequence. The Army was moving in.
Redistribution Stations were set up so “returnees” from the front lines of the war could enjoy a
two-week furlough at Southern California’s finest hotels (six other hotels were also taken over in
Santa Monica) before being re-deployed. Wives were allowed and encouraged to join their husbands.
Though their spouses stayed for free, the wives had to pay $1.25 a day for the room, three meals, and
linen charges. A popular feature of the Santa Barbara stations was the daily “Cheers and Gripes”
session held at the Biltmore where the men—anonymously and without retribution—could sound off
about anything they wanted including “unfair officers.”
✧
U. S. entry into the Second World War had
a major impact on Santa Barbara as
thousands of military personnel passed
through the city, many to return to live here
after the conflict.
C H A P T E R V I I
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✧
The Marine Corps took over the airport and
adjacent property (now Unversity of
California, Santa Barbara) as a pilot
training center. A few of the wooden
buildings from the war years still stand on
the UCSB campus.
In August 1945, the Army announced it
would be returning the hotels within ninety
days noting that they could not relinquish
them sooner as “their occupancy is scheduled
for ninety days in advance.”
During the year, over twenty-seven thousand
personnel were filtered through Santa Barbara
and the community did its best to make them
feel welcome. As the Redistribution Stations
came to a close the commander, Colonel Stanton
L. Bertschey, thanked the over two hundred
Santa Barbara organizations and individuals that
had “extended invitations and provided special
entertainment for the returnees.”
Another facility, now long-forgotten, was
Hoff General Hospital which was actually built
before the war. In October 1940, the Army
announced plans to build a 750-bed hospital on
forty-five acres for a cost of $400,000. A month
later, the price had sky-rocketed to $1,042,800
and by January, $1.5 million had been allocated.
The facility was named for Colonel John
Van Rensselaer Hoff, a career officer in the
Army’s Medical Corps, who was considered
“The Father of the Field Hospital.”
Hoff Hospital was partially spread over
Earle Ovington’s pioneer Casa Loma airfield
covering the area we know today as the
Community Golf Course and Mackenzie Park.
When it closed in November 1945,
Hoff Hospital had expanded to 52 acres and
102 buildings. Somewhat coincidentally, in
its five years of operation, twenty-seven
thousand soldiers were treated at Hoff, the
same number that had passed through the
Redistribution Station’s hotels in one year.
Santa Barbara’s wartime activities weren’t
limited to our own Army, Navy and Marines.
Camp Cooke (now Vandenberg Air Force
Base), in addition to serving as a US military
facility, also housed Italian and German
prisoners of war. The loss of the better part
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84

of Santa Barbara’s manhood caused a shortage
in the farming community so a POW camp
was established at the Archie Edwards Ranch
outside Goleta for 250 German prisoners.
They were put to work picking walnuts,
tomatoes, and green beans at nearby farms.
Employment in the aviation industry
drew over fifteen hundred Santa Barbarans,
more than half of them women. Douglas,
Lockheed, and Vega all had plants here
building components for military aircraft
including the Lockheed P-38, Boeing B-17,
Vega PV-1 and PV-2, and the Douglas SBD
Dauntless. Vega alone had over one thousand
employees working three shifts.
With the end of the war all these activities
were phased out and Santa Barbara’s war time
efforts were slowly forgotten.
Hoff Hospital became a temporary
residential community for three hundred
families to help alleviate the postwar housing
crunch. Some buildings were moved to
Modoc Road to initiate “Pilgrim Terrace,” a
senior citizen housing project, and others
were moved and converted into homes,
school buildings, and even a church (San
Roque). The large water tank just above
Mackenzie Park is the one relic of the old
hospital still in place.
The Edwards Ranch, site of the German
POW camp, is eighteen miles west of Santa
Barbara, just past Rancho Los Dos Pueblos
and between the ocean and US 101. All that
remains is the base of the water tower which
can still be seen from the highway.
A few of the Marine Corps Air Station’s
buildings can still be found at UCSB, at the
Santa Barbara Airport along Firestone Road
(named for Lt. Norman Firestone, a P-40 pilot
killed in action November 1944) and across
from the airport between Hollister Avenue
and the Southern Pacific tracks.
✧
The growth of UCSB caused a population
explosion in the largely student community
of Isla Vista. During the academic year, Isla
Vista reportedly has one of the highest
population densities of any community in
the country.
C H A P T E R V I I
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✧
Above: UC Santa Barbara College moved to
its Goleta campus in 1954. At that time
enrollment was less than eighteen hundred
and the campus consisted of the barracks
and other buildings left over from the World
War II Marine base. Today UCSB has an
enrollment of over eighteen thousand and
is a major institution of higher learning
and research. Shown is the Music Building,
c. 1960.
Opposite, top: The Raytheon Company was
one of the first “smokeless industries” to set
up shop on the South Coast. The Space Age
front entrance to its Goleta Valley
headquarters gives a hint as to the type of
work in which Raytheon and others
engaged. These high tech and research firms
became major employers in the region in the
1960s and 1970s.
Opposite, bottom: Santa Barbara joined the
Age of the Shopping Mall with the opening
of La Cumbre Plaza in 1967. The plaza
was anchored by two stores, Robinson’s and
Sears, each offering over 155,000 square
feet of retail space.
P O S T - W O R L D W A R I I
G R O W T H
Following World War II Santa Barbara
exploded with growth. A number of the
service personnel who had passed through
had found the community much to their
liking and returned, even some of the former
German and Italian prisoners of war!
After six years of preparation the University
of California, Santa Barbara opened in 1954 on
the 408 acres of the former Marine Air Station.
The enrollment for that first year was over
1,700 students, a nine-percent increase over
the previous year. (Today enrollment stands at
over eighteen thousand.) The UC Regents sold
the forty-four-acre campus above the Santa
Barbara Harbor to the California State Board of
Education for $492,000 for a junior college,
now Santa Barbara City College.
More than just students were flocking
to the South Coast. Fueled by the Cold
War, defense industry businesses were
springing up along the Hollister Avenue
corridor including Raytheon, General
Dynamics, Delco, and Santa Barbara
Research. The community welcomed these
light manufacturing, low polluting companies
which attracted skilled professionals,
graduate students, and also provided entry
level positions for unskilled employees.
The computer industry in the 1960s saw
Burroughs, Applied Magnetics, and Infomag
establishing facilities in the Goleta Valley
and they in turn were followed by the
booming medical technology firms such as
Heyer-Schulte, Circon, Medtronics, McGhan
Medical, and Mentor Corporation.
To keep up with the expanding businesses,
developments bloomed inside and outside
the city limits. In Goleta, orange and lemon
orchards gave way to housing tracts such
as Walnut Park, Thunderbird Homes, and
University Village. In Santa Barbara proper,
the former open fields, orchards, rolling
hills, and snug little valleys had new names—
Campanil Hills, La Colina Village, and Bel
Air Knolls.
Trucks, trains, and planes brought the
tools, materials, and people for the
expanding community. What they could not
bring was Santa Barbara’s oldest need—water.
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CHAPTER VIII
T H E S E A R C H F O R W A T E R
By the 1790s, though the non-native population of Santa Barbara had only increased by two
hundred or so, their need for water was far greater than the Chumash. Crops, orchards, livestock,
and construction were just a few of the new demands on a limited resource.
Not content with the seasonal flow of water from Mission Creek, around 1806 the Franciscans
built two dams—one on Mission Creek about one-and-a-quarter miles away, the other nearly
two miles away in Rattlesnake Canyon. Aqueducts carried the water to reservoirs at the mission.
The mission water works were later sold to a water company and along with wells and springs
would serve the city for more than a century.
Another important early source of water was De la Guerra Wells. Located between Cota,
Ortega, Laguna and Olive streets, these springs were captured by bucket and barrel as they were
below the level of the town. In the late 1880s a water company installed a steam engine and was
able to pump the water up to pipes to serve the city. The wells were shut down in 1919 and set
aside for “emergencies.”
The next steps in the South Coast’s search for water was the construction of Mission Tunnel,
completed in 1912, followed by Gibraltar Dam, finished in 1920. Water from the Santa Ynez
River was tapped to serve Santa Barbara by digging the 3.7-mile tunnel through the Santa Ynez
Mountains, the water to be stored in Gibraltar Reservoir.
Proclaimed “the toughest tunnel job ever tackled by the Bureau of Reclamation,” the Tecolote
Tunnel stretches six-and-a-half miles under the Santa Ynez Range to Lake Cachuma and took
six years to build. The dam itself took only half that time. On April 12, 1958, two years after
completion of the $43,000,000 project, Lake Cachuma, filled to its capacity of 205,000 acre-feet,
spilled over the dam for the first time.
Voters approved measures on a June 1991 ballot to hook into the State Water system and to
build a $34,000,000 desalinization plant. Even so, both of these measures have fallen short of the
desired goal. State Water, dependent on Northern California snowfall has potential shortcomings
and the desalinization plant was moth-balled not long after its construction due to high
maintenance costs and a portion of it was sold off.
✧
Lake Cachuma is not only the primary
water source for the South Coast. It has also
become an important recreational site,
offering camping, boating, and fishing.
T H E T H R E A T O F W I L D F I R E
Like the flow of water, part of the natural cycle of the South Coast has been massive fires.
Appearing every decade or so they cleared the mountains and canyons of dead vegetation,
providing nutrients for the soil, seeds, and new growth.
New growth had been part of the human cycle of Santa Barbara as well. From 1880 to 1890
the population jumped sixty-nine percent. The first decade of the new century saw a seventyseven
percent increase and a further seventy-two percent from 1920 to 1930, but there had
always been plenty of room to build. Yet in the last half of the twentieth century, pressed for
space, homes were being built high atop the mountain ridges, along the foothills, and deep into
the canyons.
In earlier years, Santa Barbara’s farmlands and ranches undoubtedly provided something of
a barrier between the wilderness and the populace. These buffers were rapidly disappearing.
Advances in firefighting and changes in theories of fire suppression had led to fuel buildup that
was in some areas half-a-century old. The result was to be explosive.
The first indicator of what was to come flared up in the 1955 Refugio Fire. Burning for ten days
it covered 84,770 acres along the coastal range from Gaviota to the summit of San Marcos Pass.
C H A P T E R V I I I
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✧
The construction of Bradbury Dam and the
creation of Lake Cachuma were among the
most important events in the history of
Santa Barbara after World War II.
Nine years later, on September 22, 1964,
the Coyote Fire began to tear through the
foothills above Santa Barbara. Started by the
exhaust pipe of a car parked near Coyote
Road and Mountain Drive the fire burned for
10 days devouring 67,000 acres, nearly 100
homes, and killing one firefighter.
The decade of the 1970s saw two more
major fires. An arsonist set the Romero
Canyon Fire on October 6, 1971. In what
appeared to be a trend, it too lasted for ten
days. It consumed 14,500 acres, killed four
firefighters and destroyed four homes. On July
26, 1977, the Sycamore Canyon Fire erupted.
It lived for less than twelve hours and burned
only 800 acres, yet 234 homes were lost with
an estimated damage total of over $25
million. The cause was determined to be a
kite which blew into power lines near
Mountain Drive and Coyote Road.
In the midst of a one hundred-plus-degree
heat wave in late June 1990, a fire at the
County Transfer Station between Calle Real
and Cathedral Oaks Road starts the afternoon
off and nervous residents breathe a sigh of
relief when it is brought under control
around six p.m. The relief is short-lived.
At nearly the same time a fire erupts at
San Marcos Pass near Painted Cave Road.
Backed by winds gusting up to forty-five
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
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miles per hour, a wall of flames well over
one hundred feet high blows down the
canyon, torching the San Marcos Trout Club,
San Antonio Creek, Tuckers Grove, and
unbelievably jumps not only Cathedral
Oaks Road, but Highway 101 and Hollister
Avenue. In less than two hours over five
hundred homes are lost. Total damage by
the fire will come to over one quarter of a
billion dollars.
In the twenty-first century the fires seem to
be coming faster and more furiously. The Zaca
Fire started in July 2007 and burned nearly a
quarter-million acres before being contained
four months later. Three days short of the
one-year Zaca Fire anniversary the Gap Fire
began and burned nine thousand acres above
Goleta, followed by the Tea Fire in November
which consumed 210 homes in Montecito,
Sycamore Canyon, and westerly to the edges
of Mission Canyon. What had not burned
between the Gap Fire and the Tea Fire was set
ablaze in May 2009, when the Jesusita Fire
destroyed 160 homes in Mission Canyon and
the enclaves to the west. It was a miracle the
flames did not cross Foothill Road and into
the city or San Marcos Pass and into Goleta.
Despite the advances in technology, the
natural cycle of drought, fires, and floods will
always be part of Santa Barbara.
T H E 1 9 6 9 O I L S P I L L
The presence of oil along the beaches of
the South Coast has been as natural as the
cycle of fires, floods, and droughts. For
thousands of years oil has bubbled up from
the ocean floor and flowed through cliff faces
above shore. Inland it is found oozing out of
the ground along creeks and mountain sides.
For the Chumash, the sticky tar had many
uses including caulking for Chumash plank
canoes, fastening arrowheads to shafts, and
shell decorations to bones and stone bowls.
In a nod to modesty, pieces of asphaltum
were squeezed onto the ends of the Chumash
women’s grass skirts as weights to keep
the skirts down. It was also a part of their
commerce, serving as a trade item. With
the arrival of the Spanish, asphaltum was
used as a bonding agent, fastening tiles to
roofs, and connecting clay pipes of the water
systems together.
✧
Clockwise, from the top:
The enormous oil spill in the Santa Barbara
Channel in 1969 focused the nation’s
attention on environmental issues.
Although a short term disaster, the resulting
heightened awareness of and concern over
the environment transformed national,
state, and local policies.
This aerial view clearly shows the
encroachment of the oil slick into the Santa
Barbara harbor.
The beauty and terror of wildfire on the
South Coast is captured in this nighttime
view of the 1977 Sycamore blaze, taken
from Stearns Wharf.
Fire damage from the Sycamore Fire may
be seen in this view taken from the east end
of the Riviera; 234 homes were lost.
Wildfire remains a constant concern for
South Coast residents.
Probably the first attempt at making an
industry out of this natural resource occurred
in 1857 when a small, short-lived refinery was
built at Carpinteria to produce illuminating
oil. This was probably located near the
Carpinteria Tar Pits which would later be
mined for asphaltum for street paving.
C H A P T E R V I I I
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✧
Summerland was the site of the world’s first
significant offshore oil exploration at the end
of the 1800s. Production hit its peak in
1899 with over two hundred thousand
barrels, but by 1907 Summerland’s days as
an important oil production center were
over. The era of the deep water oil platform
was decades in the future.
The South Coast’s “Black Gold Rush” took
place in the small Spiritualist community of
Summerland in the 1890s. H. L. Williams,
the founder of Summerland, had a well on
Ortega Hill as early as 1886, but the real
bonanza came eight years later when he
placed several wells along the beach.
Exploration soon extended out into the
ocean, as piers with wells along their length
created the first offshore oil well industry. By
the turn of the century over four hundred
wells had been drilled along shore and out
into the Pacific. The boom was short-lived;
by 1912 only 133 wells were still producing.
Great oil producing fields were found
throughout the county in ensuing decades—
near Santa Maria, Orcutt, Lompoc, Cat
Canyon and on the Ellwood coast. Drilling
also took place in Santa Barbara, primarily on
the Mesa. The heyday of production here was
during the 1920s, the field largely depleted
by the 1940s with the last lone well shut
down in 1971.
In the early 1950s, companies began
exploring for oil in the Santa Barbara
Channel. Despite public and political
opposition, in 1958 the first channel
platform, christened Hazel, was set up twoand-a-half
miles off Summerland in one
hundred feet of water. A decade later Union
Oil installed Platform A in 188 feet of water
nearly six miles from shore.
In January 1969 drilling began for a
fifth well for Platform A. At 10:45 a.m. on
the 28th, the well blew out and oil began
flowing to the surface. This would be the
“environmental shot heard ‘round the world.”
For the next two weeks newspaper and
television reporters descended on Santa
Barbara covering in depth the unsuccessful
attempts to keep the massive oil slick from
reaching the shore and the disaster when it
landed. An estimated three million gallons of
oil had spread over eight hundred square miles
of the Channel and was washed ashore in thick
masses, polluting forty miles of the mainland
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
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coast and out to the Channel Islands. Images
of the oil-covered beaches, birds, and other
wildlife initiated a massive rethinking of local
and national environmental policies.
In Santa Barbara, Get Oil Out (GOO) and
the Environmental Defense Center were
founded and an environmental studies
program begun at UCSB. Though there were
other factors and influences, the timing of the
Santa Barbara oil spill cannot be ignored in
the creation of the federal Environmental
Protection Agency in 1970, the first Earth
Day on November 30, 1970, the passage of
the California Environmental Quality Act in
1970, and the establishment of the California
Coastal Commission.
✧
In 1969 the cleanup in the aftermath of the
oil spill utilizing manpower, bulldozers, and
straw was a drawn-out, messy affair.
C H A P T E R V I I I
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CHAPTER IX
P R E S E R V A T I O N O F T H E C O M M U N I T Y
The first seeds of what may be considered a preservation movement began in the 1880s as
a crumbling Mission Santa Barbara neared its centennial anniversary. Concerned about the
potential loss of a major piece of history, the populace held fund-raisers to help pay for the
mission renovation. As part of the centennial celebration in December 1886, the clothing and
songs of the olden days were brought out for the dances and parades. The papers marveled at
these scenes of days gone by and lamented the loss of what Santa Barbara had been.
Over the next several decades voices were raised here and there in protest as one landmark
after another was demolished, but it wasn’t until the 1920s with the establishment of the
Community Arts Association that a unified presence was ready to take on the task of preserving
the past and at the same time shape a vision for a new Santa Barbara.
In addition to the departments of Drama and Music the CAA created a Plans and Plantings
Committee and an Architectural Advisory Committee. Though a private entity the CAA hired its
own engineers, architects, and advisers and was formidable enough that the city often took
its advice. The new Santa Barbara City Hall, built in 1923, was one of the resulting triumphs.
Following the earthquake on June 29, 1925, the community rallied around the concept of
rebuilding in the “Santa Barbara Style,” the quasi-Spanish new look proposed for Santa Barbara. This
time, the city began in earnest to establish what the Community Arts Association had been promoting.
Within two weeks of the earthquake an Architectural Board of Review was established and in
1928 a Planning Commission was created and strong building codes and ordinances enacted.
Subsequent city councils, however, dissolved or weakened the committees and ordinances created
to preserve the city’s character.
As the city began expanding following World War II, leaders within the community again began to
realize the dangers of unchecked building and in 1947 the Architectural Review Committee was
reborn. Slowly the committee began returning to the Mediterranean vision established after the
earthquake. In 1960 the city created a special district—El Pueblo Viejo—to serve as an example of the
buildings and design crucial to the Santa Barbara character. To protect them, a Landmarks Advisory
Committee was established to review any new projects or remodels within this zone and ensure they
were in keeping with the spirit of the district. The Landmarks Advisory Committee was later upgraded
to full commission status and the boundaries of El Pueblo Viejo have been greatly expanded.
By 1970 Santa Barbara’s population stood at 70,215—double what it had been in 1940. The
county’s population had quadrupled from 70,555 in 1940 to 334,800. A large part of this was
population growth in the unincorporated Goleta Valley and the Santa Maria Valley.
Constrained by the mountains, the ocean, Montecito and Goleta, Santa Barbara now realized
it was running out of room and in 1975 the City Council down-zoned the city in a highly
controversial plan. In essence down-zoning decreased the density for new residential construction.
Supporters claimed they were preserving paradise, saving it from overdevelopment and overpopulation.
Opponents argued they were closing the door to future growth that could only result
in higher prices for a limited housing stock.
In 2006 Santa Barbara teeters on the brink of Paradise Lost. Home prices have jumped with an
average home selling for slightly over $1 million. Priced out of Santa Barbara, workers now
commute from Ventura, Santa Maria, and Lompoc. Traffic is a major problem—too many cars in
neighborhoods laid out before cars were even thought of or when a one-car family was the norm.
Yet, one proposed solution to the housing crunch is to reverse the downsizing limitations and
increase the density which, opponents point out, brings more cars and people to the already
strained city services and streets.
✧
The opening of the Paseo Nuevo shopping
complex in 1990 gave a major boost to
Santa Barbara’s downtown economy. It also
was an earmark of a growing trend: the rise
of franchise stores, often at the expense of
locally owned “mom and pop” shops.
C H A P T E R I X
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✧
Above: Santa Barbara, 2008. “Sun-Kissed,
Ocean-Washed, Mountain-Girded,
Island-Guarded.”—from a 1928
promotional brochure.
PHOTOGRAPH BY BILL DEWEY.
Right: One of the major figures of the 20th
century in Santa Barbara was Thomas
More Storke. By dint of his powerful
position as publisher of the Santa Barbara
News-Press and his political connections on
the state and national level, Storke wielded
tremendous influence. He helped bring
New Deal projects to Santa Barbara, and
championed the establishment of UC
Santa Barbara and the construction of the
Cachuma water project. In 1962 he won a
Pulitzer Prize for his editorials against the
John Birch Society. To many he was
“Mr. Santa Barbara.”
In 1874, Joseph A. Johnson, the publisher
and editor of the Santa Barbara Daily
Press wrote “The old landmarks and most
charming characteristics of Santa Barbara
are disappearing before the march of
“improvement,” and though our practical
people cannot move the mountains, nor
change the scenes, nor spoil the climate,
they are doing all they can to despoil the
quaint beauty of the place and make it a
commonplace American town….”
Though these words could have been
spoken today, they would have been just
as appropriate at many points in Santa
Barbara’s past. That Santa Barbara is far from
“a commonplace American town” proves
our predecessors faced their challenges
and gave us a community and a history
unlike any other.
How the future residents and elected
officials deal with our current problems
will someday just be another chapter as
yet unwritten in the unfolding “Story of
Santa Barbara.”
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
96

FATHER VIRGIL
CORDANO
Father Virgil Cordano, OFM, pastor emeritus
of the Santa Barbara Mission, died May 22,
2008 in the Mission Terrace convalescent
home. He was eighty-seven. Father Virgil was
beloved by the community for his humanity,
humor, erudition, and readiness to reach out
his hand in friendship to all.
George Cordano attended Catholic parochial
school in his native Sacramento where he
recognized his priestly calling at age twelve.
He entered Saint Anthony’s Seminary in Santa
Barbara and graduated as class valedictorian
in 1939.
In the Franciscan novitiate he took the name
of Virgil. He completed his clerical studies at the
Mission Theological Seminary at Santa Barbara
where he was ordained in June of 1945.
After a brief stint as chaplain at Saint Mary’s
Hospital in San Francisco, he taught Biblical
studies, homiletics and liturgy at Santa Barbara
before earning a degree in Sacred Theology at
the Catholic University of American in
Washington, D.C.
Returning to Santa Barbara in 1950, he
began a long, productive career that earned him
the sobriquet “spiritual godfather of California’s
Channel city.” He served as a seminary rector,
parochial pastor, professor, author, Mission
curator, and pastor at Santa Barbara Mission.
He was widely known on the South Coast
among Catholics and non-Catholics alike for
his many years of hosting the annual Fiesta
Pequena festivities of song and dance on the
Mission Steps, kicking off Old Spanish Days.
A strong believer in interfaith dialogue,
Father Virgil was named Santa Barbara’s Man
of the Year in 1988. In 2005, he was the
subject of a book by Mario Garcia titled Padre:
The Spiritual Journey of Father Virgil Cordano.
Close friends remember him as a person
who was erudite, yet down-to-earth, holy yet
funny, deeply faithful, yet all-inclusive. “He
made the mission feel like everybody’s church,
not just a Catholic church,” said one friend.
As a Christmas tradition, the Mission sets
up a Nativity scene that includes live donkeys
and sheep. One year, when a photographer
was taking a shot of the crèche, Father Virgil,
wearing his trademark long brown habit,
positioned himself in the tableau. That year, he
used the manger photo with him in it as his
Christmas card. On the bottom was a message,
“There’s room for everybody at the inn.”
Father Virgil often said he loved what he
believed and condemned no one for their beliefs.
“My faith has taught me that everything
human is God’s concern,” he said in a
newspaper interview. “I try to be as much
involved in the world as God is. There’s
something meaningful and sacred, meriting
our reflection on all that is human.
“God is present everywhere,” he continued.
“He attends every football and basketball
game…he’s even at every bar. He doesn’t
necessarily agree with that third, fourth, or
fifth drink, but he’s there.”
This tribute to Father Virgil was made
possible by the generosity of Barbara Adams.
✧
Above: c. 1984.
COURTESY OF FRANCISCAN PROVINCIAL ARCHIVES.
Below: Father Virgil celebrates Fiesta.
COURTESY OF FRANCISCAN PROVINCIAL ARCHIVES.
F A T H E R V I R G I L C O R D A N O
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SHARING THE HERITAGE
H i s t o r i c p r o f i l e s o f b u s i n e s s e s ,
o r g a n i z a t i o n s , a n d f a m i l i e s t h a t h a v e
c o n t r i b u t e d t o t h e d e v e l o p m e n t a n d
e c o n o m i c b a s e o f S a n t a B a r b a r a
The Marketplace ...........................................................1 0 0
Quality of Life ..............................................................1 3 6
Santa Barbara’s Foundations & Charities ..........................1 6 2
Building a Greater Santa Barbara ....................................1 8 0
S H A R I N G T H E H E R I T A G E
9 9

H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
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THE MARKETPLACE
S a n t a B a r b a r a ’ s r e t a i l a n d
c o m m e r c i a l e s t a b l i s h m e n t s o f f e r
a n i m p r e s s i v e v a r i e t y o f c h o i c e s
Cappello & Noël LLP .................................................................1 0 2
Michael Towbes
The Towbes Group
Montecito Bank & Tr ust
The Towbes Foundation .....................................................1 0 6
Churchill Jewelers .....................................................................1 0 9
Ogilvy-Hill Insurance .................................................................1 1 0
Reetz, Fox & Bartlett, LLP ..........................................................1 1 2
Bankers Mortgage Realty Advisors of Santa Barbara, Inc. ................1 1 4
Mission Linen Supply .................................................................1 1 6
Chicken Little ...........................................................................1 1 8
Holiday Inn Express/Virginia Hotel ..............................................1 2 0
Hatch & Parent .........................................................................1 2 2
Tri-County Produce Company, Ltd. ...............................................1 2 4
Santa Barbara Iron & Metal Recyclers ..........................................1 2 6
Loreto Plaza .............................................................................1 2 8
Neo-Chase Restaurant & Lounge00 ...............................................1 3 0
Ingalls Plumbing & Mechanical
Ingalls Kitchen & Bath Works ...................................................1 3 1
Bartlett, Pringle & Wolf, LLP ......................................................1 3 2
Blue Agave Restaurant ................................................................1 3 3
Price, Postel & Parma, LLP .........................................................1 3 4
Jordano’s ..................................................................................1 3 5
SPECIAL
THANKS TO
Caldwell Pharmacy
✧
A GIFT OF PETER AND GERD JORDANA. COLLECTION OF THE SANTA BARBARA HISTORICAL MUSEUM.
T H E M A R K E T P L A C E
1 0 1

CAPPELLO
& NOËL LLP
TRIAL LAWYERS
✧
Right: A. Barry Cappello.
A. Barry Cappello founded the firm
now known as Cappello & Noël in 1977
in order to bring an indomitable business
litigation practice to the Santa Barbara legal
community. Until then, significant business
litigation matters were going to Los Angeles
firms. “No one in Santa Barbara was servicing
that kind of business, so I decided to build
the firm into a litigation powerhouse,”
Cappello explains.
To do so, Cappello concentrated the
firm’s practice on litigation and successfully
used the trial team concept to take on the
biggest corporations, banks and insurance
companies. Through the teamwork of
partners, associates and paralegals, the firm
has defeated some of the largest law firms in
the country.
Cappello pioneered the field of lender
liability. The firm is known for its ability
to prosecute lending institution misconduct
and fraud. It also uses its expertise to
successfully negotiate workout agreements
between borrowers and lenders. Cappello is the
author of the first and most definitive book
on the subject entitled, Lender Liability, (Juris
Publishing), which now is in its fourth edition.
After more than thirty years of jury verdicts
and settlements, exceeding $1 billion, against
some of the largest businesses in the country,
Cappello & Noël has earned a nationwide
reputation as the firm to use when litigating
against banks.
Cappello & Noël’s offices encompass virtually
the entire second floor of one of Santa Barbara’s
most historic structures, the Howard-Canfield
Building. Built more than a century ago by a
lawyer and a judge, the building has housed
lawyers and executives for most of its history.
The space was renovated and restored to its
former grandeur by Cappello.
Cappello & Noël is very active in supporting
community and charitable activities. The Legal
Aid Foundation of Santa Barbara is one of its
prime benefactors. A $1.25-million gift from
Cappello to the UCLA School of Law in 2007
created an endowment that supports teaching
and research within the school’s trial practice
and civil litigation programs, and the Law
School named its Trial Courtroom the A. Barry
Cappello Courtroom.
Cappello, the firm’s managing partner, is
recognized as one of the nation’s leading
trial lawyers and is an authority on complex
commercial litigation. Cappello continually
has been listed in “Best Lawyers in America”
and “Who’s Who in America.” He has been
named a “Super Lawyer” and is honored
by his peers as one of California’s Top
100 Trial Lawyers by the American Trial
Lawyers Association.
A fierce advocate for his clients, Cappello has
been described by California Lawyer magazine as
“Santa Barbara’s Resident Barracuda,” a
reputation Cappello does not dispute. Growing
up poor in Brooklyn, New York made him a
fighter, he says. Cappello’s interest in a career as
a trial lawyer peaked after reading about famed
trial lawyer Clarence Darrow and the Scopes
“monkey” trial. Cappello then participated in
competitive debating in high school and college,
an experience that helped cement his desire to
be a trial lawyer.
Cappello graduated from UCLA in 1962 and
the UCLA School of Law in 1965. Cappello
served as a deputy attorney general for the State
of California, assigned to the Special Trials and
Investigations Division. Thereafter, he was chief
trial deputy and assistant district attorney in the
Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s office.
Cappello has prosecuted numerous murder,
business crime, and major felony cases.
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
102

Cappello then served seven years as Santa
Barbara’s city attorney. He was the chief litigator
against the major oil companies for the massive
1969 Santa Barbara Channel oil spill. The case
settled in 1974 shortly before trial, for the then
massive sum of $9.45 million. Injunctions that
were imposed later stopped oil drilling. The
spill and the litigation sparked environmental
awareness worldwide. This resulted in the
formation of the Environmental Protection
Agency, and governmental agencies at all levels
began to require environmental impact reports
prior to commencing any project. Cappello also
was instrumental in the redevelopment of
downtown Santa Barbara, offering critical advice
regarding the creation of the Paseo Nuevo
outdoor shopping center and the cross-town
freeway. He advised the City Council on the
down-zoning of the entire city, which put the city
at the forefront of the ‘stop growth’ movement in
the country. The zoning changes implemented
under Cappello’s guidance lowered the
population limit and helped create Santa
Barbara’s beautiful setting today.
In 1977, Cappello joined attorneys Julian
Goux and Antonio Romasanta in private
practice in the Howard-Canfield Building
where Goux began the firm decades before.
Goux and Romasanta eventually retired and the
firm name changed to Cappello & Noël when
Leila J. Noël became a name partner.
Cappello has successfully tried jury trials in
excess of $300 million and negotiated over $1
billion in settlements for his clients. These
include a favorable $246-million asset buyout of
AllStar Inns, Inc. by Motel 6; a $70.8-million
verdict for an aircraft manufacturer against
General Electric Capital Corporation; a $54-
million jury verdict against a television producer
on behalf of a children’s book author; a $44-
million verdict for a family of apple farmers
against the Bank of America; a $44-million
judgment against employees of a local hedge
fund after they attempted to seize the business;
and a $12.5-million verdict for a furniture
manufacturer against Union Bank. Cappello
also successfully represented musician/actress
Courtney Love in a contract dispute with her
record company, Universal Music Group.
Cappello has been at the forefront of
numerous class and mass action cases, including
the firm’s representation of 175 victims of cancer
caused by pollution from a Boeing facility in Los
Angeles, which resulted in a multimillion dollar
settlement after eight and a half years of litigation.
Cappello also has handled several catastrophic
personal injury cases, including the wrongful
death of a four-and-a-half-year-old boy who
drowned at an exclusive local athletic club. The
jury returned a $16.2-million verdict, the largest
in Santa Barbara history for a case of its type.
Leila J. Noël joined the firm in 1986 and
became a partner in 1993. An integral part of
the firm, Noël has co-tried most of the firm’s
largest cases. Together with Cappello, Noël
ensures that the firm’s clients receive the best
possible legal representation. In a profession
✧
Left: Leila J. Noël.
Below: Cappello & Noël is headquartered in
the historic Howard-Canfield Building.
T H E M A R K E T P L A C E
1 0 3

✧
Above: Lender Liability, fourth edition.
“Lender Liability by Barry Cappello, one of
the greatest trial attorneys of our age, could
not come at a more auspicious moment.…In
the fourth edition of Lender Liability,
Barry Cappello provides an exhaustive,
authoritative and illuminating analysis of
the legal claims and theories that members
of the bar will work with for decades to
come.”—Michael Schill, dean and professor
of law, UCLA School of Law
where success is the result of precision and hard
work, Noël knows that details are critical.
Although outwardly low key, Noël is
tenacious in pursuit of her clients’ interests and
rights. “I have a reputation for being fierce,”
Cappello notes, “but she’s the one the
opposition needs to watch out for.” Noël, who
knew she wanted to be a lawyer since she was
eight years old, originally set her sights on a
career in politics. Growing up, Noël often
debated politics and world events, an interest
that led to several trips to Washington, D.C.,
including a stint working for her congressman.
That experience, and her “front-row” view of
the Senate Watergate hearings in the summer of
1974, firmly steered Noël toward a career
in law.
Noël attended the University of Edinburgh in
Scotland, and graduated with honors from the
University of California, Santa Barbara. She
received her law degree from the oldest law
school in the country, the Marshall-Wythe
School of Law at the College of William and
Mary in Virginia. After three years honing her
skills working with other attorneys in Santa
Barbara, Noël found the trial practice she
wanted to pursue and the firm she could help
continue to build.
Noël has successfully tried jury trials,
including business, lender liability and
employment cases, and has obtained jury
verdicts in excess of $125 million. These
include a $70.8-million verdict against General
Electric Capital Corporation; a $23.1-million
wrongful termination verdict against Johnson
Controls, Inc.; and a $16.2-million child
wrongful death verdict against an exclusive
local athletic club. Noël also has been co-lead
counsel in numerous class and mass action
cases that have resulted in tens of millions of
dollars in compensation to class members,
including the eight-and-a-half-year litigation
against Boeing for toxic air contamination.
Besides her trial work, Noël has successfully
completed numerous settlements on behalf of
the firm’s clients resulting in more than $75
million in loan discounts and cash payments.
Noël obtained $2 million in settlements for
medical product liability claims against an
orthopedics company, and she litigated and
negotiated a favorable $54.8-million buyout of
a multi-complex real estate subdivision.
Right: The partners of Cappello & Noël.
Front row (from left to right): Managing
Partner A. Barry Cappello and Partner
Leila J. Noël. Back row (from left to right):
Partners Dugan P. Kelley, Troy A.
Thielemann, and Matthew M. Clarke.
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
104

Other partners offer unique skills:
• Troy A. Thielemann joined Cappello & Noël
as an associate in 1996 and became a partner
in 2004. He heads the firm’s appellate/
research and writing department where he
is responsible for overseeing the preparation
of major written materials. Thielemann
received his B.A. in international relations/
economics from the University of Southern
California in 1990 and his law degree
from the McGeorge School of Law at the
University of the Pacific in 1994. Thielemann
has authored or co-authored numerous
articles including “Contract Wars” in the Los
Angeles Music Network, and “Challenging
the Practices of the Recording Industry” for
Los Angeles Lawyer.
• Matthew M. Clarke joined Cappello & Noël
in 2002 and became a partner in 2007.
Clarke received his B.S. from Williamette
University and his law degree from
Northwestern School of Law, Lewis & Clark
College in Oregon. In 2008 and 2009, Clarke
was selected a “California Super Lawyer
Rising Star,” recognized as the best attorneys
under age forty.
• Dugan P. Kelley joined Cappello & Noël in
2005 and became a partner in 2008. Kelley
received his B.A. from Carroll College and
his law degree from Regent University
School of Law in Virginia. In 2008 and
2009, Kelley was selected a “California
Super Lawyer Rising Star.”
The Howard-Canfield Building was
constructed in 1903 by Joseph Howard and
Robert Canfield, who served on the Board
of the First National Bank. Howard, an
entrepreneur and inventor, came to Santa
Barbara from Connecticut in 1872 and was a
well-known early developer in the city.
Canfield, a New Jersey native, came to Santa
Barbara in 1870 and is known for establishing
the first gas mains under parts of State Street
and developing the first gas lighting system in
the city. Canfield also was an attorney, and he
organized the first local Bar Association,
served as a city judge, and was president of
First National Bank for twenty-three years.
Howard and Canfield, who financed construction
of the building, hired John
Parkinson, a well-known architect
from Los Angeles, to design the
building. His design was in the Beaux
Arts classical mode, with projecting
cornice, balustrade and pedimented
entrance. Unfortunately, many of these
unique features were removed after
the 1925 earthquake which severely
damaged the building. Canfield, then
eighty-two years old, personally supervised
the reconstruction. Over the years, Goux,
Romasanta, Cappello and Noël all have
continued the tradition, along with many
other legal professionals, of working in this
special building.
For additional information about Cappello &
Noël, visit its website at www.cappellonoel.com.
❖
Top: The southwest corner of State Street
and Canon Perdido, c. 1885, before the
Howard-Canfield Building was erected.
Middle: The Howard-Canfield Building
shortly after it was erected, 1905.
Left: The Howard-Canfield Building, c. the
1930s. After the 1925 earthquake, the
cornice at the top of the building was
removed and a faux red tile roof
was installed.
T H E M A R K E T P L A C E
1 0 5

MICHAEL
TOWBES
THE TOWBES
GROUP
MONTECITO
BANK & TRUST
THE TOWBES
FOUNDATION
Renowned philanthropist, community leader
and business entrepreneur Michael Towbes has
made Santa Barbara his home for a half-century.
When he agreed to a celebration of his eightieth
birthday in 2009, it was solely on the condition
that it be a grand fundraising event to further the
renovation of State Street’s historic theater, The
Granada, home of the Santa Barbara Center for
the Performing Arts. His birthday gift was to
match funding for the amount raised at the
memorable affair. It was a stellar success and sold
out in less than one week, as friends clamored
for a seat to honor one of the city’s favorite
sons, a true Renaissance man who has always
been focused upon his beloved community.
Michael was born on July 17, 1929, in
Washington, D.C. His father was a law school
graduate and a real estate investor, owning
several apartment buildings in the city. Michael
graduated Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta
Kappa from Princeton University, where he also
served as editor of the Princeton Engineer.
He graduated in 1951 with a B.S.E. in civil
engineering and attended the graduate program
in structural engineering at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology from 1951 to 1952. He
began his military service in the Civil Engineer
Corps of the United States Navy in 1952 and
was honorably discharged with the rank of
Lieutenant (J.G.) in 1955.
It was during his Navy training after
Officer’s Candidate School that Michael first
visited southern California’s beautiful Pacific
Coast at the Point Mugu Naval Air Station.
He describes the event as ushering “a whole
new world” into his life. Here he met and
married Gail Aronson in 1954. Together,
they raised two daughters—Lianne, a
retailer, and Carrie, a clinical psychologist.
Upon his discharge from the Navy in
1955, the newlyweds settled in California,
and Michael worked as a project engineer at
the George A. Fuller Company. He remained
with the company until 1956, when a
fortuitous meeting with Eli Luria changed
the course of Michael Towbes’ life. Luria was
a graduate of UCLA and had become a
successful builder in the Washington, D.C.
area, but wanted to return to California. He
was also a friend of Michael’s parents, who
suggested the men meet.
An instant friendship flourished between
the two, and a partnership was formed in 1956
to begin building in West Los Angeles. Though
only one house was built on contract in that
first year, the men were not to be undone. They
purchased a small oceanfront tract in Redondo
Beach and constructed a small apartment
house. This was soon followed by two other
small apartment buildings.
In 1957 they received exciting information
that a former United States Army training center,
Camp Cooke, was being transferred to the
United States Air Force to become Vandenberg
Air Force Base, a space and ballistic missile test
facility. Anticipating a housing boom in the area,
the partners bought land in Lompoc and Santa
Maria and built hundreds of homes for new
families arriving in the area. It was during this
time of growth for the business that Michael and
Eli moved their families to Santa Barbara County.
And Michael’s lifelong love affair with the
serene, historic communities of Santa Barbara
has flourished ever since. The family settled
in Montecito in 1960, and his development
activities evolved eventually into The Towbes
Group, Inc., a diversified building and
development firm which develops, constructs,
and manages properties in Santa Barbara,
Ventura, and San Luis Obispo Counties.
The company also represents Michael’s most
expansive area of expertise, what he was
“trained to do.” He genuinely enjoys his daily
work as the company’s chairman and still abides
by his long-held belief that “if you can’t drive to
the location in an hour, you can’t watch it.”
“When Mike started in the home building
business, he concentrated on small apartment
communities,” explains Craig Zimmerman,
president of The Towbes Group. “He wanted
to develop investment properties and manage
those properties because he saw real strategic
benefits. He is passionate about the real estate
company and new development. He loves
taking a piece of land and analyzing the
strengths and opportunities and putting a
plan together.”
By creating value over a long period of
time, Michael managed to avoid the boomand-bust
aspects of the construction business
while acquiring real estate assets that would
grow and produce steady income.
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
106

Today, his apartment developments include
Encina Meadows, Pacific Oaks, Willow Springs,
and others. Among the many commercial
developments are Castilian Technical Center,
Riviera Park, the Calle Real Shopping Center,
Santa Barbara Business Park, and the
Storke/Hollister Research Center. Currently, The
Towbes Group manages approximately 2,000
residential units and more than 1.6 million
square feet of non-residential properties.
In 1975, Michael joined several businessmen
in a collective vision to create the Bank of
Montecito, a unique full-service institution now
known as Montecito Bank & Trust, with
branches located in Santa Barbara, Santa Ynez
Valley, Goleta, Montecito, Carpinteria, Ventura,
and Westlake Village. Since its inception, the
bank has experienced steady growth and
continues its increasing profitability and
supportive endeavors across the community.
Today, Michael is the sole owner of the bank and
remains its active chairman.
“This is a homegrown institution,” says the
bank’s President and Chief Executive Officer
Janet Garufis. “It was formed with the intent of
filling a need in the community and has always
been much more than just a place to make
deposits and get loans.”
Michael’s outstanding character and integrity
are among his most endearing qualities, and
they have served the bank well for many years.
Janet says, “His core values, those traits he has
held personally throughout his life, have greatly
infused the bank. He truly believes in the power
of relationships to create a successful business
climate, and he leads with a steady hand and a
proven, successful business model. These are
the values that are the key to our success and
the reason that we remain a major contributor
to all sectors of the community.”
When it was decided that the bank would
take on an even greater role in supporting the
community, it was restructured as an “S”
corporation to allow it to return more in actual
dollar contributions. From this were born
several unique ideas, including Community
Dividends ® , a program in which since 2003 the
bank has annually given back to the
community $1 million of its operating profits
to over 100 local nonprofit organizations
during a festive November luncheon, truly
Michael’s favorite day of the year. In addition,
Anniversary Grants SM are given during the
bank’s March celebration of its founding and
were created to allow bank associates to vote
for ten nonprofits to receive these monetary
grants. Michael does not cast a vote, so
associates can advocate for recipients while
learning about the expansive good works of
the local nonprofit community.
Michael assisted in forming the
Scholarship Foundation of Santa
Barbara—the largest of its kind in the
country and among the nation’s oldest—
which gave more than $7 million in
scholarships and loans to students in
2009. The bank also donates six
scholarships to worthy students every
year during a luncheon attended by
Michael, who speaks candidly to the
recipients about his hopes for their
future. As he inspires them to see the
importance of this tradition of giving
back to their own communities in the future,
he says, “We are counting on you to
remember this day, to remember that
someone has believed in you. When you are
in a position to do so, you can give back and
make it possible for another young person to
achieve their academic dreams.”
Yet for all of this success, Michael’s unique
mission in life remains in giving away his
time, his expertise, and his money—to the
community, to individuals and families, to
visionary students, the performing arts, for
medical research, education—and the list
seems without end. This is his “true joy,” the
one legacy he personally wants to leave for
future generations.
✧
Opposite, top: Originally named Bank of
Montecito, Montecito Bank & Trust first
opened its doors from a temporary trailer
on March 17, 1975, while the permanent
Montecito branch was under construction.
With an eye to establishing strong roots in
the Community, Michael Towbes and Pearl
Chase, a local pioneer of conservation,
preservation, social services and civic
planning, plant a tree in front of the Bank’s
future home.
Opposite, bottom: This 1921 Italianate-
Style building was acquired by Montecito
Bank & Trust in 1978 and restored to some
of its original ambiance. The building
frequently attracts admiring tourists and
serves as the Bank’s flagship branch.
Left: Now an annual Montecito Bank &
Trust tradition, Michael Towbes with
President and CEO Janet Garufis and Chief
Operating Officer and General Counsel
Robert Skinner at the November 2008
Community Dividends ® luncheon where
over one hundred nonprofits received their
Community Dividends award.
T H E M A R K E T P L A C E
1 0 7

✧
From top to bottom:
The April 2009, Sumida Garden Ribbon
Cutting with Michael Towbes, Goleta Mayor
Roger Aceves, and other members of the
Goleta City Council.
This special commemorative book, featuring
Michael and Anne Towbes in front of the
newly restored Granada Theatre, was filled
with celebration wishes to Michael on his
eightieth birthday. The July 2009 birthday
bash, an event nobody wished to miss and
one not soon forgotten, helped raise funds
for the Granada with almost seven hundred
people attending the elegant affair. Michael’s
birthday gift to the community: a matching
grant in which he and Anne personally
matched the proceeds from the
evening’s event.
Community Partners: President of The
Towbes Group, Inc., Craig Zimmerman,
Mayor of Goleta Roger Aceves, and Michael
Towbes at the State of Goleta Conference in
June 2009.
Thus, The Towbes Foundation was originally
founded in 1980 to award grants to locallybased
nonprofit organizations. After the passing
of his wife Gail in 1996, the giving only
intensified. Today, the far-reaching foundation is
characterized by philanthropic grants of nearly
$1 million annually.
Today, Michael remains focused, as he
continues to participate on numerous capital
campaign committees; serve on a variety of
boards, some for many years; and provide
business guidance for nonprofits throughout
the area.
He has been honored as the recipient of
many awards, including Santa Barbara’s “Man
of the Year” in 1995, the first-ever Lifetime
Achievement Award given by the Santa Barbara
News-Press, Santa Barbara’s Philanthropist of
the Year and Volunteer of the Year, and was a
2006 inductee into the California Building
Industry Association’s Hall of Fame.
Even now, Michael simply has no
desire to retire. He and his wife Anne
Smith were married at Lotusland, a
picturesque Montecito estate, in 2005.
Anne’s great generosity and her
deep commitment to the community
melded the couple together seamlessly,
and they work as a team to continue to
make a lasting difference in the lives of
those around them. Their storybook
romance also includes a shared love of
travel and ballroom dancing, both of
which culminated in dancing the
tango in Argentina!
Michael is also an ongoing
champion and advocate for affordable
housing. Recently, he unveiled
Sumida Gardens, an affordable
apartment complex in Goleta.
It is through these endeavors and with his
gracious philanthropic actions that Michael
Towbes has made an indelible mark upon Santa
Barbara and Ventura Counties and a variety
of groups, including the Jewish Federation,
Lobero Theater Foundation, Cottage Hospital
Foundation, Santa Barbara City College, and the
University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).
Friends often remark that he has “changed this
city…he is the essence of Santa Barbara.”
Michael Towbes, philanthropist and friend
to so many, is clearly leaving a legacy.
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
108

Churchill Jewelers, offering fine jewelry
and watches along with estate and antique
jewelry, has been a Santa Barbara institution
since 1918.
The business was founded by Roy P.
Churchill, a jeweler who moved from
Kentucky to California in the early twentieth
century. Times were tough during the early
years and Roy and his wife, Hallie, struggled
to keep the little business going. The
earthquake of 1925 caused serious damage to
their building and the Great Depression of
the 1930s nearly put them out of business.
During those slow days, Roy wrote short
stories for pulp magazines to help raise
money for the struggling business.
Churchill Jewelers survived the hard times
and had become a well established State
Street business when Dick Kern started
running errands for Roy Churchill. Dick was
called to action during World War II, but Roy
assured him he would have a job waiting for
him when he came home. He returned to his
job at Churchill Jewelers shortly before
Christmas 1945.
The founder died in the late 1940s
and Kern took over operation of the
store until 1950, when he purchased
the business from the Churchill
estate. At the time, Churchill Jewelers
was located on State Street where
Saks Fifth Avenue is now located.
About two years later, the store was
moved to its current location, 1015
State Street in the heart of the Santa
Barbara historic district.
Remembering his early days as an
owner, Kern notes that there was not
much merchandise available. “We got
through with the help of plenty of
watch, clock, and jewelry repairs, and
even sold Ronson lighters,” he said.
The business grew over the years,
regularly employing about half a dozen
people. Kern’s daughter, Lexi Kern
Hirst, joined the business in 1972 and
now serves as president. Although
semi-retired, Kern remains active in
the jewelry industry. He served three
years as president of the California
Jewelers Association and was on the
National Jewelers Board for six years. In
addition, he served twenty years as a board
member of the Jewelers’ Security Alliance.
Hirst organized a major renovation and
expansion of the jewelry store in 2004. During
the renovation, the shop moved to a temporary
location a few doors away.
Today, Churchill Jewelers
offers a breathtaking selection
of diamonds, watches, and fine
jewelry, including classic estate
items. A team of goldsmiths,
designers, gemologists, and sales
professionals are available to
help customers create beautiful
jewelry using their own ideas.
The staff is well qualified to
help you select the diamond
or gemstone for that ‘perfect’
piece of jewelry.
At Churchill Jewelers, the
integrity and high standards
for quality forged over more
than ninety years keep satisfied
customers returning.
CHURCHILL
JEWELERS
✧
Roy P. Churchill.
T H E M A R K E T P L A C E
1 0 9

OGILVY-HILL
INSURANCE
✧
The picture of Santa Barbara, which hangs
in our reception area, c. 1901.
Founded in 1888, Ogilvy-Hill Insurance
has enjoyed continuing steady growth through
wars, economic hardships, and enormous
changes in the insurance industry.
The agency was formed in the 1880s as
Santa Barbara boomed with the arrival of a
Southern Pacific Railroad branch that ended
dependence on Wells Fargo stagecoaches
and coastal steamers. Fire insurance became
increasingly important after California became
a state and newcomers began building with
wood instead of adobe clay. These newcomers
also brought modern—and hazardous—conveniences
such as kerosene lamps and wood
burning stoves.
Today, Ogilvy-Hill provides comprehensive
insurance, risk management, and employee
benefit services to middle market companies
and for individual’s personal insurance needs.
Services include risk identification and
assessment, insurance program design, placement
and administration, and premium
financing services, as well as risk management
and loss control consulting.
The history and growth of Ogilvy-Hill
parallels that of the Santa Barbara area and
the evolution of the insurance industry.
Arthur Alexander took over active management
of the company in 1901 and operated
the business until 1907, when A. P. Redington
became a partner and the name became
Alexander and Redington.
By the time America entered World War I
in 1917, Santa Barbara was abundantly
endowed with insurance companies and their
local representatives. Prominent among those
lists were Alexander and Redington. These
individuals represented more than a hundred
different companies, foreign and domestic,
and covered every conceivable risk, including
accident, boiler explosion, bonds, liability
coverage for dentists, physicians and druggists,
and many other risks. They also provided
employers’ liability, life insurance, surety
bonds, and workers’ compensation.
In 1922 the insurance firm of Alexander
and Redington merged with Gilbert and
Chase under the name Redington, Ogilvy and
Gilbert. When Spencer Morse arrived in
1936, Redington departed and the firm
became known as Ogilvy, Gilbert and Morse.
The locations of the firm changed over the
years, moving from the first office on Stearns
Wharf to the historic Fithian Building at State
and Ortega Streets in 1906 and from there to
State Street, where it was located during the
Great Santa Barbara Earthquake of 1925 and
as well as through the Great Depression. In
1936 the firm moved to a new address at 27
East Canon Perdido Street where it sold real
estate as well as insurance.
In 1962, OGN&H was located at 126 East
Carrillo and from this address the firm covered
loses on the Coyote Fire, the Harbor
Restaurant Fire, and the Sycamore Fire. The
firm moved to its present headquarters at 418
Chapala Street in 1983.
In 1952, James Norris joined Ogilvy,
Gilbert and Morse, which consisted of three
employees at the time. By the time Milton
Hill joined the firm in 1958, the number of
employees had increased considerably. Larry
Goodwin was employed by the firm in 1978
as a salesperson handling all life and medical
insurance. This move made the firm one of
the community’s few full-service agencies.
The name of the company was changed to
Ogilvy, Gilbert, Norris & Hill in 1962, with
Norris and Hill the active principals/owners
of the agency. When Governor Ronald Reagan
and Nancy purchased Rancho del Cielo
in the 1970s, Ogilvy, Gilbert, Norris & Hill
insured the property, later to be known as
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
110

the Western White House when Reagan
became President in 1981. In a speech to the
Independent Insurance Agents of America,
the President sent special greetings to
“my favorite insurance agent, Jim Norris,
who handles the coverage on all my Santa
Barbara property.”
Norris retired in 1988 and Hill retired in
2000. Christopher and Phillip Hill became
owners/principals of the agency in 1993.
Mark Shipp entered into the agency ownership
in 2000 and became the agency president
in 2006. Hill left the agency in 2006.
In the modern marketplace, Ogilvy-Hill
provides unique solutions to the complex
challenges of today’s business environment.
The firm provides clients the experience
and knowledge of 121 years, which allows
Ogilvy-Hill to bring a full range of resources
necessary to protect a company’s assets and
revenue streams.
✧
Above: Milton Hill and Jim Norris, c. 1957.
Left: “On the move” advertisement, 1983.
Below: The cover of the firm’s hundredth
anniversary brochure, c. 1988.
Around 2003, the agency’s name changed
once again, with a “dba” of Ogilvy-Hill
Insurance added to the OGNH Inc. name. The
agency continued its growth with the opening
of offices in Thousand Oaks and Oxnard.
The firm has maintained a belief in strong
community involvement throughout its history
and employees continue that tradition
today. Partners and members are active in
such organizations as Boy’s and Girl’s Clubs,
Rotary, Coalition to End Family Violence, Boy
Scouts of America, Chambers of Commerce
and many others. The agency was one of the
founders of the Better Business Bureau.
Ogilvy-Hill creates uniquely superior programs
with aggressive pricing models for a
wide range of industries, including agribusiness,
aviation, construction, gaming, green
industry, restaurants and hospitality, real
estate investment and management, manufacturing
and wholesales, and not-for-profits.
Ogilvy-Hill is constantly evolving and
adapting to assure it is prepared to meet
clients’ diverse and ever-changing financial
and insurance needs.
The mission of Ogilvy-Hill continues to be
to provide clients with exceptional customer
service based on a tradition of dedication and
trust that comes from more than a century
of experience.
T H E M A R K E T P L A C E
1 1 1

REETZ, FOX &
BARTLETT
LLP
Reetz, Fox & Bartlett LLP is one of Santa
Barbara’s premier real estate, business, and
estate planning law firms. The firm provides
high quality legal services with a focus on long
term attorney-client relationships. Located
at 116 East Sola Street in Santa Barbara,
California, Reetz, Fox & Bartlett LLP is an
easy walk to the county courthouse, financial
and banking entities, government services,
and Santa Barbara’s entertainment district.
Our history began in 1967 when Randall
Reetz moved to Santa Barbara following
his graduation from Dartmouth College and
Stanford University Law School to begin
practicing law with the firm of Cavaletto
Webster. Reetz later established his own firm
at 1226 Anacapa Street. Reetz’s desire to
provide practical advice to clients earned him
high regard in the community and among
local judges.
✧
Partners Terry A. Bartlett and
Randall Fox.
Reetz, Fox & Bartlett LLP professionals
excel in his or her practice area, focus intently
on the problem at hand, and keep the client’s
long term goals and strategies in perspective.
The firm’s relationship with its clients
typically spans a lifetime. Clients call on the
firm for all types of matters, great and small,
knowing the firm is available to provide
timely practical advice, in a way clients can
understand, and advocate effectively.
In 1978, Randall Fox joined Reetz as an
associate attorney. Fox brought strategic
thinking coupled with high-quality clientfocused
services to the practice. Reetz and
Fox worked well together, fusing practice
styles, and formed the law partnership of
Reetz & Fox in 1983.
Fox is a graduate of Kent State University
and Seattle University School of Law where
he served on the Moot Court Advocacy
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
112

Board. In 1980 he published an article
entitled “Equal Protection Analysis: Laurence
Tribe, The Middle Tier, and The Role of the
Court” identifying the U.S. Supreme Court’s
divergence from the two-tier standard of
review for equal protection cases in the
University of San Francisco Law Review.
Community involvement has been a
cornerstone of Fox’s career. He was an
instructor in real estate law at Santa Barbara
City College and has been a panel attorney
for the California Association of Realtors
since 1990. Fox has also been active in the
Santa Barbara County Bar Association as a
director and as chairman on the Section
of Business and Corporate Law. He has served
as a director of the Santa Barbara Chamber
of Commerce, a member of the Chancellor’s
Council at the University of California Santa
Barbara, a trustee and past chairman of
Laguna Blanca School, a director and past
chair of the Rehabilitation Institute at Santa
Barbara, and a director of the Goleta Valley
Chamber of Commerce. Fox currently serves
as a director of Zona Seca and Exploring
Solutions Past: The Maya Forest Alliance.
Fox specializes in real estate, land use,
and zoning law; business and corporate law;
estate planning/trust administration; and
complex litigation.
In 1988, Terry A. Bartlett, a native of Santa
Barbara and a graduate of the University
of California, Davis, and the University of
Pacific McGeorge School of Law, joined the
firm as a partner. She began practicing law in
1979 at a local firm started by Judge James
Patillo, and then spent several years as a
successful sole practitioner.
Bartlett is the daughter of Stanley U.
Bartlett, a founding partner of the area’s
largest CPA firm, and great-niece of Charles
Urton who, with insights from a book
on multistory construction, built his first
and Santa Barbara’s only skyscraper, the
Granada Building.
Bartlett is a recipient of the Oliver Award
for protection of property rights, and the
George Stevens Memorial Award. She served
on the Presiding Judge’s South Coast
Advisory Committee to the Superior Court in
1990, and has been a Superior Court
Settlement Master since 2002. Bartlett has
been an instructor in real estate law at
Santa Barbara City College, and is a panel
attorney for the California Association of
Realtors. She is a past member of the
Government Relations Committee of the
Santa Barbara Association of Realtors,
the Bank of Montecito Advisory Board, and
is an officer of the Santa Barbara Housing
Council. Bartlett is a past director of Santa
Barbara Associates, Santa Barbara Breast
Cancer Institute, Page Youth Center,
LifeChronicles and the Santa Barbara
Chamber of Commerce. She is currently
a director of the Goleta Valley Chamber
of Commerce.
Bartlett is recognized as a premier landlord-tenant
attorney in Santa Barbara County,
and specializes in real estate law, leases, rent
control issues, property management law,
self-storage facilities, mobile home parks,
land use/zoning law, and business and
administrative law.
The firm functions with the assistance
of two accomplished associate attorneys,
John H. Haan, Jr., a graduate of Pepperdine
University and Pepperdine University
School of Law, and Anna M. D’Alessandro,
a graduate of the University of California,
Irvine, and Western State University College
of Law. Technical expertise is provided by
three paralegals—Janet Swain, Sherry
Hughes Jones, and April Lavigne—who have
a combined thirty-two years experience. The
firm has had nine staff members leave to
attend law school who are now enjoying
success in the legal field.
Reetz, Fox & Bartlett LLP has a talented
team of lawyers and paralegals and
a solid book of clients who have long term
relationships with the firm. As with any
successful law firm, the practice shifts with
the needs of our clients and business cycles
over time. Whichever cycle is currently in
ascent, the attorneys at Reetz, Fox & Bartlett
LLP put clients first, take the time to
understand their long term objectives,
and deliver consistently sound legal advice
and assistance.
For more information about Reetz, Fox &
Bartlett LLP, please call 805-965-0523.
T H E M A R K E T P L A C E
1 1 3

BANKERS
MORTGAGE
REALTY
ADVISORS OF
SANTA BARBARA,
INC.
✧
Above: Site signage featuring the distinctive
“MacElhenny” orange, c. 1979.
Above, right: Bernard MacElhenny, Keith
Berry and Eric Lang, at the La Cumbre
Country Club.
Below: Bernard “Bernie” MacElhenny at the
historic East Beach, Santa Barbara,
c. 1940s.
Bankers Mortgage Realty Advisors of Santa
Barbara—also known as MacElhenny, Levy &
Co.—offers the services of a diversified real
estate company built on more than forty years
experience in development, sales, investing,
lending, and property management.
The organization was founded in 1963 by
Bernard “Bernie” MacElhenny and Jerome Levy,
a local flower grower and real estate lender.
MacElhenny, a Santa Barbara native, attended
San Jose State University where he took
real estate courses. He transferred to the
University of Santa Barbara, listed his
first home, and graduated.
MacElhenny purchased Russ Erickson
Real Estate and in 1964 established
MacElhenny, Small & Brown. The firm
started selling homes and represented
known developer Michael Towbes. The
company also built a ten-unit apartment
building in downtown Santa Barbara,
which was the first syndicated development
with Jerry Blue and Don Louie.
The firm was active in a number of
joint partnerships in the early days,
including more than a hundred syndicated
apartment buildings. Other projects included
Carrows Restaurants, Sambos Restaurants,
Motel 6’s, Burger Kings, and other properties.
The small real estate company grew to
over 1,000 salespersons and 30 offices
and was sold to Merrill Lynch, resulting
in major benefits to the company. The
principals then realigned into a smaller
operation, concentrating primarily on real
estate development. This resulted in the construction
and management of more than
5,000 apartments, hundreds of homes, and
many syndications.
MacElhenny, who has become a real estate
legend, says he has always remembered a
comment he picked up years ago, “The
tenants buy the home for you.”
“When you buy a rental, a duplex, a small
apartment or house, and rent it, the rents will
pay off the house in fifteen years or so,” he
explains. “Basically, they will pay you the rent
and you will pay the rent to the lender and
pay the house off. So, that’s a down payment
out of your pocket and then the tenant pays
off the house.”
MacElhenny is also fond of noting that,
“You’re worth tomorrow what you owe today.”
By this, he means that if you owe a million
dollars in real estate debt today, that million
dollars will be paid off in fifteen to twenty
years, and then will become part of your
personal net worth or retirement.
“We encourage our people to help
people,” MacElhenny says. “We have always
considered our real estate agents to be
economic missionaries to help that person
make the biggest investment of their life in
a home, duplex, or apartment building and
retire wealthy.”
Today, Bankers Mortgage and its affiliated
companies own and manage over 3,000 apartment
units throughout California and Arizona
and have completed projects totaling more than
$175 million in residential and $120 million
in commercial and industrial developments.
Some of the major projects developed by
Bankers Mortgage in Santa Barbara include La
Colina Village Apartments, El Mercado Shopping
Center (State Street), and Plaza Del Oro
Shopping Center (Hope and Hitchcock Avenue).
Other projects include Sunquest Apartments and
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
114

more than twelve hundred units in Tucson,
including Mission Park, Parkview, Blacklidge,
Columbus Terrace, and Desert Pines.
The firm developed Park Place Apartments in
Ventura, Walnut Grove in San Francisco, and
FHA projects in Sierra Vista and Tucson, Arizona.
Bankers Mortgage also manages Historic
Morton’s Warm Springs Resort, a twenty-acre
warm mineral springs resort in Sonoma County.
The beautiful, creek-side property offers picnic
and barbeque sites for up to 3,000 people, three
mineral swimming pools, a health camp, and a
wellness center. Currently in development are a
bed and breakfast and spa.
With regional U.S. offices in Santa Barbara,
Ventura, Sonoma, and in Tucson and Sierra
Vista, Arizona, the company’s emphasis is
on real estate development, property management,
and residential and commercial real
estate brokerage. Overseas transactions and
offices include locations in Italy, Hong Kong,
Canada, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The firm’s approximately three hundred
employees are located at company headquarters
in Santa Barbara, and at offices in Ventura/
Oxnard, Glen Ellen, Sonoma, and Tucson,
Arizona. Bernie MacElhenny’s son, Michael, is
the key individual in Tucson, where he handles
development activities that include senior
Alzheimer’s homes.
The firm’s areas of financial expertise
include loan syndication, loan brokerage,
tax basis investing, and private banking.
Bankers Mortgage also specializes
in development of Alzheimer’s care
facilities, senior housing, single family
residential, and apartments.
Business services provided by Bankers
Mortgage include general real estate
brokerage, and commercial and residential
development. MacElhenny views real estate
development as taking a piece of land and
creating a beautiful facility on it like an
artist. Developed projects continue to
serve seniors and the general public.
Currently, much of the firm’s emphasis
is on development of Alzheimer’s/assisted
living homes, senior apartments, and
wellness centers. The concept of wellness
facilities stems from the firm’s experience
with people over age sixty who require personal
attention after surgery and other health
challenges. We feel they should be maintained
in assisted facilities with appropriate services
that include healthy meals as well as holistic
exercise and treatments.
MacElhenny, his assistant Amy Joyce Barclay,
and members of his staff are active supporters of
Santa Barbara City College and also donate funds
to Sansum Medical Clinic and other local
organizations. MacElhenny recently donated a
building to Catholic Charities in the Virgin
Islands and is building a homeless center and
shelter/soup kitchen to provide basic meals for
poor and impoverished individuals. The firm also
provides various educational sponsorships and
supports artistic organizations in Santa Barbara
and Sonoma County.
“Our attitude has always been to sell people
a home that would improve their health and
improve their life,” says MacElhenny.
“Basically, if you purchase the right home, you
make the best investment of your life.”
✧
Above: El Mercado Shopping Center on
State Street in Santa Barbara. Current
company headquarters, originally built
in 1974.
Below: Bernard MacElhenny and Amy Joyce
Barclay at Bankers Mortgage Corporate
offices in Santa Barbara.
T H E M A R K E T P L A C E
1 1 5

MISSION
LINEN SUPPLY
✧
Above: A young George Benson Page.
Below: George Benson Page at work on a
Burbank, California, farm in 1920.
When George Benson Page left his
Tennessee home in 1919 to come west, he
dreamed of becoming a cowboy.
But instead of roping steers, Page ended
up putting his brand on a company that
has become one of the biggest laundry and
linen companies in the United States—Santa
Barbara’s Mission Linen Supply.
As a boy in Lebanon, Tennessee, Page
remembered watching with his friends a
silent movie starring cowboy Tom Mix and
his wonder horse Tony. “After that we said,
‘boy we’re going west to become cowboys’,”
Page remembered.
The sixteen-year-old Page hopped a freight
train west. He ended up in Los Angeles and
landed a job greasing cars. Later he oiled
equipment for Peerless Laundry. “That’s when
I got laundry in my blood,” said Page.
As the years passed, Page learned all about
the laundry business. When he heard in
the late 1920s about a small town up the
coast where the opportunities were better
than in Los Angeles, Page headed north to
Santa Barbara where he went to work for the
Troy Laundry. He ultimately convinced the
owner to let him fix up an old truck that was
rusting away and use it to solicit his own
customers on a straight commission basis. In
six months he had built the largest route in
the company.
At the end of the decade Wall Street
crashed, and the country was edging into a
lengthy depression. The twenty-six year old
bought a truck of his own with a low down
payment and formed his business, Mission
Linen & Towel.
Page started supplying towels to
Easterners who vacationed in Montecito. He
rustled up much of his business in a red
barn next to the Biltmore Hotel, where
servants of the well-to-do gathered once
a week.
“I’d go out there on Saturday nights to the
dances, and I got to know all the servants,”
he said. “Through them I built up a big
laundry route in a short time.” Maids,
chauffeurs, and groundskeepers became the
young entrepreneur’s friends. They worked
for people like Mrs. Pillsbury, Mrs. Norton,
and the Fleischman family, and they referred
their employers’ business to Page.
“One of the biggest accounts I had was
with the McCormicks of the McCormick
Implement Company,” said Page. The
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
116

company was founded on Cyrus
McCormick’s grain reaper, which he began
manufacturing in Chicago in 1847. The
Chicago family vacationed in Santa Barbara
during their summers. Their estate had
forty-six gardeners and five chauffeurs,
and Page supplied them all with overalls
and uniforms.
Page ran his business from a plant
operated by Troy Laundry. He delivered
linens and towels during the day and leased
Troy’s plant and equipment at night to do his
laundering and pressing. After a few months
of sixteen-hour days, Page purchased Troy
Laundry, and a year later he built an addition
to the plant.
An early episode illustrates the industry
that was typical of Page’s. Colonel “Max”
Fleischmann, of the Fleischmann yeast and
liquor fortune, often anchored his yacht
Haida off of Santa Barbara. Trucks from all of
the local laundries were lined up at the
wharf, hoping to get their share of the
laundry on board. On one such occasion
Benson Page rowed out to meet the Haida
before it arrived at the anchorage. The
captain of the Haida was so surprised to
see Page in that little rowboat that he
invited him on board; and when Haida
finally anchored off Santa Barbara, the
local competition was surprised to learn
that Ben Page had already negotiated
arrangements to handle all of the ship’s
laundry requirements.
In the beginning, wealthy homeowners,
barbers and butchers provided the bulk
of Mission Linen’s business; but the repeal
of Prohibition in 1933 increased business
at hotels, bars and restaurants, which
soon became a large part of the growing
company’s business.
In 1936, Page expanded into San Luis
Obispo; and in the 1940s, Salinas, Modesto,
Monterey, Santa Cruz, Bakersfield and
Ventura became part of Mission Linen’s
growing network.
One associate said Page “is more than a
character. He is an old-time Southern
gentleman,” said Richard Feldman, who
runs a used laundry equipment business in
Los Angeles.
“He put me in business,” said Feldman.
Page encouraged Feldman to start his own
company and paid his telephone bills for the
first six months of operation. “He did that for
a lot of people, and that’s rare,” said Feldman.
Page’s formula for success was simple
enough: “Surround yourself with good
people, treat them well, and never
overextend yourself financially.”
Linda Page, who serves as chairman of the
company’s board of directors, observed how
times have changed since her father first
established his small laundry service.
Advances in technology, environmental
awareness, and the changing economic
environment have had an impact on the
business, but the principles that propelled
George Benson Page’s success are still thriving
today. These principles remain the
cornerstone of Mission Linen Supply’s
continued growth and success. “One of Dad’s
favorite sayings was, ‘The harder you work,
the luckier you become,’” recalls Linda Page.
“We still believe that to be true,” she added
with her perpetual smile.
✧
Troy Laundry and Mission Linen Supply
712 East Montecito Street, August 10,
1932. George Benson Page can be seen in
the center of the photo, standing in the back
row, immediately to the right of the Troy
Laundry truck.
T H E M A R K E T P L A C E
1 1 7

CHICKEN LITTLE
A TRIBUTE TO
PAULA C. BOUMA
✧
Above: Paula Bouma at her daughter
Jennifer’s wedding 2006.
Top, right: Chicken Lips, 1979.
Paula C. Bouma was born April 12, 1949,
one of five children in a close-knit family.
Paula’s father was a career Army officer, which
meant the family moved every couple of
years. They lived in various states, including
Alaska, and spent a couple of years in
Germany. Stories of the family travels, with
five kids and their mother driving across
country and throughout Europe are legendary.
In 1969, Paula decided to enroll at the
University of California at Santa Barbara to
study sociology. Her goals, like those of so
many other young people at the time, were
to help people after her graduation. While at
UCSB, Paula met Rich Bouma, who was to
become her husband and the love of her life.
They married in 1972 and settled down in
Santa Barbara. Paula loved to travel and
in 1973 she and Rich spent nine months in
Europe and North Africa, seeing new places
and meeting new people.
Upon their return to Santa Barbara, Rich
began a career in financial management
for the City of Santa Barbara and Paula tried
various jobs, none of which met her idea of a
career. It was only after the birth of their first
child, Jennifer that the idea for a children’s
store sprang forth in Paula. She and a friend
went to garage sales and other outlets for used
children’s products and started filling their
own garages. In 1979 a small retail store
called Chicken Lips was opened in Santa
Barbara featuring used and like-new children’s
products. Paula had found her vocation, life’s
work, love and opportunity to meet and help
members of the Santa Barbara community
with their baby’s needs. Paula soon bought
out her partner, changed the name of the
store to Chicken Little, and became a true
entrepreneur. Shortly thereafter, she moved
her little store to a much larger location close
to Santa Barbara’s central business district.
Paula took Chicken Little to a new level.
She slowly phased out the used products
in favor of more traditional new products.
She began searching the country, going to
trade shows in New York, Texas, Florida and
throughout California, looking for those
unique products her customer’s favored.
First and foremost, Paula was a people
person and solicited input from her
customers on products, and their likes and
needs on everything having to do with
babies and children. She also met and talked
with manufacturers of children’s products,
bringing their needs and expertise into the
communication process. Following the birth
of her second child, Gregory, the Santa
Barbara News Press featured articles on Paula
and Chicken Little with one showing a photo
of little Gregory in a playpen at the store while
Paula worked in the background.
Paula had one more important move in
mind for Chicken Little and, in 1992; she
moved the store to a much larger location on
State Street right in the central downtown
business district. Although the new store was
much larger and gave her the opportunity
to show and offer an even wider array of
products, she continued to personally select
each item for the store and continually sought
input from her customers.
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
118

She also continued to innovate and, after a
great deal of work, brought breast pump
rentals to the store from the premier breast
pump manufacturer in the country. Previously,
the manufacturer had worked only with
healthcare providers and Chicken Little
became the first retail store in the country to
rent the pumps.
At least one large company was actually
started as a result of talks with Paula and
continues in business to this day. Most
importantly, Paula never forgot her customers
in Santa Barbara. She loved ‘working the floor’
of Chicken Little where she could talk to as
many people as possible and explain how a
product worked and what made it special
enough to be in Chicken Little. She felt,
especially with new moms, that many
customers needed to be told what to buy,
rather than letting them make their own
decisions. She brought her thirty years
experience in the field, her life-long
communications skills and love of people to
the floor of Chicken Little each day. After
almost thirty years of doing business in Santa
Barbara, Chicken Little now serves some of the
children of parents who were early customers.
The last weekend of Paula’s life exemplified
the way she lived. She and Rich were in San
Francisco following a business meeting in
northern California. She insisted on going
to lunch at a particular restaurant simply
because she had met the owner while seated
next to her on a recent plane flight. Later that
evening, she and Rich had dinner with the
owner of a children’s store in the bay area and,
of course, talked business, family, travel and
mutual friends. Paula touched lives very
personally wherever she went. She died very
unexpectedly of a cerebral aneurism shortly
after her return to Santa Barbara the next day.
Chicken Little continues today in Paula
and Richard’s memory, with daughter Jennifer
managing the store, son Gregory handling
Internet business, and financial matters.
Chicken Little is located at 1236 State
Street in Santa Barbara and on the Internet at
www.chickenlittlekids.com.
- From your loving husband Richard.
✧
Above: Chicken Little, present day.
Below: Paula enjoying her time in Mexico.
T H E M A R K E T P L A C E
1 1 9

HOLIDAY INN
EXPRESS/
VIRGINIA
HOTEL
The Virginia Hotel attracted its first visitors
to Santa Barbara nearly a century ago and
served for many years as one of the city’s
most popular hotels. However, the proud old
Spanish Colonial structure had fallen on
hard times when Marc and Laurie Recordon
bought it in 1998.
The Recordons, a husband and wife team
who have been in the real estate investment
business more than thirty-five years, carefully
and lovingly restored the old hotel to its
original grandeur. Now operated as a Holiday
Inn Express, the venerable Virginia Hotel is
once again one of Santa Barbara’s most
fashionable hotels.
The Virginia Hotel at 17 West Haley Street
was built in 1916 by Charles Maas as a twostory
brick hotel. A third-story
addition was added in 1925. At
the time, Haley was a residential
street of small redwood homes
set on large lots. The hotel, just
off State Street, Santa Barbara’s
primary commercial street,
marked the entry of commercial
buildings on Haley Street.
In 1922, Freas Hayman
demolished his Haley Street
home and constructed a three-story hotel
adjacent to the Virginia Hotel. Although
separate buildings, the hotels were linked
on the upper floors and functioned as a
single unit.
A major earthquake in 1925 damaged
both buildings and Maas and Hayman
hired Los Angeles architect C. K. Denman to
assist with the repairs. His Spanish Colonial
Revival design unified the facades of the
two buildings, while maintaining separate
identities through the use of different
window treatments on the upper floors
and spacing and style of openings on the
ground floor.
The architect’s use of the Spanish Colonial
Revival style was applauded by City officials
who were looking for ways to create an image
for Santa Barbara as a romantic Spanish town.
In its early years, the hotel catered to
travelers and visitors who came for business,
relaxation, and the so-called healing waters of
Santa Barbara’s spas. The Lockheed Aircraft
Company was located on lower State Street,
helping to attract business travelers; and the
American Film Company’s Flying A Studios,
the world’s largest motion picture studio at
the time, attracted a colorful clientele.
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
120

In recent years, however, the Virginia Hotel
fell into disrepair and there was even talk
of razing the historic old structure. Then, in
1998, Marc and Laurie Recordon purchased
the building with the intention of restoring
the old hotel to its former elegance.
“It was really dilapidated,” Marc recalls.
“It was an old single-room occupancy type
of hotel where guests had to share common
bathrooms. We had to gut it completely.”
Relying on their successful thirty-five
year career in real estate development, the
Recordons began a year-long remodeling
of the hotel in January 1998. A contractor
from Ventura, HMH Construction, helped
with the construction, and financial
backing was supplied by Somera Capital
Management, a boutique real estate
investment firm founded in 1994 to invest
in well-located properties with sound
physical and economic fundamentals.
The extensive $5-million renovation
included an earthquake retrofit to ensure
the highest safety standards, along with
the addition of modern comforts. “We
went in and gutted the rooms, then took
all the paint off so it exposed the original
brick,” Marc explains.
Great care was taken to preserve
architectural elements of the original 1916
building, including original brick walls,
French windows with wrought-iron railings,
the lobby entrance, and columns.
The Recordons brought in Courtland Dane
Management Co. to operate the hotel as a
Holiday Inn Express, and the proud old hotel
reopened to the public in January 1999. “It was
the most highly occupied hotel from the first
year we opened it, and it still is,” says Marc.
Marc credits the hotel’s manager, Kay
Morter, for much of the hotel’s success,
including its high occupancy rate, “She’s been
the manager since day one and has done just
an incredible job.”
A second renovation of the rooms’
furnishings was completed in January 2005 to
maintain the high quality and amenities
expected by today’s guests.
Thanks to the Recordons’ efforts, the
Holiday Inn Express/Virginia Hotel has been
listed on the National Register of Historic
Places. The careful restoration of the hotel’s
façade earned the property a “Santa Barbara
Beautiful” award.
As visitors walk through the doors into the
lobby and gaze at the lovely tile fountain, they
are reminded of the thousands of visitors
through the years who came to relax or do
business with the nearby companies and
movie studios.
While preserving the historic elements of
the building and era, the Holiday Inn
Express/Virginia Hotel offers sixty-one
distinctively styled rooms set with all the
amenities and conveniences of a modern hotel.
Throughout the hotel, guests
will find fabulous replicas of
Malibu and Catalina tile work in
murals and the spectacular mosaic
lobby fountain, along with classic
touches of California Spanish
Revival architecture.
The spacious second-level
outdoor balcony entices guests to
relax while enjoying spectacular
views of the Santa Barbara Riviera.
Now restored to its former
elegance by Marc and Laurie
Recordon, the Holiday Inn Express/
Virginia Hotel is the perfect location
for business or pleasure.
T H E M A R K E T P L A C E
1 2 1

HATCH &
PARENT
✧
Hatch & Parent founders Stanley C. Hatch
and Gerald B. Parent with Nancy Lohrke
Meeker, the firm’s first office administrator.
The law firm of Hatch & Parent had its
beginnings in January 1968, when Stanley C.
Hatch and Gerald B. Parent formed the firm.
Hatch had gained a reputation for having
successfully litigated a landmark case
involving the removal of hundreds of
billboards from Santa Barbara County. Parent
was a general practitioner and had been
involved in a wide variety of cases.
At the time of formation, the firm opened
its offices on the ground floor of the two-story
adobe at 21 East Carrillo Street adjacent to the
Santa Barbara Foundation adobe, which
dated from the 1860s and had served as
the first courthouse for the county when
California became a state. It was rebuilt in
1924 and survived the 1925 earthquake.
Although renovated for modern offices, the
partners kept the large adobe working
fireplaces. Over the years the firm grew and
took over the entire building.
The two partners shared a strong interest
in providing legal services to the poor. Hatch
was one of the original founders and first
president of the Santa Barbara Barrister’s
Club. Parent became president of the Santa
Barbara County Bar Association in 1978 and
served on the board and as chair of the Legal
Aid Society for many years, an organization
the firm supported financially throughout its
existence. He served as its chair in 1982.
The partners were also community activists.
While Parent served as a board member and
president of St. Vincent’s School, Catholic
Social Services, the Scholarship Foundation of
Santa Barbara, and the Santa Barbara Museum
of Art, Hatch was serving on the board of the
Santa Barbara Chamber of Commerce, and as
chair of the board of the Fielding Graduate
University and Direct Relief International.
H&P started small with the two partners
and started adding associates. In the 1970s,
S. Timothy Buynak, Susan F. Petrovich, and
Peter N. Brown joined the firm. Shortly
thereafter Stanley M. Roden, who had been the
elected district attorney for Santa Barbara
County, was added to the list, followed closely
by Scott S. Slater and Steven A. Amerikaner,
who had served as Santa Barbara’s city attorney.
All became partners. Petrovich was the first
woman partner to be named to any major
Santa Barbara law firm. In the 1980s and early
1990s, Gary Kvistad, Rob Saperstein, George
Short, and Chris Jacobs became partners.
By the turn of the century H&P had
become Santa Barbara's largest law firm, with
two offices in Santa Barbara (the second office
was at 1020 State Street), and other offices
in San Diego, Los Angeles, Sacramento and
Lake Tahoe. By 2002 it had over 45 attorneys
and over 110 total employees throughout the
state. It was unique in having a statewide
practice while its main offices were located
in Santa Barbara. H&P was one of the first
law firms in the United States to have
computers on every employee’s desk,
including the attorneys.
During his career, Hatch, who was a
graduate of the Harvard Law School, handled
many high profile cases regarding water rights
and land use. In 1969, Hatch established
watershed of origin priority for his clients in
the Santa Ynez Valley in a landmark case
involving the Cachuma Project. He obtained
the permits, which kept the Santa Barbara
Polo Club from being turned into a trailer
park. He served as general counsel to the
Center for the Study of Democratic
Institutions under the late Robert M. Hutchins
during its peak years in Santa Barbara.
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
122

Parent, a graduate of Hastings College of
Law, was involved in many interesting court
and jury trials, business transactions, estate
contests, and administrative hearings. He
represented the late, well-known local artist
Channing Peake in a dispute with the Marriott
family over a mural he painted for the
Biltmore Hotel. Mrs. Marriott did not like it.
The resulting trial, which was attended by
many California artists, resulted in a
determination that, while the hotel owners
had the right to display whatever they wanted
regardless of quality, Peake must be paid his
commission and was given the right to
remove the mural.
Parent also represented the Rezzonico
family in contentious hearings before the Santa
Barbara City Council relating to the popular
Harbor restaurant on Stearns Wharf, which
had been built and operated by the Castagnola
family for many years. Intriguingly, before a
new lease could be awarded, the restaurant
mysteriously burned to the water line in a
spectacular nighttime fire that lit up the city.
When the city later rebuilt the restaurant,
without any of its former character, it was again
offered for lease, neither the Rezzonico family
nor the Castagnola family submitted bids.
Another partner, Stanley Roden filed
and won one of the earliest cases against
the Catholic Church involving sexual abuse
by priests.
Over the years, H&P became a statewide
firm, well known in the area of water law. It
had governmental clients from all over
California. Hatch was instrumental in forming
the Central Coast Water Authority and, as
General Counsel, the firm handled all the
legal work relating to the environmental
permitting, rights-of-way and construction of
the over $600-million Coastal Aqueduct,
which brought State Project Water from
Northern California into Santa Barbara
County. While president of the State Water
Contractors Association in Sacramento, Hatch
was the lead negotiator in contract
amendments designed to reduce State Water
Project costs to urban water users throughout
California by over $1.5 billion.
In the 1990s, Scott Slater, another partner,
handled a complex, $5-billion water transfer
of Colorado River Water from interests in the
Imperial Valley to the San Diego County
Water Authority, the largest such water
transfer in the history of the United States.
In 2008 the law firm of Hatch and Parent
strategically merged with the Denver based
law firm of Brownstein Farber Hyatt Schreck,
a 250-attorney firm with offices in Colorado,
New Mexico, Nevada, and Washington, D.C.,
expanding the scope and influence of the
firm’s water practice throughout the United
States, while continuing the traditions it has
established in the Santa Barbara community.
✧
The adobe Law Offices of Hatch & Parent
at 21 East Carrillo Street in Santa
Barbara, California.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF JOYCE WILSON.
T H E M A R K E T P L A C E
1 2 3

✧
TRI-COUNTY
PRODUCE
COMPANY, LTD.
Above: Tri-County Produce in 1950.
Below: Roke Fukumura.
Tri-County Produce is famous throughout
the area for the freshest and best quality
produce and natural foods, meat and seafood.
Tri-County’s retail outlet at 335 South Milpas
is known as ‘Santa Barbara’s Farmer’s Market’
and the firm’s wholesale operation supplies
restaurants and groceries throughout the
three county area.
The building where Tri-County Produce is
located was built in 1950 for Harry Bowman,
who operated a produce business in Santa
Barbara. For years, Harry Bowman Produce
distributed wholesale produce to restaurants,
schools and stores. The business was
wholesale only and not open to the public.
In 1966, Virgil Elliot and his wife, Marie,
purchased the business from Bowman and
renamed it Tri-County Produce. Virgil and
Marie continued as a wholesale operation,
delivering fresh produce to restaurants,
schools, and retail stores in Santa Barbara, San
Luis Obispo, and Ventura.
In the mid-1970s, several of Marie’s friends
asked if they could purchase fresh produce
at Tri-County because they were tired of
the poor quality and high prices at their
local supermarkets. The business was not
really set up to allow the purchase of small
quantities of produce, but Virgil reluctantly
agreed to allow some of Marie’s friends to
come in at specified times.
The friends were so satisfied with the fresh
produce that they began telling their friends
about the market. Soon, encouraged by their
friends excitement, Virgil and Marie decided
to open Tri-County Produce to the public.
By 1985, Virgil and Marie were ready to
retire and Jim Dixon and his son, John,
purchased the business.
Jim was born in Ontario, Canada, and
raised on his father’s farm. The farm
specialized in growing fresh corn, potatoes
and other produce and Jim helped pick corn
all day, load the wagons, and then hitch them
to a team of horses for the eighty-eight mile
round-trip to the Hamilton produce market.
Jim began his career in the grocery
business at seventeen and was a produce
manager and supervisor until relocating with
his family in 1962 and becoming produce
buyer for a chain of fifty-one supermarkets in
Northern California. In 1969, Jim settled his
family in Santa Barbara when he became
general manager and produce buyer for
Jordanos wholesale produce.
John Dixon started his career in the
grocery-food business at fifteen as a bagger for
Smith’s Food King while in high school. He
later attended Santa Barbara City College and
worked full time for Jordanos until 1985
when he and his father took ownership of
Tri-County Produce.
Tri-County Produce makes it a point to
buy from local farmers, but also offers products
year round that are not always available
locally. Tri-County is known not only for
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
124

offering the freshest, best quality produce, but
at prices lower than supermarkets and the
local farmers market.
One of Tri-County’s most popular items is
the daily fresh-squeezed orange juice. In
addition, Tri-County makes fresh daily carrot
juice, wheat grass juice, lemonade—the old
fashioned way—and SportTea.
When they took over the company in
1985, Jim and John offered mostly fresh
produce, but, in response to customer
requests, the market now offers bakery
products delivered daily from many local
bakers such as Our Daily Bread, fresh meat
from local Shalhoob Meats, and fresh fish
locally from Harbor Seafood.
Tri-County Produce has become very well
known for its wine department which stocks
more than five hundred local and international
wines. In addition to the extensive selection of
natural foods, Tri-County also offers beer, bulk
foods, vitamins and unique specialty gourmet
items not found elsewhere.
Tri-County’s 35 employees serve an
estimated 700 to 1,000 customers daily, seven
days a week. Among the company’s long-time
employees is Roke Fukumura, who was born
in Santa Barbara in 1922. He began working
for Harry Bowman Produce in 1950 and after
Bowman passed away, Roke ran the operation
until it was sold to the Elliots in 1966. He left
in 1972 to work as produce buyer for Santa
Cruz Markets. In 1976, at the request of Jim,
Roke became the produce buyer for Jordanos.
He retired from Jordanos in 1991 and began
working for Tri-County Produce where he
remains at the age of eighty-six.
John has been very active in the
community, serving on nonprofit boards
for the Santa Barbara Police Activities League
since 1999, and Casa Esperanza homeless
shelter. He has also been a great contributor to
many other local charities and youth activities.
Jim’s now famous motto, “If it’s any fresher,
it’s still in the fields,” typifies the company’s
commitment to quality. His goal has always
remained the same: to make sure that his
customers receive the freshest, best quality
produce direct from the farmers just as he
provided as a young boy, helping his father
take farm fresh commodities direct to market.
Together, Jim and John have successfully
grown Tri-County Produce to be a well
established local Santa Barbara business with a
great reputation for quality, value, and service.
For daily specials and other information
about Tri-County Produce, please visit
www.tricountyproduce.com.
✧
Above: Tri-County Produce today.
Below: Jim Dixon and his son, John.
T H E M A R K E T P L A C E
1 2 5

SANTA BARBARA
IRON & METAL
RECYCLERS
✧
Right: Sarah and Christina Silvas. Fiesta
season, Santa Barbara.
Below: After four years of saving aluminum
cans, Brian Borgatello sold 2,000 pounds of
them to Santa Barbara Iron & Metal
Recyclers for $534.
PHOTO COURTESY OF MARK STEPHENSON, NEWS-PRESS.
Opposite, top: Raymond holding Sarah, Ron
Beltran, Jr., and Ron Beltran, Sr. c. 1993.
Opposite, center: Brian, Raymond, Bob
McNall getting a look at a boat which
washed onshore during a winter storm
in 2005.
Opposite, bottom: Two trucks loaded for
delivery to Oxnard Metal Company.
Starting in 1979 with only a small pick-up
truck and a “can-do” spirit, Ron Beltran and
his family have built Santa Barbara Iron &
Metal Recyclers into one of the most respected
recycling firms in the area.
Ralph Beltran, a brother who owned
Oxnard Metal Company in Oxnard,
California, was looking for a “feeder yard”
to improve business. He looked north and
settled on Santa Barbara. He saw it as a way
to capture materials on the way to the Los
Angeles market.
Fortunately for the Beltrans, Reeds
Scrap Metal Company was closed due
to its proximity to downtown Santa
Barbara. That really gave the new
company a great start.
The firm now recycles metal resources
from aluminum to zinc, as well as
California Redemption Value items: glass
bottles, plastics, and aluminum cans.
Local manufacturing plants are served
with container and pick-up services.
Santa Barbara Iron & Metal has always
been very much a family undertaking
and, in the early days, most of the work
was performed by Ron and his wife,
Donna; their sons James and Ronald and
daughter Dolores and husband, Raymond
Silvas. Special friends Jack Slason, Mario
and Brian Borgetello, John Brigante,
John Malone, and Dwayne Middleton
were also instrumental in the growth of
the business.
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
126

Beltran also credits his CPA, Tom Sever,
with “helping keep us above water during
the financial struggles of an up-and-down
economy.” The firm went from a first year’s
loss of $18,000 to current annual revenues in
the millions.
“The growth of the company has been
due to our can-do spirit,” explains Beltran.
“We’ve helped a lot of companies and
individuals with our clean-up and
demolition services. Among the companies
was the old Delco plant on North Hollister in
Goleta, as well as Anderson Systems
and Raytheon.
“That single pick-up truck of 1979 has
grown to a large fleet of specialized equipment,
including three large International
trucks, GMC and Ford pickups, two
Caterpillar forklifts, five compactors, and
“a ton of tools.”
Santa Barbara Iron & Metal’s original
location was 718 East Haley Street, and
then moved to 118 North Salsipuedes. The
company put up a great building with the
help of Slason and a good bunch of friends,
including Gene Winkler.
Unfortunately, the company was displaced
by the new freeway which removed the stop
lights on the 101. This required a move to
727 East Mason Street, which was outgrown
in a short span. We then moved to our
present location at 709 East Gutierrez, which
ended up being a ‘stone’s throw’ from our
birthplace on Haley.
We are fortunate to be able to lease
from Slason’s daughter, Marsha Messmore.
Through all these moves the company has
been able to maintain its original phone
number, 805-966-4466.
The company and family members have
been active in community activities,
contributing to the Community Action
Commission, Santa Barbara Rescue Mission,
local schools, Carpinteria Boys & Girls
Clubs, and many other organizations.
Looking to the future, Beltran feels Santa
Barbara Iron & Metal Recyclers will continue
to be successful so long as it maintains
its ‘can-do’ attitude and provides customers
“with a good financial return for their
scrap metals.”
T H E M A R K E T P L A C E
1 2 7

LORETO PLAZA
✧
Above: The lemon orchard, 1954, now
Loreto Plaza.
Below: Loreto Plaza as remodeled, 2008.
The remodel project was through J. W.
Bailey Construction Company and Richard
Six of Lenvik & Minor Architects.
About fifty miles north of Rome, Italy, is a
hilltop town now called Narni. The town is
older than Rome and was called Narnia in
Roman times. From Narnia came a Roman
Emperor named Marcus Cocceius Nerva, who
died in 98 A.D. The founder of Loreto Plaza,
Emil DeLoreto, also hails from Narni, having
been born there in 1882.
Emil DeLoreto’s father was in the livery
business and he grew up with horses. At
sixteen years of age, Emil learned to be
a butcher and, two years later, moved to
Rome to practice his trade. In June 1904, at
the age of twenty-one, he immigrated to
New York.
His first employment was in Hartford,
Connecticut, and by 1906 he had the largest
meat market in Meriden, Connecticut.
In 1909, Emil became one of the first
persons in town to own an automobile when
he traveled to Boston to purchase a Rambler
made by the Jeffery Automobile Company.
Later, he took a young lady named Elizabeth
Meade for a ride in the vehicle. They were
soon married and had three children—Emil,
Jr. in 1910, Lillis in 1914, and James in 1916.
In 1923, Emil became president of the
Hartford Provision Company, a meat
processing plant which included an abattoir.
The plant, located near the Connecticut River,
survived both the Great Depression and two
floods. The river overflowed in 1936 and
again in 1938, following a hurricane, but Emil
survived these catastrophes.
Emil retired in 1946 and visited California.
A trip to Santa Barbara made him realize that
the city had many similarities to his
hometown of Narni in Italy. He purchased a
four-and-a-half acre lemon ranch at 3315
Hollister Avenue mainly because it had a large
house on it. Shortly thereafter, the entire
family moved to Santa Barbara. In 1948, Emil
purchased an adjoining four-and-a-half acre
lemon ranch at 3301 Hollister Avenue.
The lemon orchard had a most unusual
visitor in 1956, a young black bear. The bear
was quickly escorted away by police and
returned to the mountains.
The first commercial project on the
property, preceding the beginning of Loreto
Plaza, was a Standard Oil lease for a Chevron
station at 3301 State Street. It opened in 1958
and occupied the space for twenty years.
In 1959 negotiations were started for an
A&P Supermarket in what is now Loreto
Plaza. At that time, A&P (the Great Atlantic &
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
128

Pacific Tea Company) had more than five
thousand stores in the United States. The
A&P Supermarket opened on February 3,
1960, with then-Mayor Edward L. Abbott
presiding at the official ribbon cutting.
A&P closed all its markets on the west
coast in 1969 and it was succeeded by
E. F. McDonald Shopping Bag of Dayton,
Ohio, which remained until 1972. Fazio of
Cleveland then became a tenant until
1978 when Albertsons Supermarket became
the lessee.
Gelson’s, an upscale market, took
possession of the space in 1999 and, shortly
thereafter, began an extensive enlargement
and remodeling of the store. Gelson’s
aggressiveness and ingenuity encouraged the
DeLoreto family to extensively remodel most
of the remaining stores in Loreto Plaza in 2008.
The next tenant in 1960—and the oldest
continuing business—has been Danny’s
Barber Shop. It was started in 1960 by Daniel
Ramirez, who still works there although he
has sold his interest in the business.
Next in the line of tenants was the Federal
Drug Company, which moved to Loreto
Plaza from downtown State Street in 1960.
Federal Drug Company has done very well at
this location.
In 1964, TG&Y, a variety store, moved in
next to A&P. It was replaced in 1982 by
Wherehouse, a music store which is now
known as FYE (For Your Entertainment).
One of the most popular local restaurants,
Harry’s Plaza Café, was started by the
late Harry Davis in Loreto Plaza in
1967. The restaurant is a little bit of
old San Francisco in Santa Barbara.
The most popular book store on
the Central Coast of California ended
up in Loreto Plaza by coincidence.
It was located in another shopping
center that wanted a chain
bookstore, thus forcing Chaucer’s out
of that center and into Loreto Plaza.
The chain book store is long since
gone, but Mahri Kerley is still
prospering in Loreto Plaza with her
Chaucer’s Book Store.
Loreto Plaza was the location of
the U.S. Social Security Office from
1967 to 1976. Another oldie was a
Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet
located next to Federal Drug from
1965 to 1975.
With the changing times, it can
be difficult to find a shoe
repairman. Loreto Plaza has had
one since 1962 and plans to
continue to accommodate the
needs of the public for such a shop.
Other tenants that have been
located in Loreto Plaza are two
savings and loans, shoe stores,
clothing stores, a delicatessen and
a real estate office. There have
been several bakeries in the Plaza
but the latest is a genuine French
Patisserie, no doubt the best of all.
A garden nursery has been
located at the Northwest corner
of State Street and Las Positas
Road since the Chevron Gas
Station left in 1978. It is now the
main supplier of garden nursery
products in the area.
It was most fortunate for the DeLoreto
family in the building of Loreto Plaza that
Emil DeLoreto, Jr., was a building contractor
and handled all the construction except for
the original A&P Supermarket. The other
surviving son of the founder, James M.
DeLoreto, is a Yale alumnus and a Harvard
lawyer who has handled all legal matters for
the family.
✧
Above: Emil DeLoreto, founder of
Loreto Plaza.
Below: The design for the original A&P,
1960. Louis Mazzetti, was the original
designer of Loreto Plaza.
T H E M A R K E T P L A C E
1 2 9

NEO-CHASE
RESTAURANT &
✧
PAINTING COURTESY OF SHARON SPEAR.
LOUNGE
The Neo-Chase Restaurant & Lounge is
“Where locals are celebrities,” and guests
freely customize their meals and may
choose from a delightful selection of daily
“Chalkboard Specials.”
“The Chase,” often described as “the most
romantic restaurant in town,” is located in
the historic Chase Building in the heart of
downtown Santa Barbara. It was built by real
estate developer H. G. Chase after the 1925
earthquake to house his legendary real estate
offices. The white plaster walls and red tile
roof has become the signature theme in Santa
Barbara’s Spanish Revival style architecture;
due, in part, to H. G.’s sister, Pearl Chase,
Santa Barbara’s legendary philanthropist.
In 1999, Barbara Adams acquired The Chase
after the passing of Tony and Angie Caligiuri,
who originally operated the restaurant for
nearly twenty years. As a longtime friend of the
Caligiuri family, when asked if she would be
interested in continuing with The Chase, she
said “yes” to the challenge, moved forward, and
is celebrating her tenth anniversary.
Working closely with her son George and
Chef Mario to preserve many of the recipes and
family traditions from the past, some changes
were made to bring Neo-Chase into a new
standard of ‘old-school dining.’ In
addition to adding her family’s
philosophy and recipes, the interior
was carefully restored to reflect
the warmth of the restaurant’s
‘old-world’ charm. The high-back
red leather booths and cascading
grapevine lights create intimate
seating and festive atmosphere.
With an extensive selection of
award-winning local wines, and the
ambiance of an open-air patio, The
Chase has become an extension of
Adams’ hospitality. Offering homestyle
cooking and friendly service is
part of the owner’s philosophy and a
way to share comfort and “comfort
food” with the community.
Menu selections offer traditional
Italian, Mediterranean, and
American cuisine and the Neo-
Chase has a reputation for serving
the highest and freshest quality
Steaks, Chops and Seafood available. The
Los Angeles Times featured an article about
the “healing qualities” of the owner’s family
recipe for Peppered White Beans. To top off a
delicious meal, Adams offers a variety of nostalgic
dessert selections, including her own
Tiramisu-Parfait. Her passion for food and flair
for hospitality has helped make the Neo-Chase
Restaurant & Lounge one of the most popular
restaurants in the Santa Barbara area. Visitors
in town during the holidays should make
reservations to see The Chase’s transformation
into what Sunset magazine described as a
“winter wonderland.”
The Neo-Chase Restaurant & Lounge has
been brought into the twenty-first century
through caring attention to detail and
high standards of excellence. The Chase
has developed a loyal local following and
welcomes newcomers, who quickly become
regulars…and part of The Chase Family…
“Where locals are celebrities!”
The Neo-Chase Restaurant & Lounge
is located at 1012 State Street, Santa Barbara.
Opened daily from 11:00 am to 10:00 pm
with lunch served until 4:30 pm. Although
not required, reservations may be made by
calling 805-965-4351.
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
130

INGALLS
PLUMBING &
MECHANICAL
The Ingalls family, now in its fourth
generation, has been serving the Tri-County
area for more than ninety years.
Fred Ingalls, the founder, began his career
working as a plumber for Ott’s Plumbing &
Hardware Company in 1916. Fred opened
his own company in the Depression years,
specializing in service, repair, and remodel.
During the tough times Fred often exchanged his
services for chickens, eggs, and other items. One
such item was a large wrought iron eagle’s head
holding a lantern in its beak, which now hangs
in a hundred-year-old oak tree at the Ingalls
family ranch at Lake Nacimiento, California.
In 1961, Fred sold his business to his
son, Bill and his wife, Karen. The company
continued to specialize in service and repair,
but expanded into the custom home business
and gradually entered into larger public and
commercial sectors.
Ingalls takes pride in the quality and
integrity of its employees and the efficiency
with which they undertake and complete
their projects. Among the firm’s projects
are Roosevelt Elementary School, Westmont
College, and several facilities at the University
of California at Santa Barbara, St. Frances
Surgical Units, Wood Glen Hall and Maravilla
Retirement Center, Vista Del Monte, and the
Veterans Hospital. Commercial projects include
Stearns Wharf, Firestone Winery, Raytheon,
Granada Theater Renovation, Santa Barbara
News Press Building, Paseo Nuevo Mall,
Camino Real Market Place, Harbor View Inn,
and Santa Barbara Bank & Trust Administration
Building. Private projects include such
residences as Sea Meadows, Birnam Wood,
Sycamore Valley Ranch, and Alisal Guest Ranch.
Bill and Karen’s sons, David and Mark
both began their careers in the family
business. David’s son, William now represents
the fourth generation.
Ingalls Kitchen & Bath Works, owned
by David Ingalls, has served Santa Barbara
for twenty-nine years. David started his career
in the kitchen and bath industry working
for his parent’s company, Ingalls Plumbing
& Mechanical, selling
decorative plumbing
fixtures and fittings.
His appreciation of
unique and fine designed
materials for the home
inspired him to bring
into Santa Barbara the
first European plumbing
fixtures and fittings such
as Grohe, Dornbracht,
Jado, and Duravit as well
as many others.
While Ingalls Kitchen
& Bath Works no longer
sells decorative plumbing
fixtures and fittings, the company now
specializes in the design and space planning of
beautiful, made-to-order, and custom cabinetry
for the kitchen and other spaces throughout
the home.
Ingalls represents casework manufactures
from the United States, Canada, and Europe.
The company has also evolved into color
scapes as well as other materials to complete
the interior of residences and office interiors.
Ingalls Kitchen & Bath Works provides
interior design services to single-family
residences, multi-housing projects as well
as the new residential infill developments
though out the Santa Barbara Tri-Counties.
The company is honored to be part of Santa
Barbara’s deep history and David would like to
personally acknowledge the design team
headed by Senior Design Consultant John
Bann as well as the Executive Administrator
Deborah Brontsema.
INGALLS
KITCHEN &
BATH WORKS
T H E M A R K E T P L A C E
1 3 1

BARTLETT,
PRINGLE &
WOLF, LLP
Over the past sixty-one years, Bartlett,
Pringle & Wolf, LLP (BPW) has grown from
a one-person operation to become the leading
certified public accounting and consulting
firm on the Central Coast.
BPW began in 1948
as Thomas R. Kruger, CPA.
Kruger, who valued client
service above all else, was
soon joined by Stanley
Bartlett and Phillip Pringle.
Six years after the passing
of Kruger, in 1963, the
firm’s name was changed to
Bartlett, Pringle & Wolf,
CPAs, when Walter Wolf
became partner.
In the early days, the
firm was a family-run
business as Bartlett and
Pringle’s wives handled
the client billing. Handcrank
adding machines
were used and employees
kept track of billing hours
manually in those preelectronic
days.
As the firm grew,
departments were
developed to provide a full
range of financial services,
accommodating the
growing needs of clients
and the increasing
complexities of the tax and
accounting world. Today,
these services include tax planning and
compliance, audit and accounting, estate
planning, cost segregation, litigation support,
business solutions, and through its affiliates,
Mission Wealth Management, LLC, and
Bookkeeping Experts, LLC, BPW offers
financial planning, wealth management, and
bookkeeping services.
BPW presently employs over 60 full-time
team members, including eight partners who
have a combined experience of more than
100 years in public accounting. The firm is
a trusted advisor to many of the Tri-County
area’s most reputable individuals as well as
largest businesses and nonprofit organizations.
Always looking to enhance the technical
infrastructure, BPW was one of the first firms
in the area to incorporate a secure, paperless
approach to their work.
“From the very beginning, Stan Bartlett
and Phil Pringle felt it was very important
to give back to the community,” says Scott
Hadley, the firm’s managing partner. “The
firm continues to uphold this tradition.
BPW partners and employees support dozens
of local organizations through volunteer
and sponsorship efforts as well as active participation
on local boards in the community.
“Even with BPW’s change and growth
over the last sixty years, our commitment
to quality and service remains steadfast,”
Hadley continues. “We look forward to
continuing our tradition by providing
exceptional accounting and consulting
services to businesses and individuals for
years to come.”
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
132

BLUE AGAVE
RESTAURANT
“Eclectic, top to bottom,” is how one local
restaurant critic has described Blue Agave,
voted repeatedly as the ‘Most Romantic
Restaurant’ in Santa Barbara.
The restaurant’s motto is ‘Pause Blissfully’
and owners Gabi Barysch- Crosbie and Neal
Crosbie strive to provide a timeless, lively, and
romantic place in which to socialize and relax
with good atmosphere, food, and drink.
The restaurant, located at 20 East Cota
Street, was founded in 1995 by Neal Crosbie
and two partners and is now run by Gabi
Barysch-Crosbie, who started out in the
upstairs office.
The location once housed an antique store
and, earlier, a Chinese restaurant called Frank’s
Rice Bowl. A guest recently visited the bar
with his two sons and related stories of
coming to the restaurant in 1945 to have
Chinese food with his parents.
Blue Agave is named after the plant from
which tequila is made, agave azul. The
restaurant has earned a reputation for its full
bar which features more than forty Tequilas
and Mescals. Only the finest 100 percent Blue
Agave Tequila is used and every Margarita
is made with fresh squeezed lime juice.
Wonderful Blood Orange, Guava, or Prickly
Pear Margaritas have become very popular.
Organic tequilas are also available and one
of the bartenders recently won an award
for the ‘Purist,’ which consists of organic
tequila, organic Agave Nectar and muddled
Rangpur Limes.
The original chef, Crosbie, set the tone for
the menu by serving healthy, organic food,
obtained by working closely with local
farmers. The food is sensual, robust and
flavorful with high nutritional value. All items
are prepared with fresh seasonal ingredients
using healthy fats. All meats are free range and
naturally raised. All fish are wild and fresh
form the sea and Blue Agave has just become
a member of the sustainable seafood program
(Ty Warner Center).
The kitchen is headed by Serafin Ruiz,
born and raised in Oaxaca, who works
with his two brothers and a sister-in-law.
All menu items are prepared in the house
and cooked to order. From its inception
Blue Agave has subscribed to
the Slow Food Movement.
The menu reflects a passion
for country-style cooking from
around the world. Most menu
items are in keeping with traditional
regional recipes from the
Mediterranean, the American
Southwest, Mexico, and Pacific
Rim countries. A Chinese Dim
Sum theme has been incorporated
in the offerings to honor
the previous occupant.
Guests of Blue Agave are
familiar with the colorful
coyote figures around the
restaurant. The artwork is created
by Crosbie, the restaurant’s
resident artist, and many
of the drawings are accompanied
by his offbeat poetry.
For more information about
Blue Agave, check their website
at www.blueagavesb.com.
T H E M A R K E T P L A C E
1 3 3

PRICE, POSTEL &
PARMA, LLP
Price, Postel & Parma, LLP, has the
distinction of being California’s oldest law firm
and Santa Barbara’s oldest business. The firm
has been in continuous operation since 1852,
when attorney Charles Fernald arrived in Santa
Barbara and opened his law office. In addition
to serving as sheriff, district attorney, mayor
and county judge, Fernald was a leading
authority on land cases and a protector of
many early California families against
unscrupulous challenges to their titles.
clients outdoors under a beach umbrella.
Using his emergency powers, the mayor
appointed Francis Price as city attorney and
gave him a seat on the city council. One year
later, Price brokered the deal between the city
and Max Fleischmann for the creation of the
Santa Barbara Harbor.
In 1928, Price represented the Montecito
Water District in the landmark case of Gin
Chow v. City of Santa Barbara, in which Santa
Ynez ranchers challenged Santa Barbara’s
and Montecito’s ability to use water from the
Santa Ynez River. If successful, the suit would
have had catastrophic consequences for the
south coast communities. Price litigated the
case over a five-year period and ultimately
secured a decision in favor of the cities by
the California Supreme Court. Santa Barbara
issued a proclamation thanking Price for his
“invaluable victory.”
✧
Above: John Heaney, Jarrett Richards and
Francis Price in 1918.
Right: The firm’s temporary office after the
1925 earthquake.
In 1867, Fernald was joined by Jarrett
Richards, who came west after Confederate
forces sacked his Pennsylvania hometown in
the Civil War. Richards rose to prominence
during the Railroad War of the 1870s as a
taxpayers’ advocate. Richards’ opponent was
J.A. Johnson, editor of the Santa Barbara Daily
Press, who championed the railroad interests.
In 1874, Richards’ and Johnson’s political
battle culminated in a public fistfight on State
Street. Richards soundly beat Johnson, much to
the delight of his fellow citizens, who promptly
elected Richards mayor of Santa Barbara.
After Fernald passed away in 1892,
Richards was joined by John Heaney and
Francis Price. A. C. Postel joined the firm in
1920, following service with the famed
“California Grizzlies” in World War I.
When the Santa Barbara Earthquake struck
in 1925, the firm, then known as Heaney,
Price & Postel, was forced out of its offices in
the Granada Building but continued to serve
Harold Parma became a partner in the firm in
1935. When Heaney passed away in 1953, the
firm became known as Price, Postel & Parma.
Price, Postel & Parma presently has
twenty-five attorneys handling general civil
litigation, land use, water rights, business, real
estate, employment, environmental, eminent
domain, estate planning, and probate matters.
The firm’s offices display numerous historical
photographs and its law library still contains
books bearing the seal of Charles Fernald.
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
134

JORDANO’S
For more than one hundred years the Jordano
name has been synonymous with industry,
innovation and enterprise in the community.
It started in 1888, when Giacomo Giordano
(James Jordano), an Italian immigrant came to
Santa Barbara to forge a better life for his wife
and baby. He became manager of the dairy
ranch on More Mesa, where he and his wife
Annetta Pomatto raised their family: Peter,
Josephine, twins Dominic and John and the
youngest, Frank.
While teenagers, the Jordano sons worked
in grocery stores on State Street, with an eye
toward starting their own venture someday. In
1915 the young men opened their own little
store on a “wing and a prayer,” but they also
had a very determined plan and purpose.
They strategically featured products that
would be most in demand. The brothers
bought a horse and buggy for deliveries,
stocked the shelves on credit, and focused
on service and value as the cornerstone for
their business.
The little market eventually became a chain
of popular grocery stores found in every
neighborhood: Carpinteria, Milpas, San Roque
the Mesa, Five Points, and Goleta. Jordano’s
became a household name and the markets
were beloved in the community for their
friendliness (housewives would shop on a
particular day just to see their favorite cashier)
and innovation, and were legendary for their
personal service. The employees themselves
felt like they belonged to one big extended
family, working for Jordano’s.
Ultimately Jordano’s launched twenty-three
modern supermarkets over sixty years
throughout the tri-counties. Additionally, the
brothers launched several successful divisions,
including a retail liquor store, wholesale
produce, meat, liquor, beer and wine, and a
wholesale food distributorship serving hotels
and restaurants.
Over the course of the century, a son of each
of the four founding brothers joined the family
business, including Peter C. Jordano, who
leads the company today.
In the 1970s, Jordano’s went through a
dramatic transformation. Between the recession
and the invasion of huge national grocery store
chains, Peter Jordano realized that his company
would have to adjust to changing times.
Deciding to focus on distributorships, Jordano’s
sold their grocery stores. The company
weathered the difficult transition, and soon
began a new period of growth.
Within a few years, Jordano’s had diversified
into a wholesale distribution conglomerate.
Today, Jordano’s Inc. includes Jordano’s
Foodservice, which serves nine central and
southern California counties and Pacific
Beverage serving Ventura,
Santa Barbara, and San Luis
Obispo Counties.
The little store started by
four young brothers has
grown into a multimillion
dollar corporation with more
than five hundred employees…
and the third generation
of the Jordano family is
in leadership. The Jordano
brothers’ guiding principle of
providing value and service
continues as the hallmark of
the business today.
✧
Above: The Jordano’s skillfully loaded Dodge
stake truck was a familiar sight to Santa
Barbarans during the 1930s and ’40s.
Shown parked in front of the Jordano
Brothers Market at 31 West Canon Perdido
(which is now the entrance to Nordstrom’s
from Canon Perdido). The rooming house
next to the market was where James
Jordano first stayed when he arrived from
Italy in 1888.
Below: Jordano’s brought Santa Barbara its
first “modern supermarket” when they
opened it in 1951 at 2973 State Street (later
the site of Long’s Drugstore, at State Street
and Calle Laureles).
T H E M A R K E T P L A C E
1 3 5

H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
136

QUALITY OF LIFE
H e a l t h c a r e p r o v i d e r s , s c h o o l d i s t r i c t s ,
u n i v e r s i t i e s , a n d o t h e r i n s t i t u t i o n s t h a t c o n t r i b u t e
t o t h e q u a l i t y o f l i f e i n S a n t a B a r b a r a
City of Santa Barbara Airport Department ....................................1 3 8
Pacifica Graduate Institute .........................................................1 4 2
El Montecito Presbyterian Church ................................................1 4 4
Devereux ..................................................................................1 4 6
Antioch University Santa Barbara ................................................1 4 8
Santa Barbara Zoological Gardens ................................................1 5 0
Cottage Health System ................................................................1 5 2
Cachuma Operation and Maintenance Board–
The Cachuma Project ..............................................................1 5 4
Wood Glen Hall .........................................................................1 5 6
Santa Barbara Pet Hospital .........................................................1 5 7
Santa Barbara Historical Museum ................................................1 5 8
Laguna Blanca School .................................................................1 5 9
Madame Rosinka .......................................................................1 6 0
Divine Inspiration Gallery of Fine Art ..........................................1 6 1
✧
COLLECTION OF THE SANTA BARBARA HISTORICAL MUSEUM.
Q U A L I T Y O F L I F E
1 3 7

CITY OF
SANTA BARBARA
AIRPORT
DEPARTMENT
✧
Right: The original dirt airstrip at the
corner of Hollister and Fairview Avenues
beside the General Western Aero Corp.
hangars, c. 1931.
Below: Santa Barbara at Goleta Airport Air
Show, c. 1933.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF DE MARINO.
The history of aviation in Santa Barbara
dates from 1914 when Lincoln Beachey
became the first to fly an airplane across
Goleta Valley. Two years later, the Loughead
brothers established a seaplane factory on
State Street, changed the name to Lockheed,
and constructed a wooden ramp on West
Beach to launch their planes.
In 1928, Gordon Sackett and Royce
Stetson landed a Hisso-powered aircraft in a
cow pasture near Hollister and Fairview
Avenues and set up a flight school at the
location. This first airstrip marked the
beginning of what would eventually become
the Santa Barbara Municipal Airport.
Today, the Santa Barbara Airport is
considered the ‘airport of choice’ for the tricounty
region. It offers daily flights from
major commercial airlines and provides an
extensive fixed-base operation for general
aviation needs.
Local and world events changed the future
of the small airfield. In November 1941 the
vision and foresight of the citizens of Santa
Barbara came to fruition with the passage of a
bond issue for the purchase of land for a
commercial service airport.
Within months of the bond issue passing,
the United States was thrust into World War II
and the race began to build military bases
across the nation to support the war effort.
Santa Barbara Airport property was chosen to
become a Marine Air Corps Station.
Serving the Santa Barbara area since 1936,
United Airlines approached the city about
building a new terminal, which was completed
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
138

in 1942. To this day the terminal serves the
airline passenger needs for the tri-counties. In
1969 the terminal was named for Earle
Ovington to honor the Santa Barbara resident
who, in 1911, was the nation’s first air mail pilot.
At the end of World War II, the U.S.
government deeded the property and
improvements it made to the city. Since that
time, the ‘temporary’ military buildings have
been leased to private businesses whose rents
pay for operating the airport.
Over the past sixty-seven years, the airport
has become an important part of the local
economy. The Airport Department is an
Enterprise Fund of the City, meaning that it is
self-supporting through tenant rents and user
fees and no local tax dollars are used.
The Airport Department operates, maintains
and makes capital improvements at the airport
and, through its property management division,
leases about 340,000 square feet of building
space and about four million square feet of
land to aviation related and commercial
industrial tenants. Through its aviation tenants,
the airport offers flight training, aircraft
storage, maintenance and fueling, and charters.
Commercial industrial tenant businesses
include a golf course, car dealership, undersea
acoustic communications, restaurant, building
supplies, and a state crime lab. The airport
also provides facilities for commercial airline
service through its airline terminal, vehicle
parking, and rental car facilities.
Six major commercial airlines serve nine
non-stop destinations, and hundreds of
connecting destinations, with jet and
turboprop aircraft, from the distinctive
Spanish Colonial Revival style Airline
Terminal Building. The airport is served by
American Eagle, Delta, United, U.S. Airways,
Allegant Air, and Horizon Air.
The Santa Barbara Municipal Airport (SBA)
has become the gateway to the enchantment
of Santa Barbara. Its terminal is a landmark of
aviation and architectural history with its red
tile roof, dark wood beams, and lush gardens
filled with jasmine and bougainvillaea.
The airport has a rich aviation history
which spans over eighty years, from the dawn
of air travel to a modern-day airport serving
more than 800,000 passengers each year.
A brief review of the highlights includes:
• Establishment of Santa Barbara Airways
by Frederick Stearns II in 1930. Stearns
built the airport’s first paved runways and
installed the first radio equipment.
• In 1931, General Western Aircraft
Corporation began manufacturing of the
‘Meteor’, an open cockpit monoplane at
the airport. The sport airplane was the first
to have metal propellers.
✧
Above: The Loughead brothers’ seaplane on
the West Beach wooden launch ramp. The
Potter Hotel can be seen in the background.
c. 1914.
Bottom, left: The Bundy brothers and others
pose with a Sikorsky S-38 seaplane in front
of General Western Aero Corp., builder of
Meteor airplanes, and the smaller two-story
administration building with observation
deck, c. 1936.
Bottom, right: The 1942 airline terminal is
named for Santa Barbara native Earle
Ovington who flew the first U.S. Air Mail
flight around 1911.
Q U A L I T Y O F L I F E
1 3 9

• Century Pacific Airlines began the first
commercial airline passenger service at
SBA in 1932. A roundtrip ticket to Los
Angeles cost $9.91.
• In 1936, United Airlines became the first
major national airline to serve the area.
United inaugurated daily passenger flights
using a ten-passenger Boeing 247 aircraft.
• In 1941 the voters of Santa Barbara
approved a $149,000 bond issue to develop
a commercial airport at Goleta. The city of
Santa Barbara purchased 580 acres and
invested $1 million under an agreement
with the Civil Aeronautics Administration.
• United Airlines built a 7,000 square foot
airline terminal in 1942 and entered into a
twenty-five year lease with the city. The
original United terminal is now the main
lobby of today’s terminal.
• In 1942, as World War II raged, the U.S.
Navy leased the airport for a Marine Corps
Air Station Base and spent $11.5 million
on airfield and building construction.
• By 1945 the Santa Barbara Airport had
become one of the top ten airports on the
west coast with five 4,500-feet runways
and three fixed based operators.
• In 1948 the streets at the airport were
named and dedicated in honor of local
military pilots killed in action during
World War II; in 1949, the U.S. government
deeded the airport property used for
the Marine Corps base to the City of
Santa Barbara.
• In 1961 the city of Santa Barbara annexed
the airport property by utilizing a 37,000
foot by 300 foot strip of land along the
ocean floor from the Santa Barbara harbor
to the south end of the airfield.
• In 1966, Pacific Airlines landed the first
727, a ninety passenger jet, at the airport.
• In 1967, Jack Conroy of Aero Space Lines
brought the super sized ‘Guppy’ airplane
design to the Airport and ‘Guppy’
operations began.
• By 1972, Santa Barbara Airport was serving
nearly a quarter million arriving and
departing passengers annually.
• The Airline Terminal was expanded to its
current 20,000 square feet with the addition
of the south lobby building in 1976.
• In 2000, a landmark wetland mitigation
project restored 8,700 native plants on
thirty acres of airport property in Goleta
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
140

Slough Ecological Reserve, thereby
protecting endangered coastal species.
• The airport’s Aviation Facilities Plan (AFP)
received the Central Coast American
Planning Association’s 2003 Planning
Implementation Award. The AFP was
developed primarily to address airfield safety
projects and airline terminal improvements.
The Airport Department, with fiftyfour
employees, manages the operation,
maintenance, and capital improvements at
the airport. As an Enterprise Fund of the
City, the airport is self-supporting through
user fees and tenant rents. One hundred
property leases produce $13.6 million in
annual revenue. The airport serves over
800,000 passengers annually and supports
120,000 annual take-offs and landings for
all types of aircraft. Two hundred nineteen
aircraft valued at $128 million are based in
the airport’s general aviation facilities.
Looking to the future, the Santa Barbara
Airport Department will be focused on the
construction of a new airline terminal
building. The current facility was last
expanded in 1976.
In 2009, bonds will be issued to provide
funds to finance the construction of the
Santa Barbara Airport’s Airline Terminal
Project which consists of a new passenger
terminal building, rehabilitation of the
1942 terminal, and related parking and
roadway improvements. The total cost of the
Airline Terminal Project is estimated by the
Department to be approximately $54 million.
The project will be substantially completed by
spring 2011. The proposed new passenger
terminal will be a two-story, 60,000-
square- foot building plus the rehabilitated
1942 terminal. More than sixty-three
percent of the terminal complex may be
leased by the airlines and concessions. The
airport’s Aviation Facilities Plan evaluated the
size and facility requirements for the new
passenger terminal based on existing levels
of airline traffic and passenger forecasts
through 2015.
The Santa Barbara Airport and its
employees are involved in a number of
community activities, including serving as
an Adopt-A-School Partner to Isla Vista
Elementary School. In addition, the airport
is a sponsor of a number of local events
and fundraisers such as the Lemon Festival,
Goleta Finest Awards, Goleta Magazine,
Goleta Map Project, and the Goleta Economic
Forecast. The airport is also involved in the
Children’s Creative Project (I Madonnari),
Santa Barbara Zoo (Boo at the Zoo), Santa
Barbara Conference & Visitors Bureau
cooperative advertising to encourage local
tourism, UCSB annual graduation program,
and the UCSB Economic Forecast and
Chamber Directory.
The employees of the City of Santa Barbara
Airport Department are committed to this
Mission Statement: “As the Tri-County regions
‘Airport of Choice’, Santa Barbara Airport will
be self-sustaining, exceed expectations for
safety and quality service, and meet the air
transportation and economic development
needs of its customers and partners.”
For additional information about the Santa
Barbara Airport, please visit www.flysba.com.
✧
Opposite, top: An aerial photograph of
Santa Barbara Airport and vicinity, c. 1954.
Note runways 7/25, 15/33, L/R, and 3/21
L/R. 3/21 closed in the mid-1960s due to
the development of the UCSB campus.
Opposite, bottom: The 143rd Marine
Torpedo Bomber Squadron in front of the
United Airline-built airport terminal,
c. 1943.
Below: Santa Barbara Airport’s new
terminal began construction in 2009. The
renovated original airline terminal is on
the right.
CONCEPT DRAWING BY FRED SWEENEY.
Q U A L I T Y O F L I F E
1 4 1

PACIFICA
GRADUATE
INSTITUTE
by Russ Spencer
Since its founding, the motto of the Pacifica
Graduate Institute has set the tone for a
completely unique graduate school. The motto,
Animae Mundi Colendae Gratia is Latin “for the
sake of tending the soul in and of the world,”
and speaks not only to the school’s insightful
approach to psychology, but also to the caring
restorations it brought to its two spectacular
campuses in the California foothills.
At the time of its founding, Pacifica had just
finished completely renovating the neglected
former estate of Max Fleischmann, bringing
it back to its formerly glory, and then some.
The gorgeous thirteen acre campus, located on
a verdant coastal plain just a mile from the
beach near Santa Barbara, perfectly set the tone
for Pacifica’s incredible success and future
expansion. It was quiet, protected, and
stunningly beautiful—the ideal haven for
thoughtful psychology and mythology students.
And long before it became de riguer, the
campus was green. Plantings and structures
blended with the environment, and gardens and
pathways were designed to invite birds, insects,
and other animals to feel at home. Existing
orchards have been converted to organic
production and the campus boasts a working
organic garden that provides fresh fruits, herbs,
and vegetables to students and the community.
From the start, under the tutelage of
founding President Stephen Aizenstat, Pacifica
placed a strong emphasis on Depth Psychology.
Based on the work of Carl Jung and Sigmund
Freud, depth psychology calls attention to the
importance of what lies below the surface of
conscious awareness. The importance of symbol
and metaphor in personal and cultural imagery,
and the recognition of the dynamic interplay
between the natural world and the human
psyche, remain the core of Pacifica’s mandate.
The school traces its roots to a two-room university
counseling center established during the
cultural upheaval of the early 1970s, when new
ideas about society, education, and the individual
questioned the established paradigm. The
school’s progressive approach put it at the vanguard
not only of psychology, but sustainability,
ecology, and global thought. This attracted
the attention of Joseph Campbell, who offered
guidance and appeared many times as a guest
speaker in the school’s public conference series.
Not surprisingly, after his death, his estate
chose Pacifica to house Campbell’s 3,000-
volume library and personal papers, amassed
through an incredible life of scholarship, travel,
and research. The Joseph Campbell Library
was soon established on campus, making
Campbell’s handwritten notes and books on
mythology, psychology, anthropology, literature
and religion available to students, visiting
scholars and the public by appointment.
Subsequently, the school developed additional
library collections housing the work of scholars
James Hillman, Maria Gimbutas, Marion
Woodman, and Robert Johnson, all of which are
now overseen by the newly-established OPUS
Archives and Research Center.
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
142

Offering top-notch scholarship in a
breathtaking and contemplative setting, the
Institute’s popularity and standing continued to
grow through the 1990s. In 1997, Pacifica
received accreditation from the Western
Association of Schools and Colleges, which
lauded the quality of the faculty and the ongoing
success of its interdisciplinary approach.
By 2005, Pacifica had grown out of its
original campus, and the school purchased a
sister campus nearby. A thirty-eight acre former
Jesuit Retreat Center, the new campus allowed
Pacifica the room it needed to grow, as well as
providing another gorgeous setting for study,
with nearby hiking trails and sweeping views
of the Santa Barbara coastline. Each boasting
libraries, bookstores, classrooms, offices and
acres of open space, the two campuses provide
a remarkable twin powerhouse home base for
the growing fields of depth psychology and
mythological studies.
Students come from all over the world now
to pursue Pacifica’s variety of graduate degrees,
either through monthly, or in a unique blend
of distance learning and residential on-campus
sessions. The six degree offerings include
master’s and Ph.D. degrees in depth psychology,
mythological studies, counseling psychology,
humanities, and psychotherapy.
Committed to remaining ahead of the
curve, in 2005 Pacifica developed an
innovative distance learning approach to its
Master of Arts in Engaged Humanities with
Emphasis on Depth Psychology. Students
attend classes on campus for two extended
residential stays each year, and the balance of
their course work is completed online.
Pacifica has historically appealed to the adult
learner returning to school for a second
college degree, and this program makes it
even easier for these returning students to go
to college with little disruption to their
established career and family life.
Today, Pacifica enjoys a student body of
650, plus another 350 in dissertation work,
and more than 3,000 alumni around the world
who incorporate the vision of depth
psychology and mythology into their lives and
vocations. The school’s active public programs
schedule features the top thinkers of our time,
and helps bring the campus vision to the outer
world. Pacifica also works closely with the
United Nation’s sponsored Earth Charter to
bring an ecological sensibility to public policy.
Above all, Pacifica offers a sense of
community and belonging to those seeking a
life that looks beyond the day-to-day to
concerns about soul and spirit. Students often
say that the most valuable benefit of their
enrollment is simply the sense that they have
found that rare place where their inner life
matters, and where their chosen path to selfknowledge
is honored and encouraged.
Q U A L I T Y O F L I F E
1 4 3

EL MONTECITO
PRESBYTERIAN
CHURCH
“El Montecito Presbyterian Church is a
congregation which seeks to glorify God the
Father, Maker of Heaven and Earth, to affirm
the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus
Christ, God’s only divine Son, our Lord, and
to acknowledge the power and presence of
the Holy Spirit.”
The history of El Montecito
Presbyterian Church began in 1870,
when a few families banded together
and conducted Sunday School
and church services every two
weeks at Montecito Union School.
On November 13, 1887, twenty-five
charter members officially
organized the First Presbyterian
Church of Montecito. Those original
founders met, prayed a lot,
and contributed their tithes, offerings,
time, and talents.
The church grew and the
congregation constructed a spacious new
building at 1455 East Valley Road at a cost of
$2,000. The building, described as a “typical
country church,” was dedicated December 30,
1888. The church’s bell was purchased in
1893 from a firm in Ohio, which guaranteed
the bell’s workmanship for five years.
The old wooden church was replaced
in 1932 by a sanctuary that served the
congregation for seventy-three years. The new
church was built during the Great Depression
at a cost of $50,000. The cornerstone of the new
building was a memorial for the Reverend
Arthur Grant Evans, who led the church
during its early years. A new cross was
positioned atop the church tower in 1966.
To accommodate the church’s growing
ministries for youth and children, a Christian
Education Building was erected in 1957. The
Reverend Paul Gammons, who began his fortyone
year pastorate in 1937, presided at the
groundbreaking for the new building.
A project to expand the church’s facilities,
including the addition of a Parish Hall, new
classrooms and offices, and an extensive
remodeling and enlargement of the sanctuary,
was initiated in 1990 under Dr. Lyle Hillegas,
who served as pastor from 1978 through 1994.
The project was accomplished in two phases.
Phase one more than doubled the number of
classrooms and provided the new Parish Hall
seating 400. It also included new facilities for
the junior and senior high youth programs, a
new central plaza, an elevator linking the new
three-story building, a children’s playground
and a modern church kitchen.
The second phase, dubbed the “Nehemiah
Project” was initiated following the calling of
the new Senior Pastor, Dr. Harold Bussell in
1996. This phase resulted in the extensive
remodeling and expansion of the sanctuary
now destined to take its place among the great
and distinct worship centers.
Honoring and maintaining the original
1932 ambience, transepts were added to either
side creating a Cruciform style. The sanctuary
building itself now mirrors the cross. The
main body of the church, the nave, constitutes
the upright, and the transept forms the great
crossbeam. The cruciform reminds us that we
must never forget what God has done on our
behalf. Much effort was made in blending the
new construction with the old.
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
144

Completion of the $4.2 million project
was the result of the prayers, dedication, and
sacrificial giving of the entire church family.
Members set out intentionally to create a
space where one would be hushed and find
reverence. Everything in the sanctuary is
intended to produce a tone of transcendent
harmony so that the presence of Christ will
be discernable.
After spending several years focused
on improving the church’s physical facility,
the church Session began a strategic
planning process in 2008 to reemphasize
the church’s commitment to the Gospel and
to the community.
The church offers worship services
featuring biblically-based preaching and
excellence in music, set in a traditional form.
Adult education classes and programs
are centered on Biblical understanding and
life applications. Professors from Westmont
College are an added valuable resource for
these classes.
A very active Parish Life program fosters
fellowship and growth opportunities that
include covenant groups, men’s and women’s
fellowships, regular Parish Night food and
fellowship evenings, and grief recovery
workshops. A reinvigorated pre-school program
called the “Early School” and Children’s Ministry
programs include opportunities for families to
interact. Junior and Senior High School Youth
programs are active, meaningful, and growing.
Led by the Session, Deacons, and Trustees,
El Montecito members volunteer countless
hours to numerous programs that benefit
the community and encourage utilization of
church facilities for community gatherings.
Members are active in a number of area
relief agencies, including the Rescue Mission
and Transition House, which serve the poor,
and members have built and continue to
support two churches in Baja, California.
Members are firmly committed to worship,
service and prayer with an active Prayer
Chain, prayer leader training, and several
organized prayer times weekly. The
congregation has been consistent in their
contributions to the church, ensuring
financial stability of the many missions and
outreach commitments.
To a society that is increasingly losing its
moral compass, El Montecito offers a clear
proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ
and the structure of the reformed faith.
To a congregation that wants and needs to
live their personal faith in such a manner as
“to be examples of believers,” El Montecito
offers biblical teaching, challenging lifestyle
applications, and many life changing
opportunities to serve.
For additional information about El
Montecito Presbyterian Church, visit the
website at www.elmopres.org.
Q U A L I T Y O F L I F E
1 4 5

DEVEREUX
✧
Pioneer in Special Education, Helena T.
Devereux, 1885-1975.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF JANIS JOHNSON.
Devereux California is part of the largest
nonprofit provider of behavioral healthcare
services in the country. Devereux provides
comprehensive services to individuals of
all ages who have intellectual/developmental
disabilities and/or psychological, emotional,
behavioral or neurological disorders,
including Autism.
This life-changing organization
began in 1912 with a remarkable
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, school
teacher, Helena Devereux, who took
an extraordinary interest in youngsters
who were considered ‘slow’ by
most of her colleagues.
Going far beyond the ordinary role
of teacher, Devereux believed the
classroom was only one segment of
life’s learning opportunities. She
maintained that daily living skills,
social opportunities and recreation
would also set the stage for fruitful,
meaningful growth experiences.
Her first three students, taught in a home
setting, learned not only the three R’s, but
also acquired skills of daily living that “Miss
D” felt could only be taught in an aroundthe-clock
program.
Encouraged by her success with these
youngsters, Miss D borrowed $500 and began
her first residential treatment program. As
news of her success spread, so did requests
from parents across the country whose
children had special needs
Miss D’s growing reputation attracted
professionals from education, psychiatry,
psychology, and social work who wanted to
work with this pioneer as she learned more
about helping her ‘special’ youngsters. This
approach was entirely new and different.
Her enlistment of a range of professionals
grew into what is now called ‘multidisciplinary
treatment.’
By 1918, Devereux had eight children
living with her and receiving special
instruction. She rented a home in Devon,
Pennsylvania, for $100 a month, although
she had only $94 of her own. The remaining
$6 was borrowed from a friend. A year later,
she managed to purchase the home with a
100 percent mortgage.
The organization expanded rapidly over
the next few years and other homes were
purchased and renovated for student use. Her
organization survived the Great Depression
of the 1930s even though she personally owed
$250,000 because of operating deficits at
Devereux Schools. Seizure was averted through
the support of staff and parents of the students.
In 1936 the Department of Psychiatry was
formally established within Devereux.
Devereux Ranch School, established in
1945, was the first location established by
Helena Devereux outside Pennsylvania. Miss D
first acquired an estate in Montecito where
Westmont College is located today, but realizing
that the site was not large enough to meet the
school’s needs, she found an ideal setting, the
500-acre bluff top Campbell Ranch overlooking
the Pacific Ocean. The ranch, surrounded by
acres of wooded groves, sand dunes, and
meadows, was purchased for only $100,000.
The manor house served as administrative
headquarters for Devereux California until
2006, when it moved to Jacobs House on the
north knoll of the property.
When Helena Devereux was asked how
she could expect to build a school with no
equipment and no money, she replied, “I do
not expect to build it. But I have faith in several
concepts. First I think spirit is creative and can
be a tool to build on. Next, I think every child
has a life force struggling toward selfrealization
despite any handicap of body or
mind, and given the right surroundings will
grow, some a long distance and some a short. I
believe that sympathy, sincerity, and service can
be made to bear fruit in the lives of the children
and will bring brick and mortar for our use as
necessary. I believe that, and we shall find
friends who will believe in the same way.”
The Devereux Foundation Institute for
Research and Training was inaugurated in 1957
to expand the professional training program
for psychologists, psychiatrists, pediatricians,
social workers and educators; and to conduct
research into the causes and treatment of
mental retardation and emotional disturbances.
In the 1960s, it became the Institute of Clinical
Training and Research (ICTR) to reflect its
increasing focus on social, emotional and
behavioral concerns.
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
146

At the age of seventy-three, Devereux
resigned as Director but agreed to continue
working in a consulting capacity. After the
opening of Devereux California, she spent
much of her time in Santa Barbara.
As awareness of the need for the kinds of
treatment Devereux provided grew, an
increasing number of clients received services
funded by a combination of government
sources. As the programs evolved and the
first students grew into adulthood, Devereux
California expanded its services to offer
residential treatment for those aged eight
through the life span who were developmentally
disabled and/or diagnosed with moderate
to severe emotional disturbances
and Autism.
The twenty-first century has brought
even more changes to the campus.
Responding to changing government
philosophy and mandates, Devereux
California began providing services to
individuals in their own homes or
apartments in the community, rather
than in large, residential treatment
centers or group homes. By 2004, many
adult residents transitioned off-campus
to a variety of Supported Living and
Independent Living situations in the
community, some closer to their families.
A major portion of the original
Campbell Ranch became part of the
University of California Santa Barbara
in 1967, and the remaining thirtythree
acres were purchased by UCSB
in 2007. Devereux California continues
to provide residential and day services
to seventy-five adults and elderly on four
acres of the property leased back from the
university, and in communities throughout
Santa Barbara County.
Today, the Devereux organization operates
twenty-two centers in eleven states
and countless community-based locations.
Devereux will celebrate its one hundredth
year anniversary in 2012. The Devereux
family has grown to 6,000 staff providing
services for 15,000 clients nationwide. It is
an amazing tribute to Helena Devereux, who
began her programs with only three children,
$94 in capital, and a burning desire to make
life better for those with disabilities.
✧
Above: Devereux staff outside Devereux
Hall, formerly the Campbell Manor at Coal
Oil Point in the 1950s. The Spanish
Colonial-style building was designated as
County Historical Landmark No. 27
in 1987.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF DEVEREUX.
Below: Executive Director Amy Evans with
Day Program workers Peter Jacobs and
Pierre Nicolas, selling plants they have
grown in the Devereux Greenhouse.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF LINDA BLUE PHOTOGRAPHY.
Q U A L I T Y O F L I F E
1 4 7

ANTIOCH
UNIVERSITY
SANTA BARBARA
Antioch University Santa Barbara is an
independent institution that descends from
Antioch College, a unique school founded
in Yellow Springs, Ohio in 1852. Antioch
College’s first president, Horace Mann, was
a renowned educator, social reformer, and
abolitionist, and is considered the architect of
the American public school system.
Today, Antioch is a five-campus
university located in four states.
Antioch University Santa Barbara
(AUSB) was founded in 1977 when
the Ventura campus of Antioch
moved to its Santa Barbara location,
initially offering a B.A. degree in
liberal studies and an M.A. in clinical
psychology. Additional degree
programs in business, psychology,
and education have been added over
the years.
The Santa Barbara campus of
Antioch University opened in 1977
and has occupied several locations—all downtown—over
the past three decades. Enrollment
grew to more than fifty students in an old
Victorian house at 23 West Mission Street, now
home of the Family Therapy Institute. In the
1980s, the campus moved to 914 Santa Barbara
Street, which is currently the Playa Azul restaurant.
After growing to well over 100 students,
the campus moved in the 1990s to its present
location at 801 Garden Street.
The distinctive building in the heart of
the city’s historic district was designed
by renowned architect Barry Berkus and
combines unique qualities of functionality and
artistic sensibility. As an early tenant of the
Garden Street building, Antioch worked closely
with Berkus to customize it for the university’s
needs. Berkus’ forward-looking plan became
one of the first mixed-use developments in the
downtown core, incorporating residential
apartments along with classrooms and business
offices. The central patio features a fountain in
the shape of a multicolored ceramic and tile fish,
created by distinguished artist Marge Dunlap.
AUSB serves local residents as well as
commuters from San Luis Obispo, Ventura, and
Los Angeles Counties who appreciate the
school’s flexible class schedules. Increasingly,
AUSB is becoming an international university,
actively recruiting students from every part of
the world and cultural background in the belief
that respectful interaction advances the discovery
of truth and mutual understanding. At the
same time, Antioch maintains an acute awareness
of the character and concerns of Southern
California and Santa Barbara in particular.
The Antioch of today is the legacy of
Horace Mann’s original vision and an example
of the success of educational experimentation,
innovation and diversity of thought. Since its
creation in 1852, Antioch has evolved from a
small liberal arts college to a multi-campus
university system with five campuses across
the nation: Yellow Springs, Ohio; Keene, New
Hampshire; Seattle, Washington; Los Angeles;
and Santa Barbara.
Antioch abolished race as a criterion for
acceptance soon after it was founded and
has always been a dedicated advocate for
social equality. Antioch College was also the
first college in America to educate women on
equal terms with men. In addition, Antioch
was the first American college to hire female
faculty on an equal basis with male colleagues
and the first co-educational college to have a
woman on its Board of Trustees.
During the 1960s and ’70s, Antioch
College expanded from its original campus in
Ohio to become Antioch University, establishing
adult learning centers throughout the
United States.
In 1977, Dr. Lois Phillips was hired to
establish an Antioch University campus in
the Santa Barbara area. Recruiting students
from the central California coastal region, she
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
148

established the first Santa Barbara cohort,
which graduated seven students.
Until 2007 the two California campuses
were united administratively as Antioch
University Southern California. Dr. Michael
William Mulnix was appointed the first
president of Antioch University in Santa
Barbara in February, 2007.
Students of AUSB are working adults who
seek a new direction in their careers or the
mobility provided by earning an
undergraduate or graduate degree. A diverse
group of men and women ranging in age from
23 to 70 share a serious determination to
change their lives. The average student is 35
years old, and more than 70 percent receive
some form of financial aid. A growing
percentage of the student body comprises
transfers from local community colleges or
local universities who seek to complete
degrees without leaving the area. AUSB’s
graduate studies in psychology, education,
and business attract more mature adults who
are already working in their chosen fields but
want additional degrees in order to advance
or further excel.
Since Antioch University believes strongly
in the value of hands-on learning through life
experience, each student’s program includes
experimental learning in the field, providing
structured opportunities in community-based
learning activities that also contribute service
to the local community.
An Antioch University internship or
practicum affords AUSB students a challenging
way to get intensive real-world service
experience with an agency, organization, or
individual that has a demonstrated commitment
to student learning.
AUSB is fully accredited by the Western
Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC).
Antioch University is also accredited by
the Higher Learning Commission and is a
member of the North Central Association of
Colleges and Schools. The Master of Arts in
Education and Teacher Credentialing Program
is approved by the California Commission on
Teacher Credentialing.
Additional information about Antioch
University Santa Barbara is available at
www.antiochsb.edu.
Q U A L I T Y O F L I F E
1 4 9

SANTA BARBARA
ZOOLOGICAL
GARDENS
✧
PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF TONY LUNA.
The story of the Santa Barbara Zoo began
over forty years ago on a vacant, overgrown
twenty-seven-acre estate. There was no money,
no animals, no employees, and no source of
financial support. There was, however, an
enthusiastic group of young business leaders
willing to work hard to build a zoological park
for the people of Santa Barbara.
The Zoo is the result of a unique
partnership with the community and,
even after four decades, many people
are still proud to claim they had a hand
in building the zoo. These pioneer
supporters even have a name; they are
called “I Built the Zoo-ers.”
“I Built the Zoo-ers” are rich, poor
and in-between; some are famous, most
are not; they own small businesses and
large corporations; work as gardeners
and doctors, lawyers and bankers,
builders and designers, teachers
and technicians.
The Junior Chamber of Commerce—
the Jaycees—took the lead in the drive
to build a Zoo and the Child Estate
Foundation, founded in 1961, managed
its development. Over the next few years,
large work parties of volunteers labored
to clear the grounds, build a perimeter
fence, raise seed money, and develop a
plan to build “A Garden of Animals.”
That “Garden of Animals,” known
then as The Child Estate, opened to the
public in 1963 with only a handful of
animals, only one employee, and still
no source of financial support. So many
people had worked to get the project going
that it seemed nearly everyone in town had a
free membership.
The Zoo was made possible by the
donation of land by Lillian Child, whose
husband, John Beale, had built an impressive
pink stucco mansion on the property. Some
remnants of the estate are still visible in the
Zoo today.
Child is perhaps best remembered for
allowing ‘hobos’ to live free on her property.
The first encampments can be dated from
1913 and, by 1945, 40 to 50 hobos lived on
the property. These men should not
be termed transients or homeless. They
established a community called Jungleville
and had a governing body, communications,
and even a judicial system.
Childs died in 1951 and the property,
originally willed to the Santa Barbara
Foundation, was transferred to the city of
Santa Barbara two years later. At the time,
there were still thirty-two residents of
Jungleville and the city allowed those that
lived on the estate during Child’s lifetime to
remain for several years until they were no
longer able to care for themselves. New
homes were then found for the three
remaining residents.
Initial talks between the volunteers
building the park and the city of Santa
Barbara were held as early as 1958, and an
initial master plan articulated a dream to open
a “park for animals and people.” The city
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
150

signed a twenty-five year lease agreement with
the Child Estate Foundation in 1963 that
allowed the Foundation to develop a park.
This lease was renewed in 1988.
The Zoo opened to the public on August 4,
1963, and, in 1964, Edward “Ted” McToldridge
was appointed park superintendent. Rueben
Irvin, founder and president of Santa Barbara
Bank and Trust, was the first president of
the Zoological Foundation. The local Jaycees
remained active on the Board until the
late 1980s.
The Zoo’s initial collection was modest,
consisting of a llama, two sheep, a goat, a
couple of turkeys, and a woolly monkey.
Other early residents included a black bear
and an orangutan.
Despite the small beginnings, the Zoo
continued to grow. Exhibits were developed
from a strong philosophy of naturalism
and constant renovation by volunteers.
Among those volunteers were contractors
who stopped by at the end of the day with
left-over lumber, partial loads of cement,
plants, and even extra tools. They were
determined to help build the Zoo.
In the 1960s, the animal collection
continued to grow and diversify with
additions of sea lions, monkeys, reptiles,
parrots and the first African lion, Dandy
Lion, who arrived in 1970. During this
period, the old barred cages and animal pits
of prior decades were replaced with
naturalistic habitats.
In 1982 the Santa Barbara Zoo became the
fifty-first zoo or aquarium to become an
accredited member of the Association of
Zoos & Aquariums (AZA). Of the 2,500
facilities licensed by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture to exhibit animals, there are
currently only 218 accredited members.
The Zoo continued to be called The
Child Estate until the early 1980s, causing
confusion among those not familiar with
Lillian Child’s gift to the community. The
name also caused some to assume the facility
was a children’s zoo or kiddy-park. In
1986 the Foundation officially changed the
Zoo’s name to the Santa Barbara Zoological
Gardens, although most visitors call it the
Santa Barbara Zoo.
The African Veldt expansion
in the late 1980s was the
Zoo’s largest exhibit at that
time. The exhibit, covering
more than an acre, features
two female and one male
Baringo giraffe, a group of
African crowned cranes, two
ground hornbills, and several
African spur-thighed tortoises.
The Forest’s Edge, designed
to house the endangered western
lowland gorilla, opened in
1996 and is now home to two
male teenage gorillas.
The Zoo made significant
progress in the following
years. In 2003 the Zoo opened
Cats of Africa, a dynamic
mesh-enclosed exhibit featuring
African lions and blackfooted
cats. In 2004 the Zoo’s
two Asian elephants were
treated to a complete renovation
of their home and an
expansion of their outside
yard. They have adapted well
to living in Santa Barbara,
having arrived at the Zoo in
1972 at about one year in age.
The Zoo welcomed Humboldt
penguins in 2006, replacing
the California sea lion exhibit
that dated to the 1960s.
In 2009 the Zoo opened its most ambitious
project in its forty-six year history, California
Trails. The new exhibit complex celebrates
native California wildlife and tells the story of
the Zoo’s conservation programs: California
condors (Condor Country), Channel Island
foxes, and reptiles and amphibians native to
the Los Padres National Forest (Rattlesnake
Canyon). The $7.5-million project also
includes a renovated bald eagle exhibit, a
new desert tortoise exhibit, a new restaurant
(The Wave), a renovated gift shop (Explore
Store), and a renovated exhibit featuring
domestic animals associated with California’s
agricultural history.
Additional information about the Zoo is
available at www.sbzoo.org.
✧
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF DAVID BAZEMORE.
Q U A L I T Y O F L I F E
1 5 1

COTTAGE
HEALTH
SYSTEM
✧
Above: The original Santa Barbara Cottage
Hospital of the late 1800s.
Below: Newly minted physicians from all
corners of the globe enter the well-regarded
graduate medical education programs at
Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital each year.
These residency programs—in general
surgery, internal medicine, and diagnostic
radiology—have been helping to train the
physicians of tomorrow for more than eighty
years. Shown are residents in 1973.
On December 8, 1891, Santa Barbara’s
very first community hospital opened beyond
the outskirts of town amid the oaks and
walnut groves at Castillo and Junipero Streets.
Originally designed as a series of cottages, the
plan proved too costly. In its place, a single
three-story, 25-bed redwood structure was
built, retaining the “cozy” name envisioned by
its 50 women founders: Santa Barbara Cottage
Hospital (SBCH).
Its doors remain open today—although
looking quite a bit different. The original 1890s
redwood structure became a nurses home
when a new steel and concrete SBCH opened
on Pueblo Street in 1913. Earthquakes, world
wars, floods and fires did not stop the hospital
over the years from undergoing major changes
to accommodate the growing community.
Residency teaching programs were developed
for new physicians, sophisticated medical
equipment and new surgical procedures were
embraced, and in 1978, with the closure of
County General Hospital on San Antonio Road,
inpatient care for that population was absorbed
primarily by SBCH.
Additional hospitals, in the meantime, had
developed nearby. In 1908, St. Francis Hospital
opened on the Riviera, serving the community
for many years. Purchased in 1997 by Catholic
Healthcare West, the financially challenged
hospital closed its doors in 2003, with the
property subsequently sold to the SBCH
Foundation for development as workforce
homes for Cottage staff.
In 1964 several miles west at Patterson and
Hollister Avenues, the Valley Hospital of Santa
Barbara opened. This physician-owned
facility ultimately became the not-for-profit
Goleta Valley Community Hospital (1966)
serving that growing population.
And across the mountains in the village of
Solvang, the brand-new Santa Ynez Valley
Hospital also opened its doors in 1964, offering
emergency services and inpatient beds for
residents and visitors.
By the 1990s, a new era in hospital care
had arrived, nationally and locally. Advances
in medicine and technology were coupled
with pressures on hospitals to accept reduced
payment for their services. These led to less
costly outpatient alternatives, to shorter
inpatient stays, and placed urgency on
hospitals to reduce operating expenses and
avoid costly duplication of services. There
was a glut of hospital beds, and the greatest
challenge was to the smaller, independent
community hospitals.
Now the largest hospital on the Central
Coast between Los Angeles and the Bay Area,
SBCH was approached by the smaller Santa
Ynez Valley Hospital. Facing significant
financial loss, the hospital’s future looked
questionable. Was there a way in which Cottage
could help? After careful consideration, an
affiliation became effective (1995), with
Cottage assuming responsibility for the newly
named Santa Ynez Valley Cottage Hospital
(SYVCH). Thanks to a determined staff, a
willing community and enthusiastic supporters
of its Foundation, the hospital was able to
continue offering inpatient, outpatient and
emergency services to its community.
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
152

A year later, Goleta Valley Community
Hospital and SBCH agreed to join forces in an
effort to trim that hospital’s growing operating
losses. Through shared services and economies
of scale, financial losses were reduced, as was
the need to duplicate costly equipment and
programs that were barely ten miles apart.
Inpatient, outpatient, and emergency care
were maintained at the newly named Goleta
Valley Cottage Hospital (GVCH). It was another
example of collaboration, perseverance, hard
work and a good deal of community goodwill
and support. And above all, the needs and
interests of patients served by these hospitals
were maintained and even enhanced.
As the Goleta-Cottage merger became
effective (June 1996), so too did the official
birth of Cottage Health System (CHS).
Formed as the “umbrella” organization of the
three hospitals in Santa Barbara, Santa Ynez
Valley and now Goleta Valley, the system was,
and still is, overseen by a voluntary board of
directors from the broader community. Each
facility has its own medical staff (many
physicians serve on more than one) with
separate and independent philanthropic
foundations responsible for raising funds for
that hospital and its programs.
Today, SBCH also includes Cottage Children’s
Hospital—a hospital within a hospital reflecting
the strong growth of regional pediatric programs
for the Central Coast. In addition, Cottage
Rehabilitation Hospital on De la Vina Street
(formerly Rehabilitation Institute at Santa
Barbara) became part of SBCH following the
September 2007 agreement to join forces to
preserve important rehabilitation programs; an
associated Rehabilitation Hospital Foundation is
committed to its fundraising support.
A regional provider of hospital care, CHS
offers a level of sophistication rarely seen in
communities of this size. The teaching programs
at SBCH for new physicians, the Level II trauma
center, the Cottage Neuroscience Institute—all
are examples of programs unmatched on the
California coast between Los Angeles and the
Bay Area. The hospitals provide meaningful
work for 3,000 employees, and count more than
700 physicians on their three medical staffs
(doctors apply for hospital privileges to treat
their patients, but are not employees of the
System). More than 900 volunteers of all ages
donate 100,000 hours of their time each year to
serve patients and staff.
History continues to be made as all three
hospitals now embark on costly seismic
improvements that will forever change their
profile. A generous outpouring of community
support is helping considerably to pay for these
multi-million dollar projects which receive no
federal, state or local funding.
While each hospital offers its own distinct
services, a single standard of care exists for
all three, and the board of directors continues
to guide the system in its mission “to provide
superior health care through a commitment
to our communities and to our core values
of excellence, integrity and compassion.”
Inherent in this mission is an ever-present
attention to the future, to the developing
technologies and healthcare trends aimed at
improving patient recovery and outcomes—
and doing so as a unified and fiscally
responsible healthcare system that is mindful
of its role as the sole provider of hospital care
in the greater Santa Barbara region.
For more information, please visit
www.cottagehealthsystem.org.
✧
The new Santa Barbara Cottage, now under
construction and slated for completion by
2015, will cover the footprint of the original
twenty-five bed hospital—approximately
where the elevator tower is seen in this view
from Pueblo Street.
Q U A L I T Y O F L I F E
1 5 3

CACHUMA
OPERATION AND
MAINTENANCE
BOARD–
THE CACHUMA
PROJECT
✧
Below: Tecolote Tunnel workers in the
cooling cars. It was known as “one of the
toughest drilling jobs in the world.”
Bottom: Nearly completed Cachuma Dam,
April 15, 1953.
To understand the Cachuma Project one
must first understand the past.
Water supply for the Santa Barbara area
was a concern as early as 1782 when the
Presidio was established by Captain Jose
Francisco Ortega. At that time, water was
supplied through a ditch from Mission Creek,
near the Old Santa Barbara Mission site.
Water management became more
important as the area developed, and in
1888, the Common Council of the City of
Santa Barbara appointed City Engineer
George F. Wright to survey all possible
water supplies. Wright was unable to find
an adequate water supply on the south side
of the Santa Ynez Mountain Range. So he
turned his attention to the north side of
the range and concluded that “the only
feasible source of supply was from the Santa
Ynez River.”
Little was done with Wright’s report until
1938, when the County Board of Supervisors
authorized another feasibility study. This report
echoed Wright’s findings of fifty years earlier; an
adequate supply of water would have to come
from the Santa Ynez River. This conclusion
led to the birth of the Cachuma Project.
Planning for the Cachuma Project began
in 1941. However, final approval from the
Secretary of the Interior did not come until
1948. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
awarded a contract for construction of the
750-foot-high, earth-and-rock-filled Cachuma
Dam (now commonly known as Bradbury
Dam) and an extensive distribution system on
the south coast of Santa Barbara County, to
Mittry Constructors, Inc., in July 1950. The
Project cost nearly $39 million, and
was completed in a remarkable six years in
June 1956.
Principal features of the Cachuma Project
are Bradbury Dam and Lake Cachuma, the
Tecolote Tunnel which brings water from
Lake Cachuma to the South Coast, and the
South Coast Conduit (SCC) conveyance
system. The SCC serves as a vital water
distribution artery and extends twenty-six
miles from Goleta to Carpinteria. It includes
more than 200 structures, four regulating
reservoirs (Glen Anne, Lauro, Ortega, and
Carpinteria), and the Sheffield Tunnel, which
contains a portion of the SCC.
Tecolote Tunnel was no small feat of
engineering prowess. It was carved through
the Santa Ynez Mountains and extends from
Lake Cachuma to the headworks of the SCC
on the coastal side of the range. Construction
of this 6.4-mile, 7-foot-diameter, concrete
lined tunnel began in January 1950, and
proved to be a huge undertaking for the
contractor. Inflows from subterranean waters
reached 9,000 gpm with efforts to seal off
these flows hampered by disintegrating rock
formations and temperatures rising to 117
degrees Fahrenheit. In order to continue work
inside the tunnel, the miners would ride into
the tunnel in muck cars filled with water, and
by taking “cooling dips” were able to advance
construction under such extreme conditions.
The tunnel was completed in 1956 and Lake
Cachuma was now ready to deliver water.
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
154

The Santa Barbara County Water Agency
was established in September 1945, and a
contract was signed in 1949 with the Bureau
of Reclamation “for the furnishing of water to
Member Units of the Santa Barbara County
Water Agency.” The original Cachuma
Member Units were Goleta Water District, the
City of Santa Barbara, Montecito Water
District, Summerland Water District, which
merged with Montecito Water District in
1995, Carpinteria Valley Water District, and
the Santa Ynez River Water Conservation
District, Improvement District No. 1.
To care for operation and maintenance of
the newly constructed water distribution
system, the South Coast Water Board was
founded in 1953 and executed a contract with
the Bureau of Reclamation in 1956. The Board
later established the Cachuma Operation and
Maintenance Board (COMB) on January 1,
1957, to carry out the Member Units’ collective
water interests in the Cachuma Project. The
Bureau of Reclamation transferred all operation
and maintenance of the Project facilities to
COMB, with the exception of Bradbury Dam.
It is funded by the five Member Units, and its
headquarters are located in the foothills above
Santa Barbara.
The Cachuma Project was central in
diverting flood waters from the Santa Ynez
River to the south coast of Santa Barbara
County for irrigation, municipal, and industrial
uses. With the advent of irrigated farm lands
came increased crop production and additional
commercial activity involving processing of
agricultural products, transportation and trade.
While fulfilling its primary purpose as a water
supply reservoir, other benefits became
obvious, notably the reduction of flood damage
to the Santa Ynez Valley and other downstream
communities, which was substantially lessened
by the ability to store flood waters in Lake
Cachuma. Lake Cachuma also became a
popular recreation destination where families
gather to enjoy camping, fishing, hiking, and
boating. With its close proximity to Santa
Barbara, as well as Los Angeles to the south and
Santa Maria to the north, day trips to the Lake
have become a regular part of life on the Central
Coast. Recreation at Lake Cachuma is managed
by the Santa Barbara County Parks Department.
The Cachuma Project is now more than
fifty years old, therefore, in addition to
maintaining the system, a long-term capital
improvement program has been developed to
provide uninterrupted water delivery of this
vital life line for many years to come.
In recent years, the Bureau of Reclamation
has seismically strengthened Bradbury Dam and
its smaller relative, Lauro Reservoir, to withstand
greater magnitude earthquakes for the
safety of the community. Modifications have also
been made to the radial gates on Bradbury
Dam, to allow additional water to be stored in
Lake Cachuma for the benefit of endangered
steelhead trout in the lower Santa Ynez River.
COMB has worked closely with Reclamation on
all of these major improvements.
While extreme rain events and drought are
endemic to Santa Barbara’s climate, the
Cachuma Project has played a major role by
providing a reliable source of water during
dry years and minimizing flooding in wet
years. It has served as the principal water
supply for the Santa Ynez Valley and South
Coast communities for more than 50 years
delivering an average of about 20,000 acrefeet
per year. For more than a half-century,
the Cachuma Project has been an essential
element in the rich history that is Santa
Barbara. COMB and its Member Units will
continue in this heritage to ensure that a high
quality of life is enjoyed by today’s citizens
and by many generations to come.
• The original contract for the
construction of the Tecolote Tunnel was
awarded to Carl M. Halvorson, Inc.,
and H. Halvorson. However,
responsibility to complete construction
came under the direction of Coker
Construction Company and Peter
Kiewit’s son’s company.
• The original capacity of the dam at
elevation 750 feet was 205,000 acrefeet;
however capacity has been reduced
to186,636 acre-feet due to siltation.
• COMB’s Mission Statement: “To provide
a reliable source of water to our
member agencies in an efficient and cost
effective manner for the betterment of
life in our communities.”
✧
Cachuma Lake at maximum capacity.
Q U A L I T Y O F L I F E
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WOOD GLEN
HALL
Wood Glen Hall, in the lovely foothills of
the blue Santa Barbara Mountains, is the place
you have always imagined for your retirement
years. Here you can enjoy the cool ocean
breezes surrounded by good friends and
gracious service.
Wood Glen Hall was a model for the times
when it was built in 1956 by Adrian and Ailene
Wood and their visionary mission remains
just as true today: “To operate a nonprofit
retirement residence that provides affordable
quality care and support services to ensure
that California’s central coast seniors may live
their later years with security and dignity and
as independently as they are able.”
The Woods far-sighted philanthropy
provided more than $1 million to build the
original structure, and additional funds to
furnish the residence rooms, offices, and
community facilities.
Wood Glen Hall provides a supportive
retirement residence that requires no ‘buy-in’
just a small, one-time admissions fee. Monthly
rental fees are based on operating costs.
Wood Glen Hall, located at 3010 Foothill
Road, is built on a single level in a beautifully
landscaped area at the outer rim of an
attractive residential area. In addition to the
beautiful courtyards, a quarter-mile walkway
surrounds the building. Residents enjoy
seasonal flowers and many species of bird
life year-round. Patios are set in a formal
garden for serene relaxation and for the
entertainment of family and friends. Residents
have their choice of contented repose, creative
arts, or community involvement.
The spacious rooms at Wood Glen Hall
provide lovely patio views for a sense of
indoor-outdoor living. Many residents
completely furnish and decorate their rooms
‘just like home.’ The 61 residents are
supported by a caring staff of 35. Assisted
living services are provided so that seniors
may age in place.
An activity coordinator arranges entertainment
and special events for the resident’s
pleasure. Art, music, crafts, exercise, and games
of all types are available. Wood Glen’s own private
bus is available to provide transportation.
In addition, residents of Wood Glen Hall
enjoy such features as beauticians and
barbers, cable television, a library, and laundry
room. Other amenities include intercoms in
each room, twenty-four hour on-site emergency
assistance, and weekly housekeeping.
Through the years, Wood Glen Hall has
added such services as personal care, a
full-time registered nurse, and computer
room. Facilities have been renovated several
times with the newest and latest features.
Wood Glen Hall remains a nonprofit venture
governed by an active and experienced board
of directors, some of whom have served for
more than twenty years. The Wood-Claeyssens
Foundation continues to support Wood Glen
with grant funding for capital projects.
A half-century after it was founded, Wood
Glen Hall continues its mission to offer
affordable, independent, and assisted living
for seniors.
For additional information, please visit
www.woodglenhall.org.
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
156

SANTA BARBARA
PET HOSPITAL
The original hospital was located on
Cabrillo Boulevard as Tower Veterinary in
1967. The owner, Dr. Donald Hur, then
moved the hospital to its current location
on the Mesa in 1968 and renamed it Santa
Barbara Pet Hospital. The land currently
occupied by the hospital was originally
surrounded by sheep pastures—a much
different setting than the one it now has.
Dr. Hur was director of the hospital until
1982. Dr. Bruce Landis then ran the hospital
until 1990 when Dr. David Mutti became the
director until his passing in 2006.
The current hospital director is Dr. Sally
Mobraaten. Dr. Mobraaten received her
veterinary medicine degree from the
University of Pennsylvania in 1991. Prior to
becoming director, Dr. Mobraaten previously
practiced at Carpinteria Veterinary Hospital in
Carpinteria, California.
It is rumored that a friendly ghost roams
the halls of the hospital as sometimes things
fall over, toilets flush and in one case, a
picture would not come off the wall until the
ghost was told it was not being taken down,
but moved over. Then the hanger magically
came free.
A second item of interest occurred when
a client’s car drove through the front wall of
the dog waiting room—luckily no one was
injured. Some of the early vets treated animals
of the Santa Barbara Zoo and Dr. Mutti was
known to have treated a lion—I am sure it
was in a proper cat carrier!
Santa Barbara Pet Hospital is located at
1807 Cliff Drive in Santa Barbara, California
and at www.sbpethosp.com. Information
available on the Internet includes hours
of operation, a map to their location,
an online tour of the facility, latest alerts
for the safety of your pets and even a place
to meet the individuals that will be caring
for your family pet. At Santa Barbara Pet
Hospital, our mission is to provide our
clients and their pets with the highest quality
veterinary care in a warm, compassionate, and
professional manner.
Q U A L I T Y O F L I F E
1 5 7

SANTA
BARBARA
HISTORICAL
MUSEUM
✧
Above: Guests enjoy the Old California
ambience of the Museum courtyard during
La Fiesta del Museo, the premier
celebration honoring the tradition of Santa
Barbara’s largest civic celebration, Old
Spanish Days Fiesta. The courtyard
witnesses many celebrations of life,
including weddings and other gatherings.
Below: The Museum’s signature exhibition,
The Story of Santa Barbara, traces the
history of the region from the days of the
Native American Chumash into the twentyfirst
century.
With vision and forethought, community
leaders came together in October 1932 to
found a voluntary association. Their dream and
mission: to foster a deeper understanding
of and appreciation for the history of the
city and county of Santa Barbara; to
encourage the study and research of that
history; and to collect, preserve, and make
available to the public through exhibition
the material culture of the Santa Barbara
community. This was the beginning of the
Santa Barbara Historical Museum.
Today the Historical Museum is one of
the most exciting cultural institutions in
California and remains the primary repository
of our community’s heritage. The Museum is
headquartered in its twenty-five-thousandsquare-foot
adobe building in downtown Santa
Barbara. Housed here are museum galleries
featuring the signature exhibition, The Story of
Santa Barbara, which traces the evolution of
the region from the days of the Chumash into
the twenty-first century. In addition, the Sala
Gallery offers magnificent changing exhibitions
four to five times annually. The Museum holds
in public trust over eighty thousand
irreplaceable historic artifacts including
paintings, drawings, furniture, saddles,
decorative arts, and one of the largest costume
collections west of the Mississippi. As of this
printing, the Gledhill Library counts over
5,000 books and 70,000 photographs, as well
as maps, newspaper volumes, government
documents, private papers, and oral histories
among its collections.
The Historical Museum operates two
historic house museums: The Honorable
Charles Fernald Mansion (c.1865), the exquisite
Queen Anne Victorian-style home of one of the
city’s most prominent historical figures and the
neighboring Trussell-Winchester Adobe (1854)
with its period furnishings. The institution
also owns and has seen to the preservation
of the Covarrubias Adobe (1817), one of
the oldest buildings in Santa Barbara and
the museum’s education center, and the
Historic Adobe (1854). Both are City of Santa
Barbara Landmarks and are adjacent to the
downtown museum.
The Santa Barbara Historical Museum has a
long legacy in our community, and an enduring
commitment to its mission. It is dedicated
to collecting, preserving, interpreting, and
exhibiting the material culture of the Santa
Barbara region in all its diversity; to educating
through lectures, tours, and in the classroom;
and to encouraging research, scholarship, and
publication of the history of the Santa Barbara
community. History can guide and inspire our
actions, a tool with which we can build a better
tomorrow. It is that belief which inspires the
Museum’s motto, “Upon the foundation of the
past, we build a future worth remembering.”
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
158

Laguna Blanca School, founded by Edward
Selden Spaulding, opened its doors in 1933
with a total enrollment of forty boys.
Spaulding, a remarkably accomplished
man from a prominent family, founded
Laguna Blanca after the Deane School, a day
and boarding school for boys in Montecito,
was forced to close by the severe economic
conditions of the Great Depression. Spaulding
employed four of his former Deane School
colleagues and they formed the nucleus of the
faculty for the new school.
Spaulding obtained the site for the new
school by a generous contribution from local
landowners Harold and Gertrude Chase,
whose donation of twenty-two acres on
Paloma Drive in Hope Ranch enabled
Spaulding and his directors to make their
vision for the school come alive
Laguna Blanca School grew, despite the
economic pressures of the 1930s, and
facilities were improved to better serve the
growing enrollment. Additional classrooms
were added and a new chemistry lab was
opened. A special geography room, in which
the walls of the room formed a globe, was
built during the school’s fourth year.
From its earliest years, Laguna Blanca
provided opportunities for its students to
learn the social graces, good sportsmanship,
manual training, and art appreciation.
Laguna Blanca became coeducational in
1942, adding a new dimension to the school’s
educational and social life. The school
continued to grow during the war years and
the 1950s. As the decade came to a close,
Spaulding retired and was succeeded by the
school’s second headmaster, Samuel Rugg.
A kindergarten was opened in 1957,
broadening Laguna Blanca’s educational
offerings to include the entire Kindergarten
through twelfth curriculum.
Headmaster Jack Adams led Laguna Blanca
through the two socially turbulent decades
of the 1960s and ’70s, skillfully managing
the school’s evolution to fit the changing
times. Art Merovick took the reins in the early
1980s and masterminded construction of the
gymnasium, which now bears his name.
Michael Collins carried out a five-year stint as
headmaster in the mid-1990s as the school’s
enrollment increased and additional classroom
space became a premium. Under the direction
of Steve Repsher, Laguna’s Kindergarten
through fourth grade were moved to
Montecito, enabling Middle and Upper
School enrollment to gradually increase.
The school is currently conducting a
capital campaign to support its Campus
Improvement Plan. The major components of
the plan include enlarging and improving the
gymnasium, converting existing fields into a
parking lot with state-of-the-art wastewater
treatment system, expanding the current
auditorium, and converting several buildings
into classrooms.
Today, Laguna Blanca School is a wellrespected
preparatory day school with 420
students and a faculty and staff totaling
more than 100. Douglas Jessup has served as
headmaster since 2002.
LAGUNA BLANCA
SCHOOL
✧
Above: The faculty of Laguna Blanca
School, 1939. Standing (from left to right):
Harrison Townsend, George Howe, Charles
Cash, John Grant, and John Hodges.
Seated (from left to right): Hilda McIntyre
Ray, Edward Selden Spaudling and
Rodney Heggie.
Below: The original campus, currently the
Middle and Upper Schools, in Hope Ranch.
Q U A L I T Y O F L I F E
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✧
MADAME
ROSINKA
PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF TIMOTHY MULLINS.
Born and raised in northern California, and
having Yugoslavian ancestry, Madame Mary
Rosinka and her family moved to Santa Barbara
in the late 1940s at the suggestion of Mr. and
Mrs. Ed Covarrubias, longtime family friends
and godparents to her children.
In 1951, after a thorough investigation, the
City of Santa Barbara issued its first business
license for legitimate ‘fortune telling’ to Rachel
Adams, aka: Madame Mary Rosinka. She and
her husband, Charles, were welcomed to the
community. Charles soon became a prominent
member of the local Optimists’ Club and an
enthusiastic volunteer for many fundraising
events and festivals, such as Santa Barbara’s
Old Spanish Days, Fiesta Mercado. Charles
also participated with the Sheriff’s Department
and other local law enforcement agencies in
assisting them with their fundraising benefits.
During the early years, Charles and Rachel
looked for an appropriate location to open
her Palm Reading office. Being drawn to
the historic Stearn’s Wharf, which was still
operating as a working pier and loading dock,
Charles and Rachel met landlords George and
Mario Castagnola of the legendry Castagnola
family. Taking an immediate fondness for
the young couple, the Castagnolas leased them a
small building on the pier, and they transformed
it into the first of Madame Rosinka’s historic
locations in Santa Barbara.
In the late 1960s, Madame Rosinka opened
a downtown office in the historic El Paseo,
which is photographed internationally and
has become another one of Santa Barbara’s
historic landmarks.
In 1974, fire destroyed the greater majority
of buildings and restaurants of the old pier.
Being one of the city’s great attractions, the
city administrators quickly made plans to
rebuild. Having the opportunity to preserve
its historic nature, the city realized that the
magical little palm-reading shop had become
an historical landmark. The city invited
Madame Rosinka to reopen on Stearn’s Wharf
and Charles himself designed and built the
little ‘lighthouse’ office as it is seen today.
Madame Rosinka’s reputation is one of
respect and authenticity. With her daughters,
Barbara Sonia and Duda Julia, carrying
on the tradition, Madame Rosinka is
internationally well known. While many may be
skeptical of visiting a psychic for advice, the
Rosinka’s longtime presence on Stearn’s Wharf is
a testament to their loyal clientele, which
includes prominent professionals, everyday
working folks, students, tourists, and celebrities.
In the true and authentic Gypsy tradition,
the Rosinkas see their work as an opportunity
to wish the world well. “We are here to keep
the strong strong, and to help them remember
they have choices.”
Madame Rosinka and her daughters are
available for readings by appointment and—if
visiting—walk-ins are welcomed at her Stearns’
Wharf location, although there may be a wait.
Call for an appointment at locations in Santa
Barbara 805-965-2271, Goleta 805-967-9116
and Pacifica 605-255-4772.
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
160

DIVINE
INSPIRATION
GALLERY OF
FINE ART
Divine Inspiration Gallery of Fine Art, a
beautifully renovated ‘jewelry box’ of a gallery,
is located near the intersection of State Street
and Arrellaga. It has become a destination
for art lovers and collectors, specializing
in contemporary fine art, sculpture, and
photography by Santa Barbara region artists.
The building which houses the gallery is
located in the historic El Pueblo Viejo Old
Mission District and was purchased in 2008
by Camilla Chandler Frost, the daughter of
Los Angeles Times publisher Norman Chandler
and Dorothy Buffum Chandler, benefactor of
the well known Dorothy Chandler music
pavilion in Los Angeles.
Frost is also a great patroness of the arts and
a major collector of fine art. For nearly fifty
years, she has served on the board of the Los
Angeles County Museum of Art and travels the
world to acquire rare exhibits for the museum.
Together, Frost and Sharon Spear, director
of the Divine Inspiration Gallery, enlisted the
visionary talents and experience of Barbara
Adams to restore and refurbish the building.
Adams was able to preserve the building’s
historic character, yet also create a refined and
elegant setting to showcase various collections
of fine art. Her intent was to reflect the
Chandler family’s passion for cultivating fine
art in the community.
Spear, a talented local artist and a UCSB fine
arts graduate, and Adams have collaborated
on many projects that benefit charitable
organizations. Together, they believe that art is
“divinely inspired” and have sought to create
a gallery that represents established artists
while also promoting emerging area artists.
“We realize that art is not only a financial
investment, but an emotional one as well,”
comments Spear. “A collector should acquire art
that is meaningful and uplifting to the spirit.”
Featured artists show their work for two
months at the Divine Inspiration Gallery.
Depending on the collection, the medium may
be oil paint, watercolor or pastel. Themes range
from landscapes, seascapes, still life,
photography and sculpture. On occasion, the
Divine Inspiration Gallery sponsors fundraising
art events for various charitable organizations.
The Divine Inspiration Gallery of Fine Art
is located at 1528 State Street in Santa
Barbara. Hours are noon until 5:00 p.m.,
Tuesday through Saturday. Private showings
are available by appointment.
For more information about the Divine
Inspiration Gallery, check the website at
www.divineinspiration.us. Be sure to leave
your contact information to be invited to
upcoming artists’ receptions and catered events.
Q U A L I T Y O F L I F E
1 6 1

H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
162

SANTA BARBARA’S
FOUNDATIONS & CHARITIES
C l u b s a n d s e r v i c e o r g a n i z a t i o n s
t h a t h a v e c o n t r i b u t e d t o t h e r i c h n e s s o f l i f e
i n S a n t a B a r b a r a a n d a r o u n d t h e w o r l d
Santa Barbara Woman’s Club .......................................................1 6 4
Visiting Nurse & Hospice Care of Santa Barbara ............................1 6 8
Unity Shoppe ............................................................................1 7 0
Orfalea Foundations ..................................................................1 7 2
La Casa de Maria Retreat Center .................................................1 7 4
Tri-Counties Regional Center .......................................................1 7 6
Direct Relief International ..........................................................1 7 7
United Boys & Girls Clubs of Santa Barbara County .......................1 7 8
Santa Barbara Foundation ..........................................................1 7 9
✧
COLLECTION OF THE SANTA BARBARA HISTORICAL MUSEUM.
S A N T A B A R B A R A ’ S F O U N D A T I O N S & C H A R I T I E S
1 6 3

SANTA BARBARA
WOMAN’S CLUB
Our purpose since 1892: “To cultivate and
pursue an active interest in civic affairs; To
provide educational programs in the fine arts
and world travel, as well as other current
topics of interest; To promote social activities
for the pleasure of the Membership.”
Santa Barbara is one of the loveliest places
in America, with a rich and fascinating heritage
that spans more than two centuries of Spanish
and American settlement.
A glimpse of the beginnings of the Santa
Barbara Woman’s Club is found in “An
Appreciation” by Alice F. Schott, dated October
1942. Schott, who was celebrating “The Golden
Jubilee of the Santa Barbara Woman’s Club”
wrote, “This strong, efficient organization of
ours did not spring out of the blue some fifty
years ago. There was a real reason for its being
born. To understand that reason one must
look back through the years.
“Visualizing the life of that day, greater
appreciation will be felt for the courage and
farsightedness of our original leaders. They
were a small group of fine, intelligent women
of vision who first founded “The Fortnightly
Club” and later on, seeing the need for a
different kind of organization, the Santa
Barbara Woman’s Club…
“In those days, ‘calling’ was the fashion
of the day but that did not satisfy some.
They decided to form a study group, which
would meet at regular intervals in the homes
of its members.”
The first regular meeting of the Fortnightly
Club was held on December 27, 1889. The
subject for discussion was, “What Women
have Effected in the Way of Organization.”
Membership was limited to twenty-five and
meetings were held on alternate Fridays at a
member’s home. Topics for discussion were
chosen in advance.
Perhaps a topic such as “What Are the
Advantages and Disadvantages of a Woman’s
Club” at a Fortnightly Club meeting inspired
the creation of the Santa Barbara Woman’s
Club, which was formed primarily from its
members. Frances A. Baxter was elected the
first president of the Santa Barbara Woman’s
Club in 1892; she served until May 1899.
It is interesting to note that many members
of the Woman’s Club continued dual membership
in both organizations. In 1939, the
Fortnightly Club celebrated its fiftieth anniversary
at the home of Mrs. George Edwards, and
then disbanded that organization.
On September 6, 1892, this article
appeared in the Morning Press: “A Ladies Social
Club has been organized in Santa Barbara, and
four large, sunny rooms facing the Arlington
(Hotel) in the upper Hawley block are to be
fitted up with all elegance possible.”
Unlike the Fortnightly Club, which met in
member’s homes, this new club gave
women a central location in which
to meet and receive mail.
Although the expanded club was
created partly for social reasons,
the ladies also wanted to advance
the cultural development of its
members and perform civic duties
in the community. During those
early years, women had no vote and
it was only by thoughtful effort to
build public opinion and direct it
into constructive channels that
anything could be accomplished by
women of that era.
In 1910 the Woman’s Club
purchased a lot at 1419 Anacapa
Street. Art loans and other benefits
raised $620.65 and, by October, the
Club held the site free and clear.
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
164

Plans for the new clubhouse were drawn up
by architect E. Russel Ray. Ground was broken
December 11, 1910. The clubhouse opened
on March 18, 1911. Today, that property is
known as the Dolores Center.
In 1914 the Club sponsored deaf and
blind activist Helen Keller’s first speaking
appearance on the West Coast at the Potter
Hotel, located at the waterfront. Tickets sold
for fifty cents.
The April 1915 Annual Report lists twentytwo
Saturday afternoon meetings, several
social meetings, three luncheons, one evening
‘jollity’ and five card parties.
In 1916 the Club started a tradition of
inviting new citizens to the Fourth of July
celebration at the Club. When the U.S.
declared war on Germany in 1917, the
Woman’s Club raised $49,000 for the Liberty
Loan Drive, the largest amount raised by any
group in Santa Barbara.
With the ‘Roaring 20s’ came the Jazz Age
and many social changes. Perhaps the most
important to women was passage of the
Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution.
Women finally had the right to vote!
The Club made the final payment on the
Anacapa Street property but was already
having growing pains, as indicated by this
quote in Club minutes dated November 22,
1922; “Membership 475. More room needed!”
A major event—the Santa Barbara
Earthquake—occurred in June 1925. The
clubhouse was not badly damaged, but
because of the general damage throughout
Santa Barbara, a new clubhouse was out of
the question. The Recreation Center was used
by the Club for the remainder of the year.
Meanwhile, the Catholic Church offered
$22,500 for the Anacapa property, an offer
promptly accepted by Club members. The
price was exactly what it had cost the Club.
Club activities never stopped during this
difficult era. Immediately following the
earthquake, members raised $65,000 for
the Earthquake Relief Fund, the largest
contribution from any single organization.
For the next couple of years, the Club
literally ‘hopped around.’ Besides the
Recreation Center, members met in the
Masonic Temple, the Elk’s Club, the First
Methodist Church, the Carrillo Building and
the Lobero Theatre. Although the Lobero was
quite nice, the ladies felt they could not pay
the necessary rent, so the hunt for a suitable
location continued.
The Club’s present location at 670 Mission
Canyon Road was acquired in 1927. Originally,
this Mission Canyon land belonged to the Old
Mission. In 1892 the Enoch J. Marsh family
purchased it from the church for $229. The
home they later built was sold and turned into
“The Rockwood Boarding House.” By 1917-
18, it was known as “The Rockwood Inn” and
by 1927 it was operated as a small hotel.
In 1927 a fire in the boiler room destroyed
the hotel and two of its five cottages. The
damage was estimated at $60,000. Fortunately,
none of the guests staying there was injured.
When the owners decided not to rebuild, the
property was put up for sale.
This event created a window of opportunity
for the SBWC. During a drive, President Alice
Schott observed the fire ravaged ruins of the
S A N T A B A R B A R A ’ S F O U N D A T I O N S & C H A R I T I E S
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Rockwood Inn and felt this would be a perfect
home for the Woman’s Club. She immediately
put down $100 on the property until she
could consult with her Board members, who
overwhelmingly approved purchasing the
property for $17,000. The property owner,
Mr. Marsh, and his son, Arthur, reduced the
price because they felt the Club’s aims merited
an $8,000 gift. The final cost for the land,
construction, furnishings, equipment, and
landscaping came to $71,478.53. The entire
debt was paid off within twelve years.
The Club’s present building was designed
and built in 1927-28. The architectural firm
for this Spanish colonial revival building
was Edwards, Plunkett and Howell, who also
designed the Arlington Theater. Landscape
architect Lockwood DeForest, Jr., designed
the grounds. It opened on May 16, 1928, with
a thousand members and friends in
attendance. The three surviving hotel cottages
are preserved as part of the complex today.
Parking has always been a problem for the
Club, even when the members came to
meetings in buggies. In 1938 the adjoining
property to the north became available. The
property was owned by Mrs. Samuel J.
Stanwood, a Club member and past president,
and she generously reduced the asking price
for the property.
In 1941, just prior to the Club’s fiftieth
anniversary, the United States entered World
War II against Germany and Japan. Club
members participated seriously in war efforts.
The War Service Department was formed by
Club women who coordinated the many
activities, including the Red Cross Workroom,
the Veteran’s Relief Committee, and the
Benefit’s Committee. The Club held numerous
fundraising events to support its war efforts.
In 1954 the building which had seemed
so spacious became cramped. At this time
the Garden Room was built, the kitchen was
enlarged, and the Flower and storage rooms
were added.
Today, the Club still occupies the large,
gracious building in Mission Canyon and is
governed through an elected Board of Directors.
Primarily a social club, SBWC has
continued interest and ties to the community.
Local speakers are invited to keep members
updated on community events. The Club also
contributes to local charities and is currently
sending ‘care packages’ to the female military
personnel serving in Iraq. Club facilities are
offered at a discount to nonprofit organizations.
The Club offers these events at its regular
weekly meetings during the year:
• Music, Travelogues, Speakers, Public Affairs—
All an important part of Club programs.
• Teas—Following all programs. Members,
guests, and artists join in the gracious,
friendly atmosphere for refreshments.
• Luncheons—Regularly scheduled monthly
luncheons during the Club year, followed
by special programs and/or bridge.
Summer luncheons are held with bridge
and special programs.
• Fashion Shows—These popular events are
presented with SBWC members as models
and are held twice yearly.
• Day at Rockwood—A bazaar is produced
by members. The day-long fun includes a
luncheon. Shop ‘til you drop!
• La Merienda—The Club’s contribution to
Old Spanish Days began in 1928 and
continues to be an annual event open to
the public.
• Boutique Group—Meets weekly from July
until November, working on individual
projects of needlework and various crafts
to be sold at Day at Rockwood. It is a
pleasant way to make new friends.
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• Other Activities—Book clubs, bridge
opportunities, yoga, and a Needle Art
Group. Tea dances, dinner shows, and balls
such as Valentines or Mardi Gras.
• Guests—This is an opportunity to
entertain guests at the Club’s many
programs for a small fee. Public affairs
programs are offered free to all guests.
• Tours—Theater, concerts, museum, and
many other interesting events are offered.
Whatever your interests, you need a forum
for the expression of them, and the Woman’s
Club may offer that opportunity. It presents
challenge, congenial friendships, and
exposure to stimulating programs.
This account of the history of the Santa
Barbara Woman’s Club was compiled by Club
historian, Mrs. George Potter (Helen) and Club
president, Mrs. Robert Burtness (Lynn).
S A N T A B A R B A R A ’ S F O U N D A T I O N S & C H A R I T I E S
1 6 7

VISITING
NURSE &
HOSPICE CARE
OF SANTA
BARBARA
For more than a century, Visiting Nurse
& Hospice Care (VNHC) of Santa Barbara
has been an innovator in response to the
healthcare needs of our community. Founded in
1908 “for the good of the community and out
of compassion for those less fortunate,” VNHC’s
mission remains just as clear today—to provide
high-quality, comprehensive, cost-effective,
home health, hospice and related services that
enhance the well-being of all community
residents-including those unable to pay.
On October 29, 1908, the Visiting Nurse
Association (VNA), as it was known then,
was organized with the announcement of a
visiting nurse program. It was an
era when the nation, and Santa
Barbara in particular, was rethinking
old practices and instituting
health, education and social
reform. The availability of antibiotics
was still far in the future and
the spread of disease and germs
was a serious public health concern.
This meant that providing
healthcare to the indigent was not
only a compassionate endeavor,
but an act of value to the health of
the entire community.
The founders were affluent,
well-educated, and well-connected.
They soon gathered the membership
support of about two hundred
women who could appreciate the
“community health insurance benefits”
of the program. Community
support was a vital element right
from the start and between
November 1908 and May 1909,
donations to VNA totaled $875,
or about $35,000 in today’s terms.
The organization’s first office was in the
Neighborhood House, a nonprofit community
agency located at the corner of De la Guerra
and Santa Barbara Streets. In 1910 the
organization purchased a redwood house with
white trim at 133 East Haley Street. The “little
red house” would remain the organization’s
home for the next seventy years.
What began as a visiting nurse program
quickly expanded to include additional
activities. Within a few years, VNA was the
premier health service organization in Santa
Barbara. Among the many programs begun
by VNA were the school nursing program
(1914), a dental clinic (1916), a well
baby clinic (1917) and a County nursing
program (1919).
From the first challenges of ensuring the
health and welfare of infants and children,
responding to the Spanish Flu Epidemic of
1918, meeting the challenges of two world
wars, the 1925 earthquake and participating
in the distribution of the polio vaccine in
the mid-1950s, VNA has stayed alert to the
changing needs of our community members.
Since those early days, Visiting Nurse and
Hospice Care—its name since 2001—has
participated in the continuum of healthcare
delivery for our community. Today, VNHC
is a Medicare-certified; state-licensed, and
accredited home care and hospice provider
caring for more than 2,500 patients with
40,000 home visits.
And VNHC continues to respond to the
changes in our community. Concerned
with the care of a growing elder population
needing services not covered by Medicare,
VNHC established Visiting Care and
Companions, a program that provides
personal care services. This program now
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168

eaches out to more than 400 individuals
with nearly 20,000 visits; assisting with
bathing, grooming and light meal preparation
and other activities of daily living to help
seniors remain safe and independent at home
for as long as possible.
As a leader in innovation, VNHC
developed Tele-Medicine, a unique approach
that places a computer in the patient’s home
to assist with education and monitoring of
health indicators to encourage wellness and
stabilization for those with chronic illnesses.
Our hospice program serves more than
700 patients at home with over 25,000 visits;
another 60 patients each year are cared for at
Serenity House, a residential hospice facility.
In response to a growing need for end of life
care, VNHC raised more than $7 million for
a new 18-bed Serenity House opening in
May 2010.
From a small rented room with one nurse
and a horse and buggy, Visiting Nurse &
Hospice Care has grown to become a
healthcare provider with a professional staff
of 150, revenues of $17 million annually, and
assets of more than $50 million.
Community support continues to play a
vital role allowing VNHC to maintain a
century-long tradition of never turning
anyone away for lack of ability to pay. VNHC
provides just over $1 million in charitable
services each year to the sick, the elderly, and
the terminally ill.
For more than one hundred years, Visiting
Nurse & Hospice Care has been at the
forefront of innovative health services,
bringing compassionate care to the Santa
Barbara community.
Walker Tompkins summarized the work of
VNHC at its sixtieth anniversary in these
words: “Nurses have gone into mansions and
hovels alike to administer shots, change
bandages, give alcohol rubs, make beds, order
groceries, write letters—the whole gamut of
humanitarianism…three generations of the
elderly and needy in Santa Barbara, Goleta,
Summerland, and Montecito have benefited
from the care of these dedicated nurses.”
Visiting Nurse & Hospice Care is located
at 222 East Canon Perdido in Santa Barbara
and at www.vnhcsb.org.
S A N T A B A R B A R A ’ S F O U N D A T I O N S & C H A R I T I E S
1 6 9

UNITY SHOPPE
✧
Above: The Claeyssens Community Training
and Resource Center in honor of Pierre and
Ailene Claeyssens.
Below: Pearl Chase.
PHOTO COURTESY OF DEPARTMENT OF SPECIAL
COLLECTIONS, DAVIDSON LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF
CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA.
The work of the Unity Shoppe, a 501 (c)
(3) Public Benefit Corporation, began as
a “holiday program” in 1917 under the
leadership of Dr. Pearl Chase and Hazel
Severy. They encouraged volunteers to work
together to help people in need so duplication
of efforts could be eliminated. The gifts were
simple and the town was small. The “Council
of Christmas Cheer” encouraged a “neighbors
helping neighbors” community program.
Kenny Loggins renamed the charity the
Unity Shoppe in 1987 when Barbara Tellefson
developed the work of the charity into a
countywide yearround program that
encouraged all nonprofits, churches, schools
and hospitals to send their qualified clients to a
“Central Distribution Facility.” This collaborative
endeavor helped to eliminate duplication so
better and more consistent services could be
provided to more people year-round.
Tom Reed joined the Unity Shoppe as
the development director in 2002. Because
of a generous challenge grant from Peirre
Claeyssens, Reed and Tellefson launched a
successful $2.8-million capital campaign to
acquire a building at 1219 State Street for the
use of the “Free Store,” the administrative
offices and a retail gift shoppe. This purchase
made it possible for Unity to generate some of
their own funds for their work.
Unity’s mission is to encourage selfsufficiency
and independence by providing
education and the necessities of life to
families, children, seniors and persons with
disabilities during periodic times of crisis.
These necessities are provided in a dignified
manner without regard to political affiliation,
religious belief, or ethnic identity.
Unity’s vision statement is to enable selfsufficiency
and independence with dignity,
to promote a better quality of life through
community support and education, to
provide programs that prevent social and
economic problems from escalating, to
encourage the spirit of community and
understanding among people from diverse
cultures, races and religions.
The Unity Shoppe is a nondenominational
program that encourages an atmosphere where
there is more understanding among our citizens,
less hate, prejudice and social problems.
Their goal is to supplement limited
incomes with needed food, furniture, basic
necessities, and clothing during times of
crisis. Clients can then use their limited funds
to pay their rent so they will not become
homeless or dependent on welfare programs.
By empowering low-income families with the
necessities of life during difficult times, we
encourage people to become self-sufficient.
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170

Unity provides a “central distribution facility”
for the use of the clients of over 288 nonprofit
agencies, social service organizations, churches,
schools and hospitals. Over six thousand
community volunteers collect funds, food
donations and support for the “free store.” This
store is used to teach merchandising, customer
service, inventory control, and office and
computer skills to all those that need work skills
for future job opportunities. It is a community
project of staggering proportions that benefits
those that need help and those that want to help!
Over sixty thousand visits are made yearround
to the “free store.” Services include:
clothing, baby items, work clothing, school
supplies, household goods, furniture, grocery
store services, job training, senior resource
center and long term disaster services. The
Unity Shoppe is the largest, single direct
distributor of food and clothing in the County
of Santa Barbara.
Because of these services, Unity is able to
qualify and document all those referred so
duplication of services can be avoided. Unity
is able to supplement limited incomes with
needed food and clothing so people can
pay their rent and avoid homelessness and
welfare dependency.
✧
Left: Established in 1987 by Kenny Loggins,
Sandy Benton, Bob and Anne Smith, the
annual Unity Telethon is the Unity
Shoppe’s largest fundraiser. In December,
local celebrities, businesses, children,
and people from around the country join
hands to help raise the funds to purchase
the items needed to operate Unity’s
yearround services.
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ORFALEA
FOUNDATIONS
✧
First Kinko’s coworkers in the early 1970s.
Paul Orfalea at the top, right.
The roots of Natalie and Paul Orfalea’s
generosity in giving back to the community
can be traced to the founding of Kinko’s, Inc.,
in 1970. The Orfaleas ensured that Kinko’s
co-workers had family health plans including
orthodontia and dental care, scholarship
programs, childcare, home loan programs,
profit sharing, and other family-friendly
benefits. This core value of supporting
families and children is still the central
theme behind Paul, Natalie, and their sons’
philanthropic philosophy today.
After thirty years leading Kinko’s, Paul
repurposed his life to spend more time with
his family. Besides investing and enjoying
time with his two sons, one of Paul’s greatest
passions is teaching. Paul is a great facilitator
and an inspiring role model for the wouldbe
entrepreneurs who take his class at USC’s
Marshall School of Business, UCSB’s Global
and International Studies Program, LMU’s
Entrepreneur Program, and Cal Poly’s Orfalea
College of Business. He has also taught
at NYU, Princeton, Harvard, UCLA, the
Wharton School of Business, Stanford’s
Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, and many
other universities around the country. Paul is
in high demand for public speaking, often
addressing business organizations and
associations supporting learning challenges.
Forbes, People and Fortune magazines,
along with the New York Times, profiled Paul
as a prominent leader who has dealt with
his ADHD and dyslexia and gone on to
have an illustrious career. Paul has multiple
honorary college degrees and has received
numerous awards. In 2005, Paul was awarded
the “Philanthropist of the Year” by the
Association of Fundraising Professionals
and also received the News-Press Lifetime
Achievement Award.
Following a successful career at Xerox
Corporation, Natalie ran an independent
product development firm and raised
their two sons, who also sit on the family
foundation’s board and attend college. Natalie
is chairperson of the Orfalea Fund Board,
as well as co-founder, and board chairperson
of the Orfalea Family Foundation. Natalie is
involved in all levels of educational initiatives,
especially those promoting individualized
learning for school-age children and experiential
educational programs for teens. Natalie
formerly served on the UCSB Chancellor’s
Council, Direct Relief International, as well as
on the board of the national learning organization
All Kinds of Minds. She currently
serves on the boards of the Montana
Yellowstone Expeditions Foundation, the
Advisory Board for the Santa Barbara Bowl
Foundation, and the Santa Barbara Children’s
Discovery Museum. She and the Orfalea
Fund received the 2008 HOPE Award from
the Santa Barbara Education Foundation
for their contributions to public education,
as well as the Abercrombie Community
Excellence Award from the United Way of
Santa Barbara County. Natalie is tireless in
her efforts to provide opportunities for youth
to have successful futures.
In 2000 and 2003, Natalie and Paul
established the Orfalea Family Foundation
and the Orfalea Fund now known collectively
as the Orfalea Foundations. The Orfalea Family
Foundation reflects the family’s personal
choices, supporting quality preventative
and experiential community programs
that directly impact children, youth and
underprivileged families in Santa Barbara,
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172

✧
Left: Natalie Orfalea at an early care center
in 2009.
Below: SBMNH Quasars volunteers with
“Supersize Me” Morgan Spurlock for s’Cool
Food Initiative in 2008.
Ventura and San Luis Obispo Counties. The
Orfalea Foundations’ mission is to support
collaborative initiatives and entrepreneurial
partnerships that promote educational
development and sustainable solutions. The
Orfalea Fund is a supporting organization of
the Santa Barbara Foundation which focuses
its charitable giving mainly in Santa Barbara
County. grants are primarily related to the
theme of education with an emphasis on
early care (birth to five years), traditional
education (elementary through college), touth
development, and critical community needs.
As a significant component of their local
giving, the Orfalea Foundations regularly
encourage local nonprofit organizations to
collaborate and develop strategic partnerships.
The Foundations also facilitate proactive
initiatives to intensify the community impact
such as Aware & Prepare: A Community
Partnership to Strengthen Emergency &
Disaster Readiness in Santa Barbara County;
s’Cool Food: Creating a community of healthy
children across Santa Barbara County; the
Annual California Children’s Center Directors
Retreat; the Montana Yellowstone Expeditions
Life Skills Programming, and the Outdoor
Classroom Project, which provides for
physical activity, hands-on learning through
peer interaction and multifaceted approaches
to maximize learning success.
The Orfalea Family Foundation and
Orfalea Fund are located at 1283 Coast
Village Circle in Santa Barbara. For additional
information on the Foundations, please visit
www.OrfaleaFoundations.org.
S A N T A B A R B A R A ’ S F O U N D A T I O N S & C H A R I T I E S
1 7 3

LA CASA DE
MARIA RETREAT
CENTER
Located on twenty-six acres along the
banks of the San Ysidro Creek, nestled
between mountain and ocean is the sanctuary
known as La Casa de Maria. A nonprofit,
interfaith retreat and conference center of
Christian origin, founded and governed by
the Immaculate Heart Community, La Casa
has provided a place of peace, open to all,
since 1955. Its entrance at 800 El Bosque
Road in Montecito, is graced with a
magnificent eucalyptus tree, traditionally
called the “Tree of Faith.”
The land was originally a part of extensive
oak woodland tended by the Chumash to
produce their staple food, the acorn. In the
Franciscan era, tradition has it, the Padres
built a small way station for missionaries
traveling up and down the coast. During the
Spanish land grant era the land became a part
of the San Ysidro Ranch, a 260-acre property
that included a large citrus orchard. Two
historic structures from that era remain on the
property today: a cottage and a barn.
Richard Hogue of Montana purchased this
portion of the Ranch in 1886, later selling
it to E. J. Miley, a pioneer California oil
developer. Miley named his estate Rancho del
Bosque and hired architectural designer Mary
McLaughlin Craig to construct a Spanish
revival style home made entirely of stone
quarried from the creek. Craig and her
architect husband, James Osborne Craig,
played a significant role in the Spanish
Colonial revival in Santa Barbara. Before the
home could be completed, Miley was forced
to sell the estate because of the stock market
crash of 1929.
John de Blois Wack, who had come to
Montecito to raise horses, purchased the
estate in 1932 and completed it a year
later. Its vaulted ceilings, pegged oak floors,
nine distinctive fireplaces, unique beveled
bathroom tiles, inner courtyards, carved
doors, and wrought iron ornamentations,
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174

designed by Chester Carjola, make it a classic
of the period. Wack also built other structures
on the estate. A home constructed for his
mother is now Casa Teresita. A cottage built
for his piano accompanist is now the
Hermitage. The stables, also designed by
Craig, serve as Casa San Ysidro dormitory.
Many grand social events were held at the
estate during Wack’s ownership, including
a concert conducted by Leopold Stokowski.
In 1942 he put the property up for
sale. Eventually, Mother Eucharia, mother
superior of the Sisters of the Immaculate
Heart in Los Angeles, who was seeking a
novitiate site for young women entering the
order, purchased the property. On Easter
Monday, 1943, four Sisters moved in, along
with twelve aspiring novices.
In the early 1950s, the Sisters responded to
a call to expand their ministry and created a
retreat center for Roman Catholic married
couples, as there was not such an institution
west of the Mississippi. Gifts from Countess
Estelle Doheny and other Hollywood
celebrities helped fund the construction of La
Casa de Maria.
Since 1955 the purpose of La Casa has
expanded from being a spiritual center
devoted to a single religious tradition into an
interfaith center open to all faith traditions
and diverse spiritualities. La Casa de Maria
now serves twelve thousand persons each
year, offering retreats in an interfaith
environment that provides a nourishing and
healing place of peace where persons of all
faiths come for refreshment and renewal.
Today on these special grounds, two
complementary retreat ministries are offered.
At the Immaculate Heart Center for Spiritual
Renewal, in the original estate house,
individuals and couples come for private
unstructured retreats. There, in an atmosphere
of gentle quiet and gracious accommodations,
staff is available to support guests’ retreat
experience with contemplative prayer, dialogue,
and spiritual direction.
At the larger La Casa de Maria retreat and
conference complex groups and individuals
attending structured retreats and workshops
are served. All nonprofit organizations that
fulfill the mission and retreat environment
are welcome—congregations, educational,
spiritual, civic and service organizations and
personal growth programs. La Casa’s many
single-day and multi-day programs are offered
to the community to support its four
goal areas:
• To cultivate spiritual growth;
• To promote the common good of our
communities through art, education
and health and healing;
• To nurture a culture of peace and
social justice; and
• To work for the renewal of the earth.
The life affirming spirituality that is
promoted at La Casa is made visible in
its efforts to be a model “green” retreat
center. The original orchard is farmed
with organic methods and a multi-acre
area is dedicated to a market garden that
supplies produce for both dining rooms
at each area. Close by the entrance
stands the lovely Sadako Peace Garden,
one of the International Gardens for
Peace and an outdoor labyrinth. The
grounds offer sanctuary and healing to all
who come to enjoy them.
Members of the Immaculate Heart
Community and other staff care for the
buildings, grounds, and programming
and offer warm hospitality to all.
The Immaculate Heart Community welcomes
the opportunity to preserve and renew
this beloved Santa Barbara sanctuary and
invites you to come to this holy ground to find
nourishment reconnecting with soul and spirit.
For more information, please visit
www.lacasademaria.org on the Internet.
S A N T A B A R B A R A ’ S F O U N D A T I O N S & C H A R I T I E S
1 7 5

TRI-COUNTIES
REGIONAL
CENTER
✧
Above: Early TCRC stakeholders.
Below: Advocacy in Sacramento.
For more than forty years, Tri-Counties
Regional Center (TCRC) has provided services
and support to those with developmental
disabilities, maximizing opportunities and
choices for living, working, learning and
recreating in their communities.
TCRC was established during an era
when the social climate was fraught with
misinformation and misunderstandings
about people with developmental disabilities.
In California in 1965, for example,
13,500 persons with developmental
disabilities resided in four overcrowded
state hospitals with a maximum of fifty
square feet per individual. And, even with
those conditions, individuals were on waiting
lists of two to three years to be admitted.
The Lanterman Act, voted into law in 1968,
set the stage for development of the modern
service delivery system. From grassroots
beginnings of heartfelt advocacy through the
years of refinement of entitlements and service
delivery, a complex network developed with key
roles played by the State of California
Department of Developmental Services (DDS),
the Association of Regional Center Agencies
(ARCA), regional centers, service
providers and persons served and
their families.
TCRC has helped to shape the
service delivery system through
successful implementation of Statemandated
initiatives and by piloting
new programs. TCRC, along with
selected regional centers, has participated
in pilot projects from
supported living to satisfaction
surveys and self-determination.
Seeking positive and consistent
organizational change TCRC has
championed Person Centered
Thinking (PCT) to ensure that the
selection of services and supports is the choice
of the individual.
Services and supports provided by TCRC
cover the life span of individuals, from early
assessment and intervention for children, to the
residential, employment, medical and
recreational needs of youth, adults and seniors.
Service Coordinators play key roles on planning
teams in developing person centered
combinations of services and supports for
individuals. Resource developers contract with
service providers to meet the short and long
term needs of persons served. Quality assurance
specialists ensure that regulations are met by
residential providers. The Community
Placement Plan (CPP) is implemented by
moving persons from the Developmental
Centers to community housing.
TCRC’s governing board, Tri-Counties
Association for the Developmentally Disabled,
Inc. (TCADD), provides guidance, oversight,
and actively supports strategic initiatives. Also,
DDS, as the funding agent, requires a high level
of accountability to ensure entrusted public
funds are appropriately spent and managed. A
performance contract with DDS establishes
benchmarks aligned with industry standards
which are monitored for compliance. TCRC
sets strategic and operational goals aligned
with stakeholder input that result in exceeding
contract performance expectations annually.
TCRC staff coordinates services and supports
throughout San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and
Ventura Counties. Information and referral is
provided through three Family Resource
Centers located in each county. Services and
support were provided to over 10,000
individuals through six regional offices in the tricounty
area in 2009.
Today, Tri-Counties Regional Center helps
celebrate new and higher expectations for
quality of life for persons with developmental
disabilities through the efforts of progressively
minded leadership and dedicated stakeholders
and staff.
Tri-Counties Regional Center is located at
520 East Montecito Street in Santa Barbara
and on the Internet at www.tri-counties.org.
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176

Although Santa Barbara has become
best known for its beauty, geography and
architecture, it is also now recognized
worldwide as the home of an organization—
Direct Relief International—which has
improved the health of millions of people
around the world in the past sixty years.
Direct Relief was founded in Santa Barbara
after World War II. Founders William
Zimdin and Dennis Karczag—themselves
war refugees—provided food, clothing, and
medical aid with their own funds to people
living through the difficult period of postwar
recovery in Europe.
Shipments were initially organized in a
pantry in William Zimdin’s home, located
near the Montecito Country Club. From
there, Direct Relief moved to a Zimdinowned
building next to the Lobero Theater.
It is now headquartered in a 50,800-squarefoot
warehouse facility located near the
Santa Barbara Airport.
Direct Relief has become the largest
international nonprofit in California and
has been recognized by Forbes for the past
seven years as one of only two nonprofits
in the United States that have been 100
percent efficient in fundraising over that
period. Charity Navigator has given Direct
Relief it’s highest 4-star charity rating
each year for the past four years and
designated it one of the “10 Best Charities
Everyone’s Heard Of,” noting that it had
the lowest percentage of funds spent on
administrative and fundraising costs of ten
charities named.
According to Thomas Tighe, who has
served as Direct Relief’s President and
CEO since 2000, the same humanitarian
challenges seen in 1948 persist in 2009.
“Poverty and poor health still reinforce
each other, creating tremendous obstacles
for an estimated one billion people. Direct
Relief and its experienced staff work very
hard to help those people overcome
those obstacles.”
Despite changes in circumstances, scale,
and techniques of Direct Relief’s work,
its attention to the efficient use of resources
has remained constant. So, too, has the
approach of supporting local efforts, both
DIRECT RELIEF INTERNATIONAL
in the United States and abroad, in a respectful
manner without regard to race, ethnicity,
politics, religion, gender, or ability to pay.
In 2008, Direct Relief’s humanitarian
assistance provided more help to more
people in more places than at any time
in its history: 49.7 million courses of
treatment, worth $214 million (wholesale),
delivered to fifty-nine countries worldwide.
Since 2000, Direct Relief has delivered
more than $1 billion in privately funded
humanitarian medical aid to strengthen
health systems in the U.S. and abroad.
Direct Relief’s proud sixty-year history
is reflected in the generations of local
unpaid volunteers, whose generosity has
fueled the organization. Stanley Hatch,
2009 board chairman, looks forward to
a continuation of this long legacy of
humanitarianism. “Direct Relief will continue
to serve a growing world population
whose lives and health are threatened
by poverty, disease, or natural disaster,”
he says. “In areas where governments and
global markets are either unable or unwilling
to engage, these efforts are essential to
improve the health of people who are sick
or hurt.”
✧
Founded and headquartered in Santa
Barbara, Direct Relief International
provides humanitarian medical assistance to
healthcare providers in the U.S. and abroad,
like the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital
in Ethiopia.
PHOTO COURTESY OF SHALEECE HAAS.
S A N T A B A R B A R A ’ S F O U N D A T I O N S & C H A R I T I E S
1 7 7

UNITED BOYS &
GIRLS CLUBS OF
SANTA BARBARA
COUNTY
As early as 1935, community leaders in the
Santa Barbara area recognized that youth
needed a safe place to go after school, and
guidance from caring adults to develop skills,
set goals, and become successful. Those same
needs exist today and United Boys & Girls
Clubs remain “The Positive Place for Kids”—
and teens—serving five communities across
Santa Barbara County, and thousands of youth
five to eighteen years old.
In Santa Barbara County, United Boys &
Girls Clubs facilities are located in Carpinteria,
Goleta, Westside Santa Barbara, and Lompoc.
Children from diverse cultural backgrounds
grow up together. Clubhouses operate yearround;
through summer months and most
school holidays to accommodate working
parents’ schedules. Scholarships are available so
that no child is turned away for lack of funds.
UBGC also operates Camp Whittier, providing
summer camp sessions at this fifty-five acre
facility, hosting Boys & Girls Club members for
overnight camping in the Santa Ynez Valley.
Nationally, Boys & Girls Clubs of America
provides support, via implementation tools,
guidelines and philosophy to make local
Clubs strong. Boys & Girls Clubs of America
is the fastest growing youth-serving nonprofit
in the nation and has been ranked as the
number one nonprofit organization for youth
by the nonprofit foundation journal, Chronicle
of Philanthropy.
Locally, United Boys & Girls Clubs have
strong community support, with a base of
4,500 contributors and more than 3,500
volunteers. A consolidated Board of Directors
provides organizational governance. Many
UBGC alumni come back to volunteer, serve
on the Board of Directors, or help by
contributing funds or services.
Kids come to the Clubs voluntarily to play
with friends, participate in sports, and engage
in educational activities. The Club’s opendoor
policy allows for access to care as
needed. Boys and girls are referred to the
Clubs by schools, counselors, or other
agencies. When they become members, they
join a positive community with guidance from
caring adults, and gain tremendously from
a sense of belonging, usefulness, influence
and competence.
UBGC’s four Clubs are managed by trained
professionals and volunteers who deliver
programs according to BGCA guidelines. Club
members are given opportunities to enjoy a
wide range of youth programs, special events,
and activities. UBGC’s mission is “To enable
all young people, especially those who
need it the most, to reach their full potential
as productive, responsible, caring citizens.”
Programs are offered in: Character and
Leadership Development, Education and
Career Development, Health & Life Skills,
The Arts, and Sports, Fitness, and Recreation.
Clubhouses are specifically located in
underserved areas, offering disadvantaged
youth the benefit of our life-changing and
life-enhancing programs.
For additional information, please visit
www.unitedbg.org.
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
178

The Santa Barbara Foundation, established
in 1928, is one of the oldest and largest
community foundations in the nation. The
Foundation awards grants to nonprofit
organizations in the areas of education and
personal development, health and human
services, culture and recreation, and
community enhancement and environment.
The organization also supports area students
with loans and scholarships, and connects
people who care with causes that matter to
help donors achieve their charitable dreams.
The Santa Barbara Foundation was
established by Major Max Fleischmann, heir to
the Fleischmann Yeast Company, with
$250,000 worth of Standard Brands stock.
Fleischmann’s original intent was to provide
free band music to the people of Santa Barbara,
but as the Great Depression of the 1930s
deepened, he and his trustees widened the
scope of the Foundation. The Santa Barbara
Foundation quickly became the central
charitable organization in the community,
leading efforts to upgrade substandard
housing, create employment, fund hospitals,
and ensure the region’s water supply.
Fleischmann purchased the Hill-Carrillo
Adobe to save it from being relocated and
gave it to the Foundation, which continues to
use the 182-year-old building as its
headquarters. Built in 1826 by Daniel Hill for
his new bride, the Adobe is reputed to have
had one of the town’s first wooden floors, and
was the location of the
first Santa Barbara City
Council meeting.
The Foundation’s assets
have grown from
Fleischmann’s original gift
of $250,000 to $250
million. The staff has
grown from three in 1991
to twenty-one employees
today. The number of
nonprofits funded by
the Foundation has grown
to 500, and the number
of awards, loans and
scholarships has grown to
more than 1,200 students
each year.
The scope of the Foundation’s mission has
evolved through the years. In the 1930s, the
emphasis was on unemployment relief, child
hunger and substandard housing. In the
1940s the Foundation paid for a dredging
plant for the harbor, and contributed to the
welfare of local servicemen and their families.
During the 1950s, the Foundation funded
an expedition to Santa Rosa Island where
the remains of a thirteen-thousand-year-old
human were found, a discovery that ranks as
one of the most significant finds in U.S.
archeological history.
In recent decades, the Foundation has
invested in local hospitals, the arts, and
youth and has dealt with issues of poverty,
justice, and equal opportunity. The 1969
oil spill lead to the beginnings of an
environmental movement. In 2008
the Foundation awarded grants
totaling $26 million and funded
student aid of nearly $2.5 million.
The Foundation’s endowment
consists of gifts from hundreds of
local donors who recognize the
good work achieved by the
organization. They have confidence
that the Santa Barbara Foundation
is a wise steward of its assets.
Santa Barbara Foundation is
located at 15 East Carrillo Street in
Santa Barbara and on the Internet
at www.sbfoundation.org.
SANTA
BARBARA
FOUNDATION
✧
Above: Hill-Carrillo Adobe is headquarters
to the Santa Barbara Foundation. The
building was built in 1826.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY BY SALLY ROHRER.
Below: Santa Barbara Band.
S A N T A B A R B A R A ’ S F O U N D A T I O N S & C H A R I T I E S
1 7 9

H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
180

BUILDING A
GREATER SANTA BARBARA
S a n t a B a r b a r a ’ s r e a l e s t a t e d e v e l o p e r s ,
c o n s t r u c t i o n c o m p a n i e s , h e a v y
i n d u s t r i e s , a n d m a n u f a c t u r e r s p r o v i d e
t h e e c o n o m i c f o u n d a t i o n o f t h e c i t y
SPECIAL
THANKS TO
Melchiori Construction Company ..................................................1 8 2
M. Timm Development, Inc. .........................................................1 8 6
Frank Schipper Construction Co. ..................................................1 9 0
Allen Associates ........................................................................1 9 4
SIMA Corporation......................................................................1 9 6
Suzanne Elledge Planning & Permitting Services, Inc. .....................1 9 8
Campanelli Construction .............................................................1 9 9
Thompson Naylor Architects ........................................................2 0 0
Penfield & Smith Engineers, Inc. ..................................................2 0 1
Douglas Hardwood Floors, Inc. ....................................................2 0 2
Edwards-Pitman Architects ..........................................................2 0 3
Jack ‘N Toolbox, Inc. ..................................................................2 0 4
Thomas Bortolazzo
Construction, Inc.
✧
COLLECTION OF THE SANTA BARBARA HISTORICAL MUSEUM.
B U I L D I N G A G R E A T E R S A N T A B A R B A R A
1 8 1

MELCHIORI
CONSTRUCTION
COMPANY
✧
Ugo L. Melchiori in front of El Patio Gardens.
As a young boy in the small northern
Italian village of Crespano del Grappa, Ugo L.
Melchiori worked in the local cabinet shop.
He and his family immigrated to the United
States in 1958, at the age of seventeen,
and settled in Santa Barbara. Then began
his storied career in the construction field
which has encompassed over fifty years
in the business and includes countless
contributions to the Santa Barbara region’s
building and development.
Melchiori began his career with D’Alfonso
& Son, a well known Santa Barbara
commercial and residential builder, first as
a laborer and carpentry apprentice. Then,
because of his hard work and knowledge,
he was elevated to journeyman carpenter
and superintendent for the company at the
early age of twenty-five. By 1970, Melchiori
had become known as a special class of
workman, tradesman, and superintendent,
responsible for and assisting in the
completion of many local residential,
commercial, and institutional projects in
Santa Barbara.
In 1972, Ugo L. Melchiori, or “Ugo” as he
was affectionately known both personally and
professionally, founded a local construction
firm, G&M Builders. Over the next twenty
years, the firm became a predominant force
in the community building business. Working
with a wide range of clients in various types
of projects, and developed a reputation for
superior service, quality workmanship and
personal dedication to completing successful
projects for its clients and the employment of
many talented personnel.
The fifteen-year span of the company’s
history included the completion of well
over one hundred residential projects and
hundreds of commercial and remodeling
projects. The company’s clients included wellknown
Santa Barbara companies like Sansum
Research Foundation, St. Francis Hospital,
Borgatello Families, Craviotto Families,
Pueblo Radiology Corporation, University of
California at Santa Barbara, the County and
City of Santa Barbara, and many others.
By 1988, Ugo had formed the corporation
known today as Melchiori Construction
Company. Along with other corporate
shareholders, including Steven D. Pivato
and Oliviero F. Ziliotto, who both trained
with and worked as foremen under Ugo
for many years, Melchiori Construction
Company began operation with the goal of
providing quality craftsmanship and service
to their clients and building on its reputation
as a successful builder in the community.
As President of Melchiori Construction
Company, Ugo spent many hours in the
field and in the office, assuring clients that
they had the best service and his personal
dedication. In turn, these clients, many of
whom dated back to the 1970s, continued
to seek out the company for their building
projects. Two of Ugo’s proudest business
accomplishments were the distinction
of always maintaining a client for life,
and the development of his son, Mark J.
Melchiori, in the construction business.
After many years of helping his father
in the field as a laborer and carpentry
apprentice, Mark continued his education
at Santa Barbara City College, then
went on to a University to study Business
Management and Marketing. Upon graduation
from California Lutheran University in 1991,
Mark returned to Santa Barbara to assist the
corporation in its development and growth.
Early in the corporation’s history, Melchiori
Construction Company continued to build
residential projects and custom homes for
clients. During the first several years, the firm
was responsible for the completion of nearly
twenty-five single family homes and remodels in
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
182

the area and was instrumental in the rebuilding
effort following the Painted Cave Fire, which
destroyed more than three hundred homes in
the Santa Barbara and Goleta areas.
In the mid-1990s, not long after Mark
joined the company, his father commented
over dinner one night at the Four Seasons
Biltmore Hotel, “It would be nice to do a
building like this.” Mark promptly replied,
“We can do it.” From that one spark, a new
strategic focus for the business was born.
Melchiori Construction Company embarked
on an aggressive plan to focus on developing
the corporation into a leading builder of highend
commercial and institutional projects that
could be serviced by a locally based company
regardless of size. At the time, Santa Barbara
had many talented builders but one thing
was missing; a company that could provide a
full-service organization for Santa Barbara’s
growth in the retail, hospitality, institutional
and other high profile developments. Tired
of seeing numerous projects go to out-of-town
contractors, Melchiori Construction Company
was determined to gain the skill, depth and
management team needed to service the
upcoming projects and their clients.
In 1995, after a few years of growth and
development, Melchiori Construction Company
added key personnel from larger nationwide
contractors to bolster its core business staff
of craftsman and trade personnel. With
the negotiation of its first project valued at
over $5 million, Melchiori Construction
Company began the organizational push. The
construction of El Patio Gardens and the
multi-unit housing project was the first of
many for the company.
In 1996, Mark was named president of the
organization and a new era of growth and
prosperity began. Part of the overall plan was to
service all the past and potential clients in a new
way, and to engage in projects very early in the
development process by providing service and
value far and beyond what a traditional builder
would normally supply. Melchiori Construction
Company was instrumental in the development
of construction management services for the
Santa Barbara area. This unique blend of
personal service, preconstruction management
service and building construction service was
attractive to many developers and clients who
were looking for more.
Under Mark’s leadership through the balance
of the 1990s, Melchiori Construction Company
steadily became the go-to contractor for
challenging high-end construction projects. The
company provided intense preconstruction
planning, estimating, and scheduling services
during the entitlement and architectural phase,
as well as full-service construction services for
the building of the project during and through
the construction phase. From 1996 to 1999,
the corporation landed and completed many
projects for such notable organizations as:
✧
Above: Garden Court on De La Vina,
completed in April 1999.
Bottom, left: Mark and Ugo Melchiori,
c. 2008.
Bottom, right: Santa Barbara Bank and
Trust Administration Building, completed in
May 2001.
B U I L D I N G A G R E A T E R S A N T A B A R B A R A
1 8 3

✧
Top: QAD, Inc. Ortega Hill Campus,
completed in March 2004.
Middle: The Braille Institute, completed in
December 2003.
Bottom: Chapala One, completed in
June 2008.
Dupont, Santa Barbara Bank & Trust, Devereux
of California, Cancer Center of Santa Barbara,
Crane School, Bishop Diego High School, Braille
Institute of America, Paseo Nuevo Malls, Double
Tree Resorts, and Prudential Securities. During
this period, Melchiori Construction Company
received numerous awards for its accomplishments.
The company was named Builder of the
Year twice, and was recognized by the American
Institute of Architects for many of its projects.
As the company celebrated its tenth
anniversary in 2000, Melchiori Construction
Company had grown to become a highly
respected force in the local construction
business. With the emphasis on major projects,
the company commenced the new millennium
with a host of opportunities and the fulfillment
of the dream of some ten years earlier. As new
and old clients alike saw the types of projects
produced and delivered successfully by the
company, many larger and more difficult
projects came the company’s way.
Some notable works for the company in the
early 2000s included the national corporate
headquarters for Fidelity National Title built for
Somera Capital Management, Pacific Capital
Bancorps’ Operations Center, the state-of-the-art
Santa Barbara Out-Patient Surgical Center,
various projects at Westmont College, Dupont
Displays Uniax Laboratories’ Goleta Facility, the
national corporate headquarters for Pacific
Capital Bancorp, Giati Furniture Design and
Fabrication Center for designer Mark Singer,
the Metropolitan District of Santa Barbara
Operations Center, the Botanical Garden
Foundation, and Garden Court at De La
Vina. Melchiori Construction Company was
presented the prestigious Golden Nugget Award
in 2000 for its contribution to the development
of the Garden Court at De La Vina Project.
In late 2001 and early 2002, Melchiori
Construction Company was approached by the
new owner of the Four Season Biltmore Hotel
property with an ambitious plan to renovate
the hotel and grounds. Melchiori Construction
Company was selected to lead the effort on
this multimillion-dollar plan. The company
completed the renovation of the pool and
grounds surrounding a boutique-designed
Health and Fitness Center. What would have
seemed only a dream ten years earlier now
represented a major accomplishment for
Melchiori Construction Company.
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
184

From 2003 to 2008, Melchiori Construction
Company grew steadily and became the largest
commercial construction and construction
management firm in the Santa Barbara area.
The firm was widely regarded as the pinnacle
of the business. During this time, Melchiori
Construction Company completed many of
the landmark construction projects in the
County of Santa Barbara. These projects
included the QAD World Wide Headquarters
in Summerland, Braille Institute of America–
Santa Barbara Campus, Marymount Academy
Middle School, Ampersand Aviation Hangars,
Marborg Disposals C&D Recycling Facility,
Pueblo Radiology Facilities, Cottage Healthcare
Systems (Fletcher Building, Knapp Building,
and Child Care Center), Carrillo Hotel,
Castillo de las Fuentes for the Housing
Authority of Santa Barbara, renovation of the
historic San Ysidro Ranch Resort (Phase I, II
and III), and many others.
In March 2008, Melchiori Construction
Company completed the renovation of the
Historic Granada Theatre in Santa Barbara,
a crowning achievement for the corporation.
This $50-million project was painstakingly
completed on a rigorous schedule and to
demanding details. Later in 2008, the company
completed the $36-million landmark Chapala
One Project, a mixed-use project with fortythree
high end residential units and commercial
retail; and the $25-million Mercy Charities at
St. Vincent’s Garden Family Housing Project.
In October 2008, Westmont College, a long
standing repeat client, embarked on an
ambitious Phase I Master Plan development of
its campus with new facilities buildings and a
Chapel. Melchiori Construction Company plays
an integral part in the building of this $125
million project.
Melchiori Construction Company has
completed more than 1,700 assignments in the
past 20 years, including a wide range of
residential, commercial, hospitality, industrial,
medical, and institutional projects. In total, the
company has built nearly twenty-five hundred
units of housing and several million square feet
of building space for its clients.
As the business approaches its twentieth
anniversary, the corporation has assured its
positive impact on the community by
supporting many local organizations and local
nonprofits in an effort to give back to a
community that has given so much to
the organization. Some of the causes that
Melchiori Construction Company holds close
to its heart are St. Vincent’s, Braille Institute
of America, Santa Barbara Center for the
Performing Arts, American Heart Association,
Cancer Center, the Italian American
Organizations of Santa Barbara, Dyslexia
Foundation, Santa Barbara Sports and Athletic
Organizations, and all of the Arts of the
Central and South Coast of California.
For more information about Melchiori
Construction Company and its services, please
visit www.melchiori.com.
✧
Above: Carrillo Hotel, completed in
January 2005.
Below: The Granada Theatre, completed in
March 2008.
B U I L D I N G A G R E A T E R S A N T A B A R B A R A
1 8 5

M. TIMM
DEVELOPMENT,
INC.
✧
Hacienda Vieja community, estates
overlooking More Mesa.
M. Timm Development was founded in
1984, based on Mike Timm’s strong principles
of hard work and dedication. With a natural
knack for foreseeing development projects
to completion, he has built a company
surrounded by all-star professionals who
meet M. Timm’s high quality standards. Timm
has always been a strong business leader
instilling top notch building practices into
every endeavor.
M. Timm Development originated as a
family business. Early team players included
Mike Timm; son Scott; his daughters Trudi
Timm-Schuette; Traci Timm-Larson; son-inlaw
John Larson; nephew Bill Timm; and longtime
friend, Matthew Easter. Long hours and
dedication have built a company that now can
claim more than one hundred employees.
As a contributor to the local housing
market, M. Timm has completed several
single family communities and commercial
buildings within California.
M. Timm has also built many multifamily
apartment communities throughout the midwest.
The company remains involved with
the property management of the units in
its portfolio. Thus, the office is always busy
and profitable.
The first projects were completed in the
1980s and the company continues to grow.
The luxury homes currently being built on
the Santa Barbara Mesa will market toward
the upper housing market. And the firm’s
latest project in Carpinteria incorporates
several affordable housing units to meet the
community’s needs.
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
186

M. Timm Development designs and builds
apartments with an eye toward long-term
livability. All Timm apartment communities
are built with high quality, low maintenance
material that ensures they will remain
attractive and cost effective for many years. The
company believes that timely maintenance
oversight and responsible business practice will
allow every resident to feel a sense of home.
In addition, Timm’s development team
focuses on providing its residents with
spacious and functional apartments. Timm
apartment units are typically larger than its
competitors and offer such features as walk-in
closets and deck/patios. The communities
offer a variety of apartment sizes, and a number
of bedroom and bathroom combinations.
Residents enjoy many amenities that
vary by apartment community but include
clubhouses with exercise rooms, kitchens and
multi-purpose rooms, pools, playgrounds,
and picnic areas. Garages and storage facilities
are also offered at several complexes.
On-site property managers are located at
every apartment complex. Responsibly treating
each resident like a neighbor, there is a
definite sense of community. From the
regional manager to the in-office assistant,
every M. Timm employee is a team member.
At six of its apartment communities in
Nebraska and Colorado, Timm Development
offers turn-key Corporate Furnished Apartments,
a temporary solution for both
professional and personal needs. Timm’s
corporate apartment homes cost less than
even the best corporate hotel rates, and short
and long-term leases are available.
Timm’s Corporate Package is available
for one, two, and three-bedroom apartments
and include such features as contemporary
✧
Above: M. Timm has built numerous multifamily
residential communities from
California through the Mid-West.
Below: M. Timm Development’s Corporate
Office, Santa Barbara, California.
B U I L D I N G A G R E A T E R S A N T A B A R B A R A
1 8 7

❖
M. Timm Development provides
unparalleled attention to detail where every
nuance is attended to for customer
satisfaction. From internal colors to
external landscaping, the company builds
complete housing developments.
furnishings, house wares, linens, appliances,
electronics, extended basic cable, utilities,
and local phone service. Housekeeping
services, garages, and high-speed Internet are
also available.
Corporate clients enjoy the many perks in
each fully furnished unit. M. Timm employs a
professional interior designer that personally
travels to pick out the necessary items to
make each unit a place to call home.
Timm Development has earned a
reputation as a builder of high quality
residential communities and custom homes.
Many of Timm’s projects have been
recognized for their excellence in design and
construction and have earned numerous local
and statewide awards.
The company has built many housing
projects throughout the country. Projects range
from entry-level townhome communities in
California and Nebraska to an exclusive estate
community in the San Francisco area.
Since 1996, Timm Development has utilized
the same ‘panelization’ building process used
to construct its apartment communities in
the construction of its “for Sale” residential
communities. In effect, the wall sections
for the houses are built off-site, and then
transported to the building site for assembly.
This “panelization” operation greatly
reduces construction time, material waste,
and labor costs, while improving construction
quality. The company maintains that being
responsible in its building practices will
continue to help the community at large.
This unique approach to construction, first
adapted by M. Timm Development more
than ten years ago, has been both successful
and well received by the public. M. Timm
is committed to finding other new ways
to innovate the construction process in order
to improve construction efficiency and
product quality.
M. Timm Development is in the process of
building several homes in Carpinteria and
Santa Barbara and has recently completed a
small tract of high-end homes on More Mesa.
Future sites are now in the planning stages.
M. Timm Development has developed a
variety of commercial properties, including
office buildings, retail centers and miniwarehouses.
These commercial projects are
characterized by the same attention to detail
that M. Timm provides for single-family and
multifamily developments.
M. Timm is always on the lookout for five
to forty acre sites suitable for development
west of the Mississippi River. Never shying
away from a potential investment and
development opportunity, the company is
continually brainstorming possible business
ventures as the situation permits.
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
188

M. Timm Development’s corporate office
is located in downtown Santa Barbara,
California. The contact address is 233 East
Carrillo Street, Suite D, Santa Barbara,
California 93101. The office has occupied the
same M. Timm designed building since 1978.
The firm also maintains offices in Colorado
and Nebraska to be close to its many
apartment communities.
Mike is a strong believer in giving back to
the community and is a generous contributor
to local charities and community events. He
and his employees are regular contributors
and sponsors of United Way, CASA, KCET
television, Community Arts Music Association
(CAMA), the local YMCA, and many others.
After many years of appreciating the beautiful
Santa Barbara community, Timm’s philosophy
of philanthropy offers him a chance to respond
to the generous community around him.
The Mission Statement of M. Timm
Development clearly spells out the firm’s
goals and commitments: “In order to ensure
our company’s continued growth and
prosperity, we must provide our homebuyers
and tenants the best housing value possible.
By carefully managing all stages of the
development process and utilizing stateof-the-art
construction techniques we have
pioneered, Timm Development is well
positioned to meet our future goals.”
Future projects await this company of over
twenty-five years. With a loyal and supportive
staff, M. Timm Development will continue
to build and grow. As always, the goal is
providing piece of mind to tenants and clients
through responsible building.
Additional information is available at
www.MTIMM.com.
❖
Commercial office buildings and shopping
centers are among the company’s portfolio.
B U I L D I N G A G R E A T E R S A N T A B A R B A R A
1 8 9

FRANK SCHIPPER
CONSTRUCTION
CO.
❖
Above: Frank Schipper.
Below: Brooks Hall at the Riviera Campus.
Opposite, top: Hospice of Santa Barbara.
Opposite, bottom: The elephant exhibit at
the Santa Barbara Zoo.
With more than fifty years of construction
experience, Frank Schipper understands that
success comes from the respect and reputation
earned through integrity, innovation, good communication
skills, and quality of workmanship.
The goal of Frank Schipper Construction
Co. is to produce the highest quality product
at the greatest value for every construction
dollar spent. The firm’s expertise in building
new commercial, institutional, and industrial
buildings—as well as its twenty-five plus
years of experience in seismic work, fasttrack,
and tenant improvement projects—is
unmatched in the Tri-Country area.
“Skip” Schipper started his own construction
company in 1982 with a $10,000 tool
allowance and never looked back. “I did not
start my company to make money, although
the money has been a nice side product,” he
says. “I started the company to be in charge of
my own destiny and to create a company that
felt like a family, and I am successful beyond
my wildest dreams.”
Since starting his own business, Skip has
built both public and private projects in every
medium from concrete to steel to wood.
Among his well-known projects are Wells
Fargo Bank, Glen Annie Golf Club House,
El Montecito Presbyterian Church, SBJHS
Marjorie Luke Theatre, Santa Barbara Zoo,
Lobero Theatre, Hahn Hall at the Music
Academy of the West, and many others.
The team of construction professionals
at Frank Schipper Construction Co. is committed
to building relationships governed by
integrity in all its decisions and dealings;
innovation that adds value to the client,
project and company; and quality without
compromise as the basis for every decision
made and task performed.
Specific principles guide both the culture
and work performed by each employee of
Frank Schipper Construction.
The principles that guide the company culture
and make up its Mission Statement include:
• Teamwork: Each member of the team is
integral to the success we achieve as a company.
Everyone’s input is encouraged and
respected, and when decisions are reached
we work together to accomplish them.
• Innovation: Frank Schipper Construction
is a solution-oriented company. Each
project has its own unique set of circumstances.
Our goal is to understand and
meet the expectations of our clients.
• Employee Values: Knowledge is the key to
growth, both personal and professional.
We encourage all our team members to further
their education and improve their skill
levels, and to share with others any special
training or knowledge they may acquire.
• Working Environment: Harmony in the
workplace is achieved through mutual
respect of every employee, regardless of
stature within the firm. We ask that each
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
190

employee conduct themselves in an honest,
ethical and friendly manner; deal with
change in a positive way, and respect the
community we work and live in.
The principles that guide the work performed
by Schipper Construction Co. include:
• Quality: Good enough never is. We strive
to achieve the highest level of quality on
every project we undertake, and then work
to improve the quality for the next project.
• Credibility: The Frank Schipper Construction
Co. name has always been and will continue
to be synonymous with a total commitment
to completing the project at hand.
Problems are solved through innovation,
not inactivity.
• Integrity: We believe strongly in the core
values we have established as individuals
and as a company. We will not conduct
ourselves in an unethical manner. We will
remain above board and honest with our
clients, subcontractors, employees, and
our community.
B U I L D I N G A G R E A T E R S A N T A B A R B A R A
1 9 1

❖
Hahn Hall, Music Academy of the West.
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
192

• Professionalism: We deliver solutions. We
take a pro-active approach to our work,
analyzing costs, assembling the best team
of subcontractors for the project, and
completing the project as efficiently as
possible without compromising quality.
Maintaining a competitive edge allows us
to be compensated fairly for our efforts,
which in turn allows for the continued
growth of our company.
The company has won numerous awards,
including “Builder’s Awards” for New
Commercial/Industrial Construction and
Commercial/Industrial Remodel from the Santa
Barbara Contractors Association. Skip was chosen
Santa Barbara “Builder of the Year” in 1998
and is extremely proud of having received
the Santa Barbara Contractor’s Association
Member’s Choice Award in 2003 and 2004.
This award was based on nominations from
both subcontractors and suppliers in the
Tri-County area who chose Frank Schipper
Construction Co. as their favorite general
contractor with whom to work.
A leader in the construction industry, Skip
progressed through the ranks of the Associated
General Contractors of California and is the
2001 past-president of the organization.
Beyond work, Skip is committed to involvement
in the community and education. His
civic contributions include time and materials
for construction of the Vietnam Memorial
Walk in Elings Park, and Kid’s World playground
in Alameda Park.
Frank Schipper Construction Co. employs
fifty persons, fifteen of whom have been with
the company fifteen years or longer.
The company’s vice president and chief
operatiing officer is Paul Wieckowski, who
has developed a knack for communication,
motivation and problem-solving in his
more than thirty years in the construction
industry. Since becoming general manager,
Wieckowski and his team of supervisors have
won first place in the Associated General
Contractor’s statewide Safety Award of
Excellence competition.
The company’s vice president and
estimator is Arlan Schipper, Skip’s son,
who has been active in the construction
industry more than twenty years. Arlan
has been instrumental in implementation
of both a computer estimating and project
management system.
Skip started an employee stock ownership
plan about five years ago so that he can give
ownership of the firm to the employees who
helped build the company. “My employees
now own 42 percent of our company and I’d
like that to be 100 percent so I can watch the
company I have built from scratch continue to
go forward and flourish,” he says.
In short, Frank Schipper Construction Co.
is able to generate reliable, creative, and
innovative solutions to all construction
problems, while maintaining the highest
standards of quality workmanship. The firm
listens to your needs and is responsive. It
welcomes the opportunity to become part of
your construction team.
Frank Schipper Construction Co. is located
at 610 East Cota Street in Santa Barbara. For
additional information about the company,
please visit www.schipperconstruction.com.
❖
Frank Schipper Construction has completed
projects for a variety of clients in Santa
Barbara. Top row: (From left to right)
Behavioral Science Technology, Santa
Barbara Historical Museum, and
Carpinteria Girls, Inc. Bottom row: (From
left to right) El Montecito Presbyterian
Church, Moby Dick’s Restaurant, and Santa
Barbara Junior High Majorie Luke Theatre.
B U I L D I N G A G R E A T E R S A N T A B A R B A R A
1 9 3

ALLEN
ASSOCIATES
✧
This whole house remodel rejuvenated a 110
year old, historic home in Montecito. In the
living room, existing windows and French
doors were restored or replaced. New, wideplanked
oak floors were installed and hand
distressed, fitting the home's age and
original design.
Allen Associates specializes in custom
residential and commercial green construction
in Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties. The
company believes in building in harmony
with the environment to enhance the lives of
present and future generations.
Dennis Allen came to the construction
business in a round-about way. In the early
1970s, his friend George Daigneault, dean of
UCSB Extension, wanted to build a solar
home in Santa Barbara but could not find
a contractor interested in the project.
Undeterred, Daigneault found a local building
designer, Frank Robinson, who was willing to
work with him and Dennis on the design and
asked Dennis if he would like to build the
house. Dennis had no building experience at
the time, but found a friend who did have the
proper credentials and the two of them built
one of the first solar homes in the area.
The project also ignited Dennis Allen’s love
for building and he was soon hired to build
another solar home. Encouraged by this
reception, Dennis and a group of five other
Santa Barbarans started building homes in the
area, working directly for owner/builders.
Deciding he wanted to be in the construction
business for the long haul, Dennis proceeded
to obtain his contractors’ license in 1982.
In the early days, Dennis tried to apply the
Maybeck concept of having skilled artisans do
all parts of a project. He and his partners
followed this concept on the first few projects
but soon decided that having skilled
craftsmen dig trenches for footings was not
a good business model. But, even as their
own unique model evolved the notion of
quality and excellence remained a company
principle, as have equality and respect for all
who work in the company whether doing
highly skilled or relatively unskilled work.
After several years of operation, the
company became more formalized and
Dennis and his wife, Jenny Cushnie,
incorporated in 1985, while keeping the focus
on custom new and remodeled homes.
Because of their belief in the importance of
mastering all aspects of building, Dennis
and his longtime associate, Ian Cronshaw,
became journeymen in most of the building
trades, while Jenny ran the office. Over
time, other competent builders joined the
team, eventually becoming associates, and
participating in profit sharing. Allen
Associates began the process to become an
employee-owned ESOP company in 2006.
Dennis was active in the peace movement
during the late 1960s and early 1970s and
these experiences crystallized his idea that
future wars and global tensions would
revolve around scarce resources. He became
interested in energy-efficient building as a
way to reduce reliance on fossil fuels and
other finite resources. Because of his interest
in solar energy in the early 1970s, he sought
out opportunities to build using alternative
energy systems and built most of the solar
homes constructed in Santa Barbara in the
1970s and ’80s.
This interest in energy conservation
gradually broadened to include recycling
construction waste, building more durable
homes, conserving water, and creating
toxic-free, healthy indoor environments.
One early project was the Gildea Resource
Center, headquarters of the Community
Environmental Council. Because of its many
avant-garde energy and building features, it
received considerable national attention.
In 2002 the company opened Built-to-
Ship, a new division that was the brainchild of
Cronshaw. This division builds panelized
green homes that are resource efficient and
designed for fast assembly, originally in
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
194

Hawaii and now also on the mainland, to
surmount the problem of unreliable and
unskilled labor and short building seasons.
In 2003 the Building Care and Repair
Division was created to take care of small
home repair and construction projects, and
offer reliable handyman services.
Allen Associates moved from Dennis’ home
office in Mission Canyon to its current
location at 835 North Milpas Street in 2004.
A Ventura office was opened in 2001 and a
Santa Ynez Valley office opened in 2007. The
company also maintains an office on the
island of Kauai in Hawaii. The interiors of all
the offices have been remodeled to showcase
examples of green building products the
company uses on its client’s projects.
Allen Associates currently employ sixtyseven
people, including management, project
managers, office staff, and skilled carpenters
and laborers. Five members of the company
are currently LEED AP certified. Gross annual
revenues average about $20 million and the
customer base includes owners of middle to
high-end homes and businesses that want to
remodel or build a showroom or office. The
company’s strategic plan calls for steady
growth with a goal to become a $50 million
company within 8 to 10 years.
Allen Associates was honored as the
Builder of the Year by the Santa Barbara
Contractors Association in 2000, 2003 and
2004, and was selected as
one of the top eight
Innovative Builders in the
U.S. by Professional Remodeler
magazine. The firm has
received the Green Building
Award presented by the
Santa Barbara Contractors
Association each year since
the award’s creation in 1998,
and has won numerous
Chrysalis and other national
green awards in recognition
of their leadership in
sustainable building.
The firm is involved in
a number of community
activities, including Santa
Barbara Earth Day and
Habitat for Humanity. Dennis is chairman
of the Dean’s Council at UC Santa Barbara’s
Bren School of Environmental Science and
Management and serves on the Boards of
the Museum of Natural History and the
Community Environmental Council.
The vision of Allen Associates—in both
philosophy and practice—is to create
environmentally sensitive buildings that are
healthy for the individual and the community.
Visit www.dennisallenassociates.com for
additional information.
✧
Left: Set in an oak woodland along an
intermittent creek in Montecito, this new
home has strong connections between indoor
and outdoor spaces. Cathedral ceilings,
French doors and engineered hardwood
floors create a small but elegant space.
Hydronic radiant heat warms this cottage in
winter while French doors allow natural
breezes to cool it in summertime. Quality
craftsmanship is contained in every detail.
Below: This remodeling project transformed
an existing 980-square-foot. home on a
remote parcel in the Santa Ynez Wine
Country into a simple, yet elegant vacation
getaway. The original plans called for a
four-thousand-square-foot expansion of the
existing home. Working jointly with the
architect and client, Allen Associates was
able to bring the project in line with the
client's lifestyle and budget, reducing the
amount of building materials and grading
required while improving long-term
operation and maintenance costs.
B U I L D I N G A G R E A T E R S A N T A B A R B A R A
1 9 5

SIMA
CORPORATION
✧
San Marcos building was originally the site
of Santa Barbara’s first college.
SIMA Corporation (“SIMA”) based in Santa
Barbara, invests in commercial and multifamily
residential properties nationwide to
meet its goals of long-term appreciation and
dependable cash flow return.
Since its organization in 1984, SIMA has
recorded an enviable record of success
through investing in value-added real estate.
SIMA has steadily grown its portfolio of
holdings which currently exceeds $500
million worth of assets. Its holdings include
residential, commercial, hospitality, and
mixed-use properties in California, Oregon,
Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama and Florida.
The portfolio encompasses approximately 1.8
million square feet, approximately 2,000
apartment units and 126 hotel rooms.
In addition to its real estate holdings, SIMA
is actively involved in the Health Club
industry. Under the company of West Coast
Athletic Clubs Inc., it operates five marquee
full-service lifestyle clubs in Santa Barbara,
Goleta, Ojai, Oakland, and Avila Beach.
Historically, SIMA investments have
produced positive cash flow and financial gains
for its investor partners. As a result, the
company has earned the trust of its investors,
many of whom continually reinvest in SIMA
projects. As a full-service real estate firm, SIMA
provides comprehensive investment and
management services under one roof. From
identifying and analyzing the opportunity to
creating value through strategic property
management, financing, and/or redevelopment,
the team at SIMA handles it all in-house for
maximum profitability.
SIMA has been a powerful and positive
influence in the reshaping of Santa Barbara
and the other communities in which it owns
properties. If one would stroll up State Street
in Santa Barbara, from the beach and through
the downtown shopping corridor of Santa
Barbara, you would see the influence of SIMA
Corporation on every block, either through the
ownership of a building or the management of
a property. SIMA’s properties reflect a pride of
ownership quality that distinguishes them from
other properties, attracting the admiration and
patronage of both locals and tourists.
Starting at the Beach, SIMA has taken four
very dated hotels, and through a partnership,
redeveloped them into one boutique hotel that
services the harbor and beach area. Sundecks
and garden patios are featured at the hotel
with swimming pools and a fitness center
overlooking the ocean. The rooms have been
appointed with summery colors to instill the
warm, breezy feeling that can only come from
being at the shore.
The 500 block features a retail and office
building, built in 1927 and renovated in 1989,
1990, and 1998, that houses a variety of
restaurants from Something’s Fishy to the
Natural Café. The 18,000 square foot building,
with its unique color and style, brighten the
corner location and acts as a shining example
of restoration for the entire block.
The 600 block features a 1925 vintage
building managed and restored by SIMA. The
brick interiors and charm of the storefronts
create a half-block shopping experience that
is highlighted when State Street is closed for
the weekly Farmer’s Market.
The 700 block holds a unique set of
buildings built in 1926 and restored in 1992
and 1998 that feature prominent State Street
frontage for merchants and restaurateurs. The
second floor office spaces have large balconies
overlooking State Street, and once again the
buildings have been restored to complement
the historic Santa Barbara architectural style.
The 800 block is the home of the historic El
Paseo of Santa Barbara, built in the 1920s and
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
196

estored by SIMA with the guidance of the
Santa Barbara Trust for Historical Preservation.
The restoration was successfully accomplished
by maintaining the architectural integrity of
the beautiful building while enhancing its
beauty and charm. The El Paseo was the first
“shopping center” in California and now
features the historic El Paseo Restaurant with
its unique courtyard setting under a retractable
roof that opens the setting to the stars. The
small paseos wind their way through the
property to a peaceful courtyard featuring a
Spanish-style fountain, and through the Street
of Spain lined with colorful flags leading to
De La Guerra Plaza where many public events
are held. Adjacent to the historic Casa De La
Guerra, Santa Barbara’s oldest structure, the
El Paseo is a popular stop for tourists and
a peaceful respite for locals as well. SIMA’s
recent restoration of the Ranchero Room,
which was featured on the Summer Fall
2008 cover of Western Art & Architecture,
exemplifies SIMA’s long standing commitment
to preserving and enhancing the historic
charm of Santa Barbara.
The 900 block once again features a twostory
retail and office building set on a corner
that provides the State Street shopper with
more opportunities to enjoy the Santa Barbara
shopping experience. The property features
a diverse and interesting mix of fashionable
retailers and an iconic local restaurant. The
building has been restored and painted with
the signature colors of the Santa Barbara
Pueblo District. The offices on the second floor
provide space for small office users featuring
charming terraces and beautiful views of State
Street and the mountains.
The 1100 block features the renowned San
Marcos building which was built between
1912 and 1925 and was once the site of the
city’s first college. Originally a four-story
building, it was rebuilt to its present twostory
structure after the 1925 earthquake. In
2008, SIMA completed another trademark
restoration with the renovation of the San
Marcos building. The State Street storefronts,
interior courtyard and rear entryway were
completely rebuilt, significantly improving
the historic yet sophisticated look of the
property. The redesigned courtyard, which
now incorporates several covered patios,
improved landscaping, flagstone flooring, and
a new paseo entrance from Anapamu Street,
proved to be an immediate hit with the Santa
Barbara community.
And finally reaching the 1200 block of State
Street, SIMA owns Victoria Court, which
includes the historic and charming Hawley
Building, home to the SIMA corporate offices.
The Hawley Building, originally constructed in
the late 1800s, was restored in 2008 keeping the
original late-century door hardware, wood
moldings throughout, ceiling medallions, and
pocket doors. Behind the Hawley Building you
will find two lushly landscaped innercourtyards,
which include a tranquil, three-tier
fountain, inviting tables, and a dining terrace
framed with brilliant bougainvillaea, all part of
the Victoria Court experience.
SIMA’s longstanding “commitment by
example” to the restoration and beautification
of Santa Barbara and numerous other
communities, as well as its ability to perform
for its investors, has resulted in a winning
combination for the community and all those
dedicated to the preservation of our precious
historic legacy.
For more information about SIMA, please
visit www.sima.net.
✧
Historic El Paseo Restaurants & Shops. El
Paseo was the first “shopping center”
in California.
B U I L D I N G A G R E A T E R S A N T A B A R B A R A
1 9 7

SUZANNE
ELLEDGE
PLANNING &
PERMITTING
SERVICES, INC.
✧
Laurel Fisher Perez and Suzanne Elledge.
PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF CLINT WEISMAN STUDIO
(ABOVE) AND WM. B. DEWEY PHOTOGRAPHY (RIGHT).
“A History of Excellence That Matches the
Community We Serve.”
At SEPPS, we believe that when it comes to
providing planning and land use services for a
region as rich in history, natural beauty, and
cultural heritage as the South Coast, you need
more than skill, experience, and patience. You
need a creative, respectful approach to the
process that drives results for clients while
ensuring every project makes a positive
contribution to the community.
Since 1994, Suzanne Elledge Planning &
Permitting Services, Inc. (SEPPS), has been
providing high-quality professional planning,
land use consultation, and permit processing
services for a wide variety of private and
public sector clients.
With a deep and abiding respect for community
planning principles and sensitivity to
resource protection, SEPPS has successfully represented
and guided more than one thousand
local projects through the permit process. The
firm’s diverse project list includes a wide range
of large institutional and residential developments,
non-profit community endeavors, and
small-scale, family-focused projects.
Suzanne Elledge, founder and company
president, launched her firm after many
years working as a land use planner and
public agency coordinator for a local civil
engineering company.
In its early days, SEPPS operated from
a one-room office on the second floor of the
Fithian Building on Lower State Street. SEPPS’
first big contract came about eighteen months
after the firm was founded, when the Rancho
San Marcos Golf Course contracted with
Elledge to manage compliance with more than
two hundred County conditions of approval.
The initial contract grew into other project
responsibilities for the golf course and helped
establish SEPPS’ reputation for handling
complex projects efficiently and expediently.
In 1997, the company added administrative
staff and a new planner, Laurel Fisher Perez,
who became a co-owner and principal planner
in 2005. The company now employs a
dozen people who provide a full complement
of land use planning services, typically
representing more than one hundred projects
at any given time.
SEPPS has managed the approval process
for many residential projects, ranging
from small additions to large estates, as well
as a number of local landmark projects
including Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital,
the Music Academy of the West, Westmont
College, the Santa Barbara Historic Museum,
the Four Seasons Biltmore and Coral Casino,
San Ysidro Ranch, and Marymount School.
SEPPS specializes in representing projects
within all Santa Barbara County jurisdictions.
Great care is given to the selection of projects
undertaken and the company prides itself
in making a positive contribution to the
community’s built environment as it carries
out its work.
In leading the company’s approach to
projects, Suzanne and Laurel apply a creative
and respectful approach to the local public
review process. SEPPS’ talented staff has
earned a reputation for upholding the
community’s planning objectives while also
achieving its client’s goals. Many SEPPS
projects require significant community
interaction, including coordination of public
workshops and neighborhood meetings, a
process SEPPS embraces.
Both Elledge and Perez have resided in
Santa Barbara for more than twenty-five years,
having graduated from the University of
California at Santa Barbara. SEPPS is
deeply committed to the South Coast, the
high quality of life it offers, and to taking
a balanced, respectful approach to its planned
growth. Protecting Santa Barbara’s unique
environment requires thinking progressively
about its future. The SEPPS team looks
forward to this challenge as it continues its
active role in local land use matters.
Today, Suzanne Elledge Planning &
Permitting Services, Inc., operates from an
office at the corner of Santa Barbara and De la
Guerra Streets in Santa Barbara’s historic
downtown area. For more information, please
visit www.SEPPS.com.
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
198

Joe Campanelli taught Special-Education
wood shop to pay for his fine arts degree from
UCSB, and worked as a trade carpenter before
earning his Contractor’s License and founding
Campanelli Construction in 1974.
After ten years, Campanelli was joined by
his sister, Antoinette, who began as an office
assistant and moved on to office manager, controller,
and confidant to Joe for nineteen years.
Campanelli carved out a unique market
niche with negotiated contract work for commercial
and residential clients with ongoing
needs for in-house design-build consulting
and expertise in green buildings. Joe’s honesty
and skill at problem solving has paid off for
more than thirty years as he has helped clients
navigate and make sound decisions through
the construction process.
The mentorship Joe received by working
with prominent Santa Barbara organizations
and individuals allowed Campanelli
Construction to stand out in a competitive
industry by offering exceptional professional
services and quality work.
Joe went from a hands-on carpenter and
contractor to corporate president as the company
grew and developed the kind of staff that
could continue the company’s vision and
standards. Joe’s connections and community
involvement early on brought him such
prestigious projects as the Santa Barbara Zoo
entry buildings and exhibits, the historical
Moby Dick Restaurant on Stearns’ Wharf, a
collaboration with Jordano’s, Santa Barbara
Bank and Trust offices and branch renovations,
and the Natural History Museum.
In the mid-1970s, Campanelli joined the
Santa Barbara Contractor’s Association (SBCA)
where he served on the Board for many years
and was elected president for two terms. The
SBCA grew from only thirty-five members
when Campanelli first joined to more than 500
members in 2008. He is also a founder and
acting director of American Riviera Bank, a
Santa Barbara Community Bank.
Campanelli Construction not only grew
with the association but Joe made life-long
friends among his peers and the oldtimers who
guided him along the way.
He was instrumental in establishing the “SB
Built Green” program and nonprofit education
foundation. He also helped SBCA earn a respected
position as an industry leader and political
voice at the state, county, and city level. His
involvement in promoting career technical education
(CTE) as a way for young people to find
successful careers in the construction industry
led him to represent Santa Barbara on the board
of the California Coalition for Construction in
the Class Room at the state capital.
Joe believes a community is as good as what
you put into it and gave generously, sitting on
many Boards such as the Santa Barbara
Chamber Orchestra for thirty years, Santa
Barbara Museum Collectors Council, the historic
County Bowl Facility, Unico, and the
UCSB Economic Forecast.
Campanelli Construction’s growth and success
is based on ‘word of mouth’ advertising.
This allowed the company to stay away from a
generic retail model of service and evolve based
on a track record of personal, quality service
and commitment to client’s current and ongoing
needs and is reflected in the many custom
homes and remodels over the years.
The company has worked on the renovation
of a number of prominent buildings and homes
in Santa Barbara, including the Emmons Estate
in Montecito, the Suskie Building in historic
El Paseo, the Santa Barbara Child’s Estate Zoo,
the Granada Building, the Dreier Estate and
museum, and the American Riviera Bank.
Campanelli Construction received numerous
industry, civic, and environmental awards
over the years and its all-green prototype home
was a featured documentary in the Santa
Barbara International Film Festival. The film is
used to teach green building at Santa Barbara
City College. The Mediterranean-design corporate
office built in 2001 received the Governors
California Environmental Council’s “Flex Your
Power” award and the Green Building of the
Year Award, reflecting the firm’s commitment
to environmentally friendly construction.
CAMPANELLI
CONSTRUCTION
✧
Above: Emmons Estate, a restoration of an
original Carlton Winslow architect built for
C. K. Billings in the 1920s.
Below: Santa Barbara Zoo Entry styled
after a historic landmark.
B U I L D I N G A G R E A T E R S A N T A B A R B A R A
1 9 9

THOMPSON
NAYLOR
ARCHITECTS
✧
Below: Laguna Cottages for Seniors, Santa
Barbara, California.
Bottom: A residence in Montecito.
Right: William E. Simon Sacred Space,
Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital.
Thompson Naylor Architects began in
1985 with architect Dennis Thompson. A
belief born while studying at Princeton—that
architecture and how it is practiced has
a profound effect on communities—was
confirmed during his graduate level studies at
UC Berkeley. Susette Naylor, whose graduate
work at Berkeley was filtered through an
anthropological point of view, joined him
six months later in the firm’s office at
26 West Mission Street. The melding of their
philosophies resulted in the creation of a
socially and environmentally responsible
architecture practice.
In its early days, the firm designed a mixture
of non-profit multi-family
housing and residential
remodels. Clients included the
Santa Barbara Community
Housing Corporation, Homes
for People, and Peoples Self-
Help Housing. The firm
designed 10 projects with more
than 100 units of housing for
families, veterans, seniors
and artists. In 1991, on the
basis of this work, the firm
was nominated for a California
Council, A.I.A, “Community
Housing Assistance” award.
Thompson and Naylor kept
their office deliberately small,
but they were able to take on
larger projects. These include
religious and academic buildings
such as Hillel in Isla Vista,
the campuses of All-Saints-bythe-Sea
Episcopal Church and
St. Francis of Assisi Episcopal
Church, various projects at
La Casa de Maria, a new
building at Pacifica Graduate
Institute, the Chapel at Cottage
Hospital, and housing for
special populations such
as affordable apartments for
Laguna Cottages for Seniors.
The firm’s geographic focus
is primarily local, but their philosophy
prompted a response to
the Hurricane Katrina disaster
and they designed, pro bono, a model
residence in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, which
was built in 2005. The design of residences
for the victims of the Painted Cave and
Tea Fire also allowed the conscientious
application of their knowledge of site
planning and sustainable architecture.
Both principals have been engaged in their
community. Thompson has lectured and
taught extensively about architecture, in
particular “green” buildings. He was a board
member of the Community Environmental
Council and formerly the chair of the Santa
Barbara County Board of Architectural
Review. He was a founding member and
president of the Green Building Alliance and
The Sustainability Project, and has been a
member of the Architecture 2030 Coalition
and the Planning Task Force of the Eastside
Study Group. He also founded the Mesa
Village Planning team for revisioning his
own neighborhood.
Naylor, appointed to two terms on the
City Historic Landmarks Commission,
served as chair for part of that tenure. At the
county level, she was a member of the
Montecito Architectural Review Committee,
was appointed to the County Human Services
Commission, and served on the Oversight
Committee, Process Improvement Team for
Santa Barbara County Planning while also
participating in committees at the Santa Barbara
Foundation, the Board of Laguna Cottages for
Seniors and volunteering for endeavors by
Stanford University and Vassar College.
For additional information about Thompson
Naylor Architects, please visit the firm’s
website, www.thompsonnaylor.com.
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
200

Penfield & Smith, one of the most
respected engineering firms in the region,
traces its roots to 1924 and the engineering
and surveying practice of George A. Miller.
Wallace C. Penfield and Delbert D. Smith
bought the engineering business when Miller
was looking for a way to expand during
the rapid growth that followed World War II.
The company was formed as Penfield &
Smith, George A. Miller, Associate, Registered
Civil Engineers. The company was
incorporated as Penfield & Smith Engineer’s
Inc., in January 1960.
The problem of water supplies for the
Santa Barbara area was a vital interest for
Penfield and Smith and played a major part in
the formation of their partnership. For nearly
seventeen years, Penfield was on the staff
of the Santa Barbara Planning Commission
and eventually became Director of Planning,
Director of Public works and County Surveyor.
In the meantime, Smith was engineer and
superintendent of the City of Santa Barbara’s
Water Department for twenty years. Later, he
became Chief Engineer and General Manager
of the Montecito County Water District.
Knowing that the water supply for the
Santa Barbara area was often short, Penfield
and Smith worked together to help solve the
water supply shortage problem.
Penfield retired from the firm in 1972 and
died in 1975 at the age of seventy. Smith
retired in 1969 and died in 1970 at the age of
seventy-one.
The current president of Penfield & Smith
is Hady Izadpanah, P.E., a registered civil
engineer with more than twenty-six years
experience in commercial, institutional and
residential sectors of the industry. Recently
retired Danny Wynn was with the firm for
thirty-five years, ten of which he served as
president and CEO. Other members of the
current Board of Directors include Ronald
Sickafoose, Peter Nostrand, David Rundle,
Stephen Wang, Gino Filippin, and Tom Rowe.
When the partnership began in 1946, the
staff totaled seven persons. Today, the firm
employs about 125 persons and has expanded
to have offices in Santa Maria, Camarillo and
Lancaster, California.
In 2007 and 2008, Penfield & Smith was
recognized as one of the Top 500 design firms
in the country by McGraw-Hill Publishing,
and in 2008, the firm was recognized as one
of the fastest growing design companies in the
nation. A new record for gross revenue—
nearly $26 million—was set in 2007.
The firm has been involved in a number of
significant local projects including Fess
Parker’s Doubletree Resort, Rancho San
Marcos Golf Course, University of California,
Santa Barbara, West Campus of Santa Barbara
City College, Cottage Hospital, Santa Barbara
Municipal Airport, and many others.
One of the most important factors in the
firm’s longevity is the employee-owned
structure of the corporation. In 1960,
ownership was held by five individuals.
Today, ownership of the company has
expanded to sixty-seven active employees.
Penfield & Smith has a long history of
philanthropy in the Santa Barbara area,
including an annual scholarship presented to
a deserving student each year through the
Santa Barbara Scholarship Foundation.
For further information about Penfield &
Smith, visit www.penfieldsmith.com.
PENFIELD &
SMITH
ENGINEERS,
INC.
B U I L D I N G A G R E A T E R S A N T A B A R B A R A
2 0 1

DOUGLAS
HARDWOOD
FLOORS, INC.
✧
Above: Earl Douglas with his two sons,
Bruce and Mark in the 1980s.
Below: Mildred and Stephen A. “Ardy”
Douglas in the 1930s.
Family owned and operated for eighty
years, Douglas Hardwood Floors is the premier
hardwood floor installation and maintenance
company in the Santa Barbara area.
The business was established in 1928 by
Stephen A. “Ardy” Douglas as a way to
supplement the family income while running
his ranch. In those days, most farmers had
a second line of work while the crops
were growing.
No machines were used when Ardy began
his flooring business and most hardwood
floors were done by hand. They were hand
nailed, hand scraped, hand sanded, and
hand finished. Ardy introduced some of the
highest quality finishes and methods to give
his customers quality products and service.
Ardy’s wife, Mildred was active in the
business in the early days and, as their four
children grew, the three sons—Gene, Vern, and
Earl—not only helped on the ranch but also
worked in the hardwood floor business. Ardy
ran the business and kept all the important
information on the jobs in his wallet.
Family members recall that Ardy and
Mildred would drive east each year to
purchase wood from the lumber mills in
Illinois, Texas, and Arkansas. They would
purchase train car loads of flooring and have it
shipped back to the Goleta Train Depot. When
the wood arrived, their three boys would truck
the flooring back to the warehouse.
Ardy and Mildred handed down the
business to their son, Earl, and his wife, Mary.
They, in turn, handed on the business to their
sons, Mark and Bruce, who run the shop
today. Bruce’s son, Nathan, and Mark’s son,
Eric, also work for the family firm.
Douglas Hardwood Floors has worked on
approximately seventy-five percent of all the
hardwood flooring in Santa Barbara and
Montecito, including many churches, gyms,
and elaborate estates.
Among Douglas Hardwood’s more notable
public projects are the Historical Santa
Barbara Mission, the Historical Santa Barbara
County Courthouse, the Arlington Theatre,
the Santa Barbara Art Museum, the Miramar
Hotel and the Biltmore Four Seasons.
In addition, the company has provided
hardwood flooring for the Paseo Nuevo Mall,
many shops and restaurants on State Street
and in the downtown area, all Santa Barbara
high schools, and most of the United Boys
and Girls Clubs in the area.
Douglas Hardwood Floors has worked
from the same location—5020 Douglas
Lane—since its inception. The town ‘grew
around’ the location and the street is named
after the Douglas family.
The Douglas family and company
employees are active in a number of nonprofit
organizations, including the Goleta Boys &
Girls Club, San Marcos High School sports
activities, Family Services Agency of Santa
Barbara, Architectural Foundation of Santa
Barbara, Lutha Maria Riggs Scholarship Fund,
and the RiderDown Foundation.
Other organizations are the Better Business
Bureau of the Tri-Counties, the Santa Barbara
Contractors Association, Built Green Santa
Barbara, and the National Wood Flooring
Association (NWFA).
Douglas Hardwood Floors believes that
quality workmanship, coupled with the
finest products in the industry, has made its
operation the success it is today.
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
202

Over the last six decades, the architectural
firm of Edwards-Pitman has produced a
significant number of distinctive Santa Barbara
landmarks. The firm has been sought after by
some of the city’s most respected residents and
celebrities alike to capture their individual
architectural visions. Edwards-Pitman has an
extensive background in Santa Barbara’s
Mediterranean/Spanish Revival Style of architecture
and fully understands the complex city and
county policies which can be one of the most
arduous aspects of getting a job completed.
The founders of the firm, Peter Edwards
and John Pitman, were natives of Santa
Barbara and the fathers of both men were also
architects. Peter Edwards’ father, William
Albert Edwards, formed the firm of Edwards-
Plunkett with Joseph Plunkett in 1928. Their
work included the Arlington Theatre and
the Santa Barbara Airport Terminal, and
their residential work helped shape the
city’s Mediterranean architectural style. John
Pitman’s father, Richard Hickman Pitman, was
an associate of James Osborn Craig, architect
of the El Paseo and the Hoffman House.
Peter Edwards and John Pitman founded
Edwards-Pitman in 1957. At the time, it was
one of only a few architectural firms in Santa
Barbara but the small firm managed to acquire
major work throughout the city.
Peter Edwards had the distinction of
obtaining the first building permit issued by the
County of Santa Barbara in 1954. The permit
was for a 3,714-square-foot residence valued
at $31,500. Edward’s total fee was $68.
Richard Redmond joined the firm in 1979
and, by the mid 1990s, was heading nearly all
design coming through the firm. Redmond
became a partner in 1998. As the founders
retired, Richard has enjoyed the firm’s continued
success and contributes consistently to the
exquisite architectural landscape of the American
Riviera and beyond. Redmond is now the owner
and principal at Edwards-Pitman Architects.
From the beginning, Edwards-Pitman, has
concentrated on commercial design with
some of their most recognizable commercial
work including the well-known landmark,
Fess Parker’s Red Lion Inn on Cabrillo
Boulevard (now the Double Tree Resort), additions
to the distinguished Biltmore Hotel,
additions to the elegant Santa Barbara Museum
of Art and the Museum of Natural History,
Sea Center, as well as the remodel of the
celebrated Santa Barbara Historical Museum.
Other commercial work includes additions
to UCSB, all the Montecito Bank & Trust
buildings, Michael Towbes’ downtown offices,
and, recently, the Penfield & Smith building
on East Victoria.
Today, most of the firm’s commercial and
residential work is done in Santa Barbara and
Montecito, although it has taken on projects in
San Francisco, Ventura, Sun Valley, California;
Idaho; Maui, Hawaii; and Atlanta, Georgia.
Edwards-Pitman is located at 120 East de
la Guerra Street in the historic section of
downtown Santa Barbara. The firm is active in
the American Institute of Architects, Santa
Barbara Downtown Organization, and Santa
Barbara Sunrise Rotary Club and is a member
of the Better Business Bureau.
For more information about Edwards-
Pitman, visit www.EdwardsPitman.com.
EDWARDS-
PITMAN
ARCHITECTS
✧
Above: The rotunda of Fess Parker’s
Doubletree Resort.
Below: A market rate and affordable unit
condominium project called “Quinta
Isabella” at Hosmer Lane and San Ysidro
Road by Richard Redmond of Edwards-
Pitman Architects.
B U I L D I N G A G R E A T E R S A N T A B A R B A R A
2 0 3

JACK ‘N TOOL
BOX, INC.
Jack ‘N Tool Box, Inc., was founded by Jack
Byers in 1987 after he returned from a career
overseas where he managed large subsea
construction projects.
The company began by providing maintenance
and repair services and has grown
steadily over the years. Today, Jack ‘N Tool Box
provides services in all facets of residential and
commercial building construction, including
new construction, remodeling, design-build,
maintenance and repair, and kitchen and bath
design-build.
Residential services provided by the
company include new construction, remodeling
and additions, kitchen and bath remodeling,
deck construction and maintenance and repairs.
Commercial services include remodeling
and tenant improvements, new construction,
maintenance and repair, and weatherproofing
and roof coatings. In addition, Jack ‘N Tool Box
has several ongoing maintenance contracts to
provide maintenance and repairs to properties
from Westlake Village to San Luis Obispo.
Jack ‘N Tool Box has developed unique
scheduling and cost control procedures which
enable its skilled craftsmen to complete jobs
faster and more efficiently. For Jack ‘N Tool
Box, an important component in controlling
the project schedule and costs is to develop
and maintain a realistic project schedule.
The schedule identifies all tasks that directly
impact the completion date so that the project
can be sequenced in the most efficient way.
In addition, a properly constructed schedule
allows the contractor and owner to monitor
progress and identify conflicts and delays
before they impact the project.
Cost control for projects is accomplished
by setting an initial budget, tracking job
costs and forecasting final construction
costs on a regular basis. Cost control
programs are computer-based. Budgets are
finalized and negotiated with clients and then
used as the baseline for the contract and
tracking purposes.
Coastal Design Services, a division of Jack
‘N Tool Box, Inc., takes the uncertainty and
stress out of kitchen or bath remodels. As
active members of the National Kitchen and
Bath Association, the firm’s designers are upto-date
on the latest kitchen and bath
trends. They take the guesswork out
of the design process while integrating
the client’s ideas into a beautiful and
functional finished project.
Jack ‘N Tool Box is a licensed, fullservice
General Building Contractor
serving Santa Barbara and the Tri-
Counties. The firm currently employs
22 people, including a field staff of
16. Field personnel are comprised of
skilled craftsmen in a variety of
trades, including rough and finish
carpentry, tile, stone, drywall, and
painting. Most of the company’s key
employees have been with the company
for more than ten years.
The company’s professional memberships
include the Santa Barbara
Contractor’s Association, Association
of Construction Inspectors, National
Kitchen and Bath Association, Santa
Barbara Chamber of Commerce, and
Santa Barbara Better Business Bureau.
Additional information is available
at www.jackntoolbox.com.
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
204

SPONSORS
Allen Associates ..................................................................194
Antioch University Santa Barbara........................................148
Bankers Mortgage Realty Advisors of Santa Barbara, Inc......114
Bartlett, Pringle & Wolf, LLP ..............................................132
Blue Agave Restaurant.........................................................133
Cachuma Operation and Maintenance Board–
The Cachuma Project .....................................................154
Caldwell Pharmacy .............................................................101
Campanelli Construction ....................................................199
Cappello & Noël LLP..........................................................102
Chicken Little .....................................................................118
Churchill Jewelers...............................................................109
City of Santa Barbara Airport Department...........................138
Cottage Health System........................................................152
Devereux ............................................................................146
Direct Relief International ...................................................177
Divine Inspiration Gallery of Fine Art .................................161
Douglas Hardwood Floors, Inc. ..........................................202
Edwards-Pitman Architects .................................................203
El Montecito Presbyterian Church.......................................144
Frank Schipper Construction Co. .......................................190
Hatch & Parent...................................................................122
Holiday Inn Express/Virginia Hotel .....................................120
Ingalls Plumbing & Mechanical/
Ingalls Kitchen & Bath Works ........................................131
Jack ‘N Toolbox, Inc. ..........................................................204
Jordano’s.............................................................................135
La Casa de Maria Retreat Center .........................................174
Laguna Blanca School .........................................................159
Loreto Plaza........................................................................128
M. Timm Development, Inc. ...............................................186
Madame Rosinka ................................................................160
Melchiori Construction Company .......................................182
Mission Linen Supply .........................................................116
Neo-Chase Restaurant & Lounge ........................................130
Ogilvy-Hill Insurance..........................................................110
Orfalea Foundations ...........................................................172
Pacifica Graduate Institute ..................................................142
Penfield & Smith Engineers, Inc. ........................................201
Price, Postel & Parma, LLP .................................................134
Reetz, Fox & Bartlett, LLP ..................................................112
Santa Barbara Foundation...................................................179
Santa Barbara Historical Museum........................................158
Santa Barbara Iron & Metal Recyclers .................................126
Santa Barbara Pet Hospital ..................................................157
Santa Barbara Woman’s Club...............................................164
Santa Barbara Zoological Gardens .......................................150
SIMA Corporation ..............................................................196
Suzanne Elledge Planning & Permitting Services, Inc..........198
Thomas Bortolazzo Construction, Inc. ................................181
Thompson Naylor Architects ..............................................200
Michael Towbes/The Towbes Group/
Montecito Bank & Trust/The Towbes Foundation ...........106
Tri-Counties Regional Center ..............................................176
Tri-County Produce Company, Ltd......................................124
United Boys & Girls Clubs of Santa Barbara County ...........180
Unity Shoppe......................................................................170
Visiting Nurse & Hospice Care of Santa Barbara .................168
Wood Glen Hall..................................................................156
S P O N S O R S
2 0 5

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
N E A L
G R A F F Y
Neal Graffy is almost a Santa Barbara native, the result of a premature birth nine years too soon in Wichita, Kansas.
His love for Santa Barbara history began at age thirteen when he started gardening and doing odd jobs for Mrs. Leontine Phelan, a descendant
of the founder of the Santa Barbara Presidio. Her house, an adobe built from the presidio ruins, was a treasure trove of artifacts, memories and
the personal experiences of her family’s two hundred years of Santa Barbara living—and Neal absorbed it all.
He started giving slide shows on local history in 1989 expanding to nineteen different topics and giving well over 250 presentations. He is no
stranger to the printed page, having written for the Santa Barbara News-Press, Santa Barbara Independent, Santa Barbara Magazine, and the quarterly
publications of the Historical Museum, Trust for Historic Preservation, and the Genealogical Society.
In return, his expertise has been sought out by the media with countless appearances on local radio and TV. He has been featured in several
documentaries including the Emmy Award-winning Impressions in Time. He has appeared statewide on Huell Howser’s California Gold, KCET TV’s
Life and Times and nationally on This Old House.
Neal has served as a Board Member of the Historical Museum, a member (and chairman) of the Santa Barbara County Landmarks Commission,
president of the Santa Barbara Corral of Westerners and is a founding member of the local chapter of E Clampus Vitus.
In 2002, Santa Barbara Magazine pronounced him “One of 20 Santa Barbarans to Watch”. In 2003, Neal was a featured speaker for the opening
session of the California Preservation Conference, and he is currently at work on a half-hour TV program on Santa Barbara history—Keep your
eyes open!
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
206

ABOUT THE COVER
R I C H A R D
S C H L O S S
Richard Schloss was born in 1953 in Fort Worth, Texas, but has lived in Santa Barbara since he began painting in 1972. He completed
a master of fine arts in painting at UCSB in 1979 and a BA in Italian in 1981.
He initially explored many different styles and mediums but focused on painting outside in the landscape in 1976 which he continued
to do exclusively until the mid ’80s. Today he continues to paint en plein air on small paintings but does most of his work in the studio
on large paintings. He has painted mainly in the Santa Barbara area, showing his work at The Meredith Niles Gallery (1980-1983), The
Delphine Gallery (1984-1992) and The Easton Gallery (1994-present) and in Northern California showing at The William Sawyer Gallery
(1983-1993) and The North Point Gallery (1994-present). In 1980 he spent a year painting in Europe on an award scholarship and
in 1992 he was chosen to paint the diorama backgrounds for the Cartwright Interactions Hall at the Santa Barbara Museum of
Natural History.
A B O U T T H E C O V E R
2 0 7

For more information about the following publications or about publishing your own book, please call
Historical Publishing Network at 800-749-9790 or visit www.lammertinc.com.
Albemarle & Charlottesville:
An Illustrated History of the First 150 Years
Black Gold: The Story of Texas Oil & Gas
Garland: A Contemporary History
Historic Abilene: An Illustrated History
Historic Alamance County: An Illustrated History
Historic Albuquerque: An Illustrated History
Historic Amarillo: An Illustrated History
Historic Anchorage: An Illustrated History
Historic Austin: An Illustrated History
Historic Baldwin County: A Bicentennial History
Historic Baton Rouge: An Illustrated History
Historic Beaufort County: An Illustrated History
Historic Beaumont: An Illustrated History
Historic Bexar County: An Illustrated History
Historic Birmingham: An Illustrated History
Historic Brazoria County: An Illustrated History
Historic Charlotte:
An Illustrated History of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County
Historic Cheyenne: A History of the Magic City
Historic Clayton County: An Illustrated History
Historic Comal County: An Illustrated History
Historic Corpus Christi: An Illustrated History
Historic DeKalb County: An Illustrated History
Historic Denton County: An Illustrated History
Historic Edmond: An Illustrated History
Historic El Paso: An Illustrated History
Historic Erie County: An Illustrated History
Historic Fayette County: An Illustrated History
Historic Fairbanks: An Illustrated History
Historic Gainesville & Hall County: An Illustrated History
Historic Gregg County: An Illustrated History
Historic Hampton Roads: Where America Began
Historic Hancock County: An Illustrated History
Historic Henry County: An Illustrated History
Historic Hood County: An Illustrated History
Historic Houston: An Illustrated History
Historic Illinois: An Illustrated History
Historic Kern County:
An Illustrated History of Bakersfield and Kern County
Historic Lafayette:
An Illustrated History of Lafayette & Lafayette Parish
Historic Laredo:
An Illustrated History of Laredo & Webb County
Historic Lee County: The Story of Fort Myers & Lee County
Historic Louisiana: An Illustrated History
Historic Mansfield: A Bicentennial History
Historic Midland: An Illustrated History
Historic Montgomery County:
An Illustrated History of Montgomery County, Texas
Historic Ocala: The Story of Ocala & Marion County
Historic Oklahoma: An Illustrated History
Historic Oklahoma County: An Illustrated History
Historic Omaha:
An Illustrated History of Omaha and Douglas County
Historic Orange County: An Illustrated History
Historic Osceola County: An Illustrated History
Historic Ouachita Parish: An Illustrated History
Historic Paris and Lamar County: An Illustrated History
Historic Pasadena: An Illustrated History
Historic Passaic County: An Illustrated History
Historic Pennsylvania An Illustrated History
Historic Philadelphia: An Illustrated History
Historic Prescott:
An Illustrated History of Prescott & Yavapai County
Historic Richardson: An Illustrated History
Historic Rio Grande Valley: An Illustrated History
Historic Rogers County: An Illustrated History
Historic Scottsdale: A Life from the Land
Historic Shelby County: An Illustrated History
Historic Shreveport-Bossier:
An Illustrated History of Shreveport & Bossier City
Historic South Carolina: An Illustrated History
Historic Smith County: An Illustrated History
Historic Temple: An Illustrated History
Historic Texarkana: An Illustrated History
Historic Texas: An Illustrated History
Historic Victoria: An Illustrated History
Historic Tulsa: An Illustrated History
Historic Wake County: An Illustrated History
Historic Warren County: An Illustrated History
Historic Williamson County: An Illustrated History
Historic Wilmington & The Lower Cape Fear:
An Illustrated History
Historic York County: An Illustrated History
Iron, Wood & Water: An Illustrated History of Lake Oswego
Jefferson Parish: Rich Heritage, Promising Future
Miami’s Historic Neighborhoods: A History of Community
Old Orange County Courthouse: A Centennial History
Plano: An Illustrated Chronicle
The New Frontier:
A Contemporary History of Fort Worth & Tarrant County
The San Gabriel Valley: A 21st Century Portrait
The Spirit of Collin County
Valley Places, Valley Faces
Water, Rails & Oil: Historic Mid & South Jefferson County
H I S T O R I C S A N T A B A R B A R A
208

LEADERSHIP SPONSORS
ISBN 9781935377146
Santa Barbara
Women’s Club